Phillipos released from prison

Robel Phillipos, a Cambridge Rindge and Latin School alum who was convicted of lying to investigators in the Boston Marathon bombing case, has been released from federal prison.

Phillipos was the second of three college friends of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev convicted of lying to authorities regarding the 2013 bombing that killed three people and injured more than 260. He was sentenced in June 2015 to three years in prison.

The 24-year-old was released Feb. 26 from a residential re-entry management program in Philadelphia, according to the Associated Press. He will be on supervised release for the next three years.

Phillipos' attorney Susan Church, of Cambridge firm Demissie & Church, declined to comment.

Phillipos was charged in October 2014 with two counts of making false statements and had initially faced up to 16 years in federal prison — eight years for each charge. However he was ultimately sentenced to three.

Prosecutors had argued that Phillipos lied about being in Tsarnaev’s UMass-Dartmouth dorm room while two other friends, Dias Kadyrbayev and Azamat Tazhayakov, removed a backpack containing fireworks and other potential evidence three days after the bombing while an intense manhunt was under way for the suspected bombers.

Former Gov. Mike Dukakis, a longtime family friend of Phillipos, had testified on behalf of the young man during his trial in October 2014.

Dukakis' testimony supported the defense’s contention that Phillipos was a frightened and confused 19-year-old when he was questioned by the FBI and did not intentionally mislead investigators, according to a 2014 Associated Press article. The defense also says that Phillipos was so high on marijuana that he couldn't clearly remember what he did the night of April 18, 2013, when the two other men removed Tsarnaev's backpack.

Phillipos had graduated with Tsarnaev from CRLS in 2011 and their friendship continued when they both enrolled at UMass-Dartmouth.

The only child of an Ethiopian immigrant, Phillipos' mother raised him on her own, according to a friend who spoke to the Chronicle under the condition of anonymity in 2013. Phillipos' mother, a devout Protestant, worked directly with refugees and often involved herself in charitable work, the friend said.

A federal appeals court last year rejected Phillipos' bid to overturn his conviction, according to the Associated Press. He had argued statements he made to FBI investigators were coerced. The U.S. Supreme Court last month refused to take the case.

Some information for this article was obtained from previous articles published in the Cambridge Chronicle and Associated Press.