Ex-NYPD cop who brutalized Abner Louima released early

Former New York Police Department officer Justin Volpe, who was sentenced to 30 years in prison after pleading guilty to battery and sexual abuse of Abner Louima in 1997, was released early, the Federal Bureau of Prisons confirmed Tuesday. 

Volpe, now 51, was transferred from a federal prison in Sandstone, Minn., to a Residential Reentry Management program, or "community confinement,"  in New York, records show. 

"Community confinement means the inmate is in either home confinement or a … halfway house," a spokesman for the Federal Bureau of Prisons told the New York Post on Tuesday.

The disgraced former officer served 24 years of his 30-year sentence for the brutal attack on Louima, a Haitian immigrant.

Volpe said he thought Louima hit him when officers broke up a rowdy party in August 1997. Volpe arrested Louima and eventually admitted to sodomizing the handcuffed man with a broomstick inside of a police precinct. Volpe threatened to kill Louima if he spoke about the attack and then the officer bragged to his colleagues about the assault.

Volpe's release date on the Federal Bureau of Prison's website is Jan. 10, 2024, nearly one year before the previously listed earliest release date. 

The bureau said it could not comment on "reasons for transfer, or specific release plans" due to "privacy, safety, and security reasons."

Madeleine Hubbard is an international correspondent for Just the News. Follow her on Twitter or Instagram.