Ex-D.C. teachers union chief no longer in federal custody

Former Washington Teachers' Union president Barbara Bullock, sentenced to prison in 2004 for masterminding the theft of nearly $5 million from D.C. educators, was released from federal custody Wednesday.

A spokesman for the Federal Bureau of Prisons said Bullock, 71, has been in a halfway house and under home confinement since her release from Alderson Federal Prison Camp in West Virginia in May.

She served about five years of a nine-year sentence.

Bullock will wear an electronic monitoring device and be placed under the supervision of parole officials.

Bullock and two other union officials, office manager Gwen Hemphill and treasurer James Baxter, used embezzled funds to pay for clothes, jewelry, furs, trips and season tickets to athletic events. In 2003, Bullock agreed to testify against Hemphill and Baxter. They were sentenced to 11 and 10 years, respectively, and Bullock's sentence was reduced in exchange for her cooperation.