A federal judge has denied a former Arkansas state senator's request to be released from a federal prison in Oklahoma where he has served just more than one year of an 18-month prison term for fraud and money laundering.
Republican Jake Files of Fort Smith filed the request last Friday, one year after reporting to the prison in El Reno, Oklahoma, to serve his sentence .
U.S. District Judge P.K. Holmes in Fort Smith denied the motion Wednesday in a ruling first reported by the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Holmes wrote that Files failed to show he has "exhausted administrative remedies" with the Bureau of Prisons.
Files resigned from the state Senate Jan. 30, 2018, a day after pleading guilty to falsifying bids and pocketing thousands of dollars in state funds intended for construction of a sports complex.