While the stamps-for-cash allegation received the most media coverage, those charges were dismissed on the recommendation of the prosecutor. In 1996, he pleaded guilty to reduced charges of mail fraud. He was fined and sentenced to 17 months in prison, of which he served 15 at the Oxford Federal Correctional Institution in Wisconsin, and the remaining two months at a halfway house in Chicago. Rostenkowski was pardoned in December 2000 by President Clinton, who said, "Rostenkowski had done a lot for his country and had more than paid for his mistakes."