The first person convicted in an American federal court of profiting from the illegal sale of human organs - an Israeli citizen - is out of prison.

His lawyer says Levy Izhak Rosenbaum was released from the federal correctional facility at Fort Dix in New Jersey and is back home in Brooklyn, New York.

Attorney Edward Shulman told NJ.com that federal immigration officials decided the 63-year-old's crimes were not deportable offenses.

The Israeli citizen, who had been living in the U.S. legally, was sentenced in 2012 to 2½ years in prison after he pleaded guilty to brokering three illegal kidney transplants for New Jersey-based customers in exchange for payments of $120,000 or more.

Rosenbaum was arrested in 2009 in a sweeping federal case that became the largest corruption sting in New Jersey history.