BATON ROUGE (AP) — After more than eight years in federal prison following a corruption conviction, former Louisiana Gov. Edwin Edwards will be released to a halfway house sometime this month.

“My family is looking forward to the new year and our father being released from Oakdale federal prison in January, when he will go to a federal halfway house,” Anna Edwards, the former governor’s daughter, said in a statement Monday.

She didn’t offer details about a transfer date from the central Louisiana prison, where Edwards is serving a 10-year sentence.

“After his release, further information will be given to the press,” she wrote in an e-mail.

Edwards was convicted in a bribery and extortion scheme to rig the riverboat casino licensing process during his fourth and final term, which ended in 1996. He has maintained his innocence and blamed his conviction on former friends who he said turned against him and lied in their testimony.

Though he’s been out of office for 15 years, public interest has remained high in the much-maligned and also beloved Edwards, an 83-year-old Democrat whose terms as governor defined Louisiana politics — and attracted federal investigators — for decades.

The Federal Bureau of Prisons doesn’t provide details about when a prisoner is moved to a halfway house until after it has happened, according to a spokeswoman. The bureau’s website lists Edwards’ release from custody as July 6.

The former governor rarely shied away from talking to reporters when in office or even when on trial, but Anna Edwards said her father won’t be speaking to the media while in the halfway house. She cited Bureau of Prisons’ rules.

Edwards reported to prison in October 2002, nearly 50 years after he embarked on his political career.

He was Louisiana’s chief executive between 1972 and 1996 and built a reputation as a womanizer, gambler and deft politician, who had a way with a quip and for whom government sometimes became a sideshow to battles with federal prosecutors.

By his own count, Edwards was the subject of two dozen investigations. He was acquitted on racketeering charges in the 1980s and on fraud charges in October 2000.

The former governor first reported to a federal prison in Fort Worth, Texas, before being moved two years later to Oakdale. He’s been allowed to leave prison on several furloughs as he approached his release date.

Edwards’ son, Stephen, also was convicted in the corruption case and was released from a Texas prison in 2007.