RUTLAND, VT - A Vermont inmate is taking state corrections officials to federal court, alleging they violated the Americans with Disabilities Act by claiming his diabetes prohibits him from taking part in a prison work camp that would allow him to get out of jail sooner.

Jon Honkala, 27, formerly of Wilmington, is an inmate at the Springfield jail serving a three-year prison sentence stemming from several burglary convictions.

In the lawsuit filed in federal court in Vermont earlier this month, Honkala claims that if the state Department of Corrections had allowed him to take part in the Caledonia Community Work Camp program, which permits inmates to earn accelerated good time credit, he would have been eligible for release as early as last Saturday, compared to having serve another year or more.

However, when state corrections officials learned he had diabetes, they prevented him from taking part in the work camp program, eliminating any hope of earning those good time credits, according to the lawsuit.

"According to a Department of Corrections memo dated April 16, 2006, (Honkala) was informed that he was not allowed to participate in the work camp program because he had 'to have medication for his diabetes,'" wrote attorney David Williams, who is representing Honkala.

Honkala suffers from Type I diabetes and receives insulin three times daily, the lawsuit stated.

As a result of having a physical impairment that "substantially limits a major life activity," Honkala is a "qualified individual" under ADA, Williams wrote.

The work camp is a program set aside for nonviolent offenders. Inmates at the facility work in crews on community projects and get one day subtracted from their sentence for every day they work, effectively cutting a sentence in half.

Corrections Commissioner Rob Hofmann could not be reached Monday for comment.

The state corrections department has yet to file a response to the lawsuit. An attorney with the state Attorney General's office said Monday her office has yet to receive a copy of the lawsuit and declined comment.

No hearing dates have been set in the case.

According to the lawsuit, Honkala entered into a plea deal in August 2004 to a number of charges in Brattleboro District Court. He pleaded guilty to six counts of burglary and three counts of possession of stolen property in connection with a break-in spree along with two other men in the Mount Snow area.

As part of the plea deal, Honkala was sentenced in January 2005 to three years in prison, with a recommendation that he serve his sentence at the Caledonia Community Work Camp.

"The work camp program allows inmates to earn good time credit on a day-for-day basis," Williams wrote in the lawsuit. "This means that an inmate who successfully participates in the program will have his term of imprisonment cut in half."

In the lawsuit, Honkala asks the judge to grant an injunction ordering the state Department of Corrections to give him the good time credits he would have earned had he been allowed to take part in the work camp program.

Williams said Monday his client is not seeking damages, just to be released.

"He is seeking good time he should have received had the (corrections) department complied with the ADA," Williams said. "Our rough calculations are that he would have been by the end of May had he been placed in the camp and received the good time credits."