HOUSTON (AP) – The wife of former Enron Corp. finance chief Andrew Fastow left a federal prison in Houston early Monday to serve the last month of her yearlong sentence for a tax crime in a halfway house, her lawyer said.

Lea Fastow, 43, exited a federal detention center flanked by her husband, a key figure in the Enron scandal; her sister; and her lawyers, Mike DeGeurin and Jennifer Ahlen.

She was released from the federal detention center at 4 a.m. to report to a halfway house a few blocks away in downtown Houston, DeGeurin said.

“It’s been a tough year, but it’s supposed to be a tough year,” she told the Houston Chronicle. “I am going home to my family soon. That’s exactly what I’m looking forward to.”

Tracy Billingsley, a spokeswoman for the Federal Bureau of Prisons, didn’t immediately return a call for comment.

Andrew Fastow pleaded guilty to conspiracy in the energy company’s collapse in exchange for a 10-year prison term that was to be served after his wife’s release.

He also has agreed to help the prosecution in pending cases against Enron founder Kenneth Lay and former CEO Jeffrey Skilling.

Mrs. Fastow pleaded guilty in May 2004 to helping her husband hide ill-gotten income from financial schemes that fueled Enron’s December 2001 crash.

An heiress to a Houston grocery and real-estate fortune, she had been an assistant treasurer at Enron but quit in 1997 to focus on motherhood. She and her husband of 20 years have two children.

In February, U.S. District Judge David Hittner denied a request from Mrs. Fastow’s attorney that she be released from prison before her sentence ended. Hittner had imposed the maximum prison term possible and refused to accept a plea deal that would have split her time between prison and home confinement.

She had initially pleaded guilty to one of six felonies stemming from the same crimes, which included endorsing and depositing checks made out to the couple’s two young sons. She later withdrew her felony plea when the judge balked, saying he reserved the final say over her sentence.

The judge also refused to recommend to the Federal Bureau of Prisons that she serve her sentence at a women’s minimum-security camp in Bryan, which has a walking track and other amenities lacking in the 11-story federal detention center in Houston.