Former NFL QB Ryan Leaf released from Montana prison

GREAT FALLS, Mont. — Former first-round NFL pick Ryan Leaf was released from prison Wednesday and placed under the supervision of Great Falls Probation and Parole, a Montana state official said.

Judy Beck, a public information officer with the Montana Department of Corrections, said Leaf has already made his first appointment with a parole officer.

Beck also stated there is "nothing definite" set when it comes to Leaf's case in Texas. Parole analyst Timothy Allred previously told the Great Falls Tribune that if Texas authorities chose to bring Leaf back to Texas it could take up to six months for him to be transferred.

The Associated Press reported earlier that it's unlikely Leaf will have to serve any more time in prison in Texas. On Aug. 27, Texas state District Judge John B. Board sentenced Leaf to five years suspended in each of two drug cases stemming from his time in Texas, where he was quarterbacks coach at West Texas A&M.

Leaf, who was selected second overall by the San Diego Chargers in 1998, resigned from the Division II school after being accused of burglarizing a player's home in 2008. The investigation uncovered that Leaf had illegally obtained nearly 1,000 pain pills from area pharmacies, allegedly using incomplete medical histories to obtain prescriptions from different physicians.

In 2010, he agreed to plead guilty to seven counts of obtaining a controlled substance by fraud and one count of delivery of a simulated controlled substance.

The C.M. Russell High School standout who went on to play quarterback for the Chargers after graduating from Washington State pleaded guilty in May 2012 to drug and burglary-related charges in Cascade County. Leaf was arrested twice in one weekend for breaking into homes in Great Falls and stealing prescription drugs.

He was originally sentenced to the Nexus Treatment Center in Lewistown, but was sent to prison less than eight months later after he allegedly threatened a program staffer and violated conditions of his treatment plan.

In May, Leaf was granted parole in Montana pending a completion of an intensive chemical dependency treatment program, which he did in August, James Farren, district attorney in Randall County, Texas, said in an earlier report.

Leaf spent about half of his five-year sentence incarcerated in Montana.

Andrea Fisher-Nitschke writes for the Great Falls Tribune