Nick Bovis, one of the first people involved in the San Francisco City Hall bribery scandal to be arrested alongside Mohammed Nuru as the scandal unfolded five years ago, is getting out of prison a couple months early.

As the Chronicle is reporting, US District Judge William H. Orrick issued a ruling Thursday, granting a request to allow former SF restaurateur Nick Bovis, 61, to leave federal prison and finish his nine-month sentence in home confinement. The reason, Orrick said, was that Bovis has long-term issues with his blood pressure, and the prison was failing to provide adequate medical care to address these issues.

"I am not happy to grant this request,” Orrick wrote in his ruling. "Bovis’ underlying criminal conduct was motivated by avarice and arrogance and his public corruption injured the public in a significant way." But, Orrick said, Bovis's treatment by the Bureau of Prisons at FCI Florence in Florence, Colorado has been "incomprehensible and very far below the standards that I expect for anyone held in custody."

Bovis's attorneys made the request for early release in mid-February, after the prison "arbitrarily reduced" the dosage of one of his blood pressure medications, and gave him a different medication that led to severe symptoms, including dizziness and at least one, or possibly two, transient ischemic attacks, commonly referred to as ministrokes.

A prison nurse had recently recommended that Bovis see a neurologist, and the nearest hospital to the prison does not have one.

The attorneys argued that the prison medical team's treatment had become "life-threatening" for Bovis, and Judge Orrick agreed.

Bovis was sentenced last March after pleading guilty in 2020 to his involvement in bribery schemes involving Mohammed Nuru and an unnamed airport commissioner — Bovis had been seeking a spot at SFO for his Spinnerie rotisserie chicken concept. Bovis also previously owned the Gold Dust Lounge and Lefty O'Doul's, both of which were Union Square staples for many years before closing in the last decade.

Both establishments relocated to Fisherman's Wharf due to landlord disputes, and both closed around the time that news of the scandal broke in January 2020.

Federal authorities further discovered that Bovis had filed fraudulent insurance claims for $85,000 in payroll expenses following a fire at his restaurant Broadway Grill, and he pleaded guilty to that as well.

Bovis was set to remain in prison until May 24, and he was granted immediate release to return home to live with his wife for the remainder of his sentence.

The overall scandal ensnared the heads of a half dozen city departments, and implicated multiple staffers in the Department of Building Inspection for taking bribes.

The most severe sentence, seven years, was handed down to Nuru himself, who is not due out of prison until 2029.

Previously: Former Lefty O’Doul’s Owner Nick Bovis Sentenced to Nine Months in Prison Over Mohammed Nuru Case