Nutmeg State native and former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort was granted released from prison Wednesday as part of a compassionate release program amid the COVID-19 pandemic, according to his attorney.

The 71-year-old Manafort left a low-security prison in Loretto, Pennsylvania, and headed to his home in northern Virginia after requesting that the Bureau of Prisons release him for the remainder of his sentence. The former New Britain resident became one of at least 2,471 of the nation's 169,000 federal inmates who have been released to home confinement since March in an effort to avoid coronavirus infection.

Manafort's wife and another family member picked him up at 6:30 a.m. on Wednesday. "He's going home," attorney Kevin Downing said. "He's doing OK. He didn't get the virus, so that's good."

Manafort was convicted of tax and bank fraud in August of 2018 and sentenced to a total of seven-and-a-half years in prison. His release came six days after Attorney General William Barr moved to dismiss the prosecution of President Donald Trump's former national security adviser, Michael Flynn, who pleaded guilty to lying to federal agents before withdrawing the plea. A federal judge in Washington said Tuesday he would accept friend-of-the-court briefs in response to the Justice Department's dismissal request.

Manafort reportedly takes 11 medications daily and suffers from high blood pressure, liver disease and respiratory ailments, according to an April 13 letter that Downing sent to the Bureau of Prisons director and the warden at FCI Loretto. Manafort was hospitalized for several days in December because of a heart condition and contracted bronchitis and influenza in February. He is at high risk for severe Covid-19 illness and was eligible for immediate transfer because he began a quarantine at the prison on March 30.

The highest-profile figure to have been charged and convicted as part of Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation of Russian attempts to interfere in the 2016 election, Manafort joined the Trump campaign in early 2016, after more than a decade of political consulting work for Ukrainian politicians who were aligned with the Kremlin. Manafort quit the campaign in August, 2016, after reports surfaced that he had accepted millions in cash payments from Ukrainian politicians.

Manafort had already drawn the interest of federal prosecutors in 2016, but after Mueller was appointed in 2017, he became one of the special counsel's prime targets. Prosecutors said he had hidden $55 million in offshore accounts and failed to pay $6 million in taxes. He avoided a second trial in Washington by pleading guilty to conspiracy counts involving witness tampering, money laundering and tax evasion.

Trump's former personal lawyer Michael Cohen continued this week to seek release from federal prison in Otisville, New York. Cohen, who pleaded guilty to campaign finance violations and obstructing a congressional investigation, was told he would be released last week but the release was still pending as of Wednesday afternoon.

Michael Avenatti, a lawyer who represented adult film actress Stormy Daniels in a lawsuit against Trump before being convicted of trying to extort millions of dollars from Nike Inc., was released from jail in Manhattan because of the pandemic. The 49-year-old lawyer, citing health problems of his own, is in home confinement in California awaiting two other criminal trials. The Justice Department is releasing certain inmates, including non-violent white-collar criminals, to slow the spread of the coronavirus. In an April 3 memo, Barr cited the pandemic and said a broader swath of inmates should be considered, urging prison officials to prioritize vulnerable inmates.