Nick Ut/AP PhotoLane Garrison may be celebrating May Day on the outside.
The former Prison Break actor is going to be released from prison after serving roughly half of his 40-month sentence for a 2006 DUI crash that left one of his teenage passengers dead and injured two others.
"We can confirm that he is going to be released to parole soon, but it is our policy not to disclose the inmate's scheduled release date for security and safety reasons, " Terry Thornton, spokeswoman for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, told E! News Thursday.
But the timeline does not mean Garrison is being released early, Thornton said. Rather, he is going to be let out before his sentence is up.
There's a difference, apparently.
"He was sentenced to three years and four months, but inmates, including Mr. Garrison, can earn credits that reduce the time that they spend in prison," she said. "He received half time—meaning that for every day that he participated in a rehabilitative program, he got a day off his sentence."
Garrison is currently behind bars among the general population at Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility in San Diego.
The 28-year-old Texas native was sentenced Oct. 31, 2007, to 40 months in state prison, minus 91 days for time spent in custody before sentencing, after pleading guilty to felony vehicular manslaughter and driving under the influence.
His lawyers had pushed for probation, but Garrison got a break just the same—he could have been put away for nearly seven years.
It was expected at the time that good behavior would have him out in 20 months or so. One of his attorneys told E! Wednesday that his client had settled the lawsuits filed against him by the families of his victims.
Thornton told E! that Garrison not only participated in a substance-abuse treatment program but has also served as a peer mentor to other inmates—a volunteer position allowed only to those who have no disciplinary infractions since being locked up.
While the Corrections Department wouldn't reveal his release date, In Touch Weekly reported that Garrison will be released April 29 (and that his ride home was arranged by fellow Texan Jessica Simpson, which a source has told E! News is entirely untrue; however, Jessica's father, Joe Simpson, has been in touch with Garrison).
—Additional reporting by Ken Baker