(MCT) — CHICAGO—Former Illinois Gov. George Ryan was let out of a federal prison in Indiana in the dead of night Wednesday and checked briefly into a Chicago halfway house before he was released—in a surprise decision—to his residence to finish out his 61/2-year sentence on home confinement.

The quick turn of events allowed Ryan, who turns 79 next month, to elude a horde of media gathered at the prison in Terre Haute, Ind., and then slip from the halfway house on the Near West Side undetected several hours later.