Ex-sheriff in e-cig scheme to end sentence at halfway house

August 16, 2019 at 12:45 p.m. | Updated August 16, 2019 at 12:29 p.m.

by Associated Press

FILE - In this March 2, 2011, file photo, a clerk holds an electronic cigarette and the filter end that holds the liquid nicotine solution at an E-Smokes store in Aurora, Colo. Increasingly popular e-cigarettes and cigar varieties could be exempt from some government safety regulations if House Republicans have their way. It's a move that alarms Democrats and public health advocates who argue that it could lead to unsafe products. (AP Photo/Ed Andrieski, File)
FILE - In this March 2, 2011, file photo, a clerk holds an electronic cigarette and the filter end that holds the liquid nicotine solution at an E-Smokes store in Aurora, Colo. Increasingly popular e-cigarettes and cigar varieties could be exempt from some government safety regulations if House Republicans have their way. It's a move that alarms Democrats and public health advocates who argue that it could lead to unsafe products. (AP Photo/Ed Andrieski, File)

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) -- A former Tennessee sheriff convicted in an electronic cigarette scheme has been ordered to serve the remainder of his sentence at a halfway house.

News outlets report former Rutherford County Sheriff Robert Arnold was sentenced to 50 months in federal prison in May 2017. Arnold, his uncle and a former sheriff's administrator were convicted of charges related to illegally profiting off the sale of e-cigarettes to inmates at the jail through Arnold's business, JailCigs.

Arnold asked for a pardon from President Donald Trump last year, saying he was a political prisoner who never took tax dollars in operating JailCigs.

He has spent most of his sentence at a minimum-security federal prison camp on Maxwell Air Force Base in Montgomery, Alabama. Records show his sentence is set to end in April.

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