PINE CITY, N.Y. – Infamous child killer Joel Steinberg (search) was released from prison Wednesday after nearly 17 years behind bars for the 1987 beating death of his 6-year-old adopted daughter.
The former lawyer, now 63, served two-thirds of the maximum 25-year manslaughter sentence. He has continued to deny responsibility for the girl's death.
Steinberg left the upstate prison with $104 in earnings from his inmate account and was picked up in a limousine by defense attorney Darnay Hoffmann (search).
Lisa Steinberg died in November 1987, three days after a vicious beating in the Greenwich Village apartment where she lived with Steinberg and his former lover, Hedda Nussbaum (search).
Nussbaum called police after finding the 6-year-old naked, bruised and not breathing. Nussbaum, initially a co-defendant, herself had a split lip, broken ribs, a broken nose and a fractured jaw she said were inflicted by Steinberg.
According to Nussbaum's testimony, Steinberg struck Lisa for staring at him, then ignored her injuries and smoked cocaine.
Nussbaum, 59, who said she would flee New York rather than face Steinberg again, quit her job Friday at My Sister's Place (search), a domestic violence center in White Plains, Executive Director Julie Domonkos said Wednesday.
Hoffmann has said he offered Steinberg a free apartment and a $250-a-week job with a local cable television show. Steinberg will have to make regular visits to a parole officer through October 2012. Now disbarred, he worked in prison as a paralegal.
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