Former state Sen. Dianne Wilkerson has been released from federal prison and is back in Boston, sources tell the Reporter. The 58-year-old Roxbury Democrat started a 42-month sentence in March 2011 and it was unclear on Tuesday night why she was out early.

Wilkerson pleaded guilty to public corruption charges in 2010. Her son Cornell Mills picked her up and brought her back to Boston roughly a week a half ago.

In 2008, she lost the Democratic primary in the Second Suffolk District to Jamaica Plain's Sonia Chang-Diaz. Wilkerson briefly mounted a sticker campaign, before she was arrested by federal agents. She ended the sticker campaign before the final election and resigned her state Senate seat, ending a 15-year hold on the office.