Will Teresa Giudice Be Released Early From Prison?

There's good news for those of you who have been wringing your hands and sobbing into your Kleenex at the thought of poor Teresa Giudice having to deal with being an inmate at Litchfield Correctional Facility. (Or, rather, the real-life Danbury prison upon which Orange Is the New Black's Litchfield was based.) I know I myself have been wondering what, exactly, the Real Housewives of New Jersey star was going to do in jail for 15 months, after being convicted of numerous tax and fraud charges alongside her husband, Joe. Over a year? Yeesh. However, according to PEOPLE magazine, Giudice has already secured an early release date for herself. The Bureau of Prisons website lists her release date as February 5, 2016.

Sure, that still works out to Giudice spending over a year of her life behind bars, but that's still a few months shaved off her sentence when she has only been in Danbury for three days so far. Perhaps it helped that the reality TV star showed up for her sentence hours early (although, OK, that was pre-arranged with the prison likely as an effort to avoid paparazzi shots). Still, three days is a long time to show off your best behavior, and an early release date was always a possibility for Giudice if she behaved herself. I mean, she's rich and famous. Everyone knows the length of your prison stay tends to decrease depending on how rich and famous you are, as long as you avoid the big crimes like murder.

This is also great news for Giudice because it means that she will be returning to her family sooner than expected. Giudice and her husband are serving their prison sentences separately and back-to-back, so that one of them is always at home to take care of their children. It was a bit of a surprise to me that Giudice would be the one to serve hers first, but I guess it's better to get it out of the way — especially if you can get out early like Giudice is going to. This is one of the first strokes of good fortune she has gotten since the trial began, and thus it's a cause for celebration. Unless, you know, you think that she should serve out her entire sentence so that the punishment matches the crime. In which case... this is not a cause for celebration, I guess?

Personally, I'm happy for Giudice. The sooner she gets out, the sooner she can get back to filming another season of the Real Housewives that will no doubt be filled with many prison-related burns during the fights that will inevitably break out between Giudice and the other Housewives. That, in and of itself, is worth an early release date. (Just kidding. Or am I?)

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