One of eight drunken driving offenders, returned to prison in February after a Reno Gazette-Journal investigation showed they failed to serve the mandatory two years, was paroled briefly Tuesday but reincarcerated after the Nevada attorney general ruled against giving the prisoners credit for time on house arrest.

Jennifer Hovey, 27, was told she must return to prison after Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto issued the long-awaited decision about house arrest.

For two weeks, the Gazette-Journal asked Masto numerous times whether the offenders would receive credit for their house arrest or must serve the full two years in prison.

After receiving calls and e-mails from the newspaper on Tuesday about Hovey’s release, Masto in an e-mail notified Howard Skolnik, director of the Nevada Department of Corrections, that the eight offenders must spend two years in prison.

Masto said they would get credit for the time they spent on house arrest, but it would count toward the end of their sentence. They first must serve two years behind bars, she said.

Hovey went on house arrest three months after starting her prison sentence in March 2008, for the death of her passenger in a 2007 crash on U.S. 395 near Red Rock. Under the law, Masto said she must serve 21 more months in prison before being eligible for parole.

Hovey’s lawyer, Scott Freeman, was incensed by the opinion and vowed to fight the order.

“It is patently unfair and unjust,” Freeman said. “The fact that the attorney general’s office is using Ms. Hovey as a political yo-yo doesn’t serve any purpose. It is destroying her family.”

“Since the prison allowed her to be on house arrest, she should be given credit for all the time she’s been under their supervision and supervision of parole and probation,” he said. “An independent parole board granted her parole. She should be allowed to serve it.”

On Feb. 14, the Gazette-Journal reported that a 2005 Nevada Supreme Court ruling said that drivers convicted of killing or severely injuring someone while drunk must spend at least two years in prison before being released on house arrest or parole.

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