Originally posted Wednesday, June 5, 2019 by RODNEY HO/rho@ajc.com on his AJC Radio & TV Talk blog
Apollo Nida, best known as the former husband of former "Real Housewives of Atlanta" castmate Phaedra Parks, was released over the weekend from prison after five years.
That was three years earlier than his original sentence for bank, mail wire fraud and identity theft. Federal authorities say he stole an estimated $2 million from about 50 individuals. Parks herself claimed innocence and was not charged.
Nida pled guilty in 2014 and accepted an eight-year sentence in July, which would have extended to 2022. At the time, his attorney Thomas Bever said he could get his sentence reduced at least a year for good behavior. In March, a judge did shorten his sentence for potential release in August, 2020. It was not stated why Nida got out of prison more than a year earlier than that.
"I want to apologize to the victims," Nida said at the time of the sentencing in 2014. "I want to apologize to my family for letting them down."
Nida was released from Fort Dix Correctional Facility in New Jersey, the same prison for a time as Joe Guidice, the husband of "The Real Housewives of New Jersey" star Teresa in prison for tax fraud.
The 40 year old is now in a Philadelphia halfway house, according to the Federal Bureau of Prisons. He is set to be released October 15.
Parks married Nida in 2009. He had previously been in prison for six years for a racketeering charge related to a car theft scheme. He resumed his white-collar criminal activities soon after he got out of prison. Parks knew him before his first imprisonment.
The couple has two children: sons Ayden, 9, and Dylan, 6.
She divorced Nida in 2016. He soon began dating his current fiancé Sherien Almuft.
Parks was let go from “The Real Housewives of Atlanta” in 2017 after seven seasons. She alienated too many of the other women by spreading unsubstantiated rumors and lies.
She has not commented publicly about Nida’s release from prison.
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