A federal court declared Georgia Thompson, a former administrator for Gov. Jim Doyle, innocent in Illinois Thursday after a federal grand jury indicted her in January 2006 for abusing her position in securing a contract with Adelman Travel Group.
Thompson was then convicted of two felony counts for steering a $750,000 federal contract to the travel group, who later donated $20,000 to Doyle's re-election campaign.
Thompson served 130 days of her 18-month prison sentence in Pekin Prison, a minimum-security facility near Peoria, Ill.
""Georgia Thompson is an innocent woman who was imprisoned for more than four months—just for doing her job,"" said Doyle in a statement. ""It is great for her that the Court of Appeals has taken this extraordinary action so that she does not spend one more night in prison.""
Doyle also added Thompson is ""entitled to get her job back, and to all her rights as a state civil servant.""
