IASI, Romania -- An American historian sentenced to seven years in prison for sexual perversion and sexual abuse of minors was released Tuesday after serving less than five years.

Kurt W. Treptow, of Miami Beach, Florida, left the prison in this northeastern city in his lawyer's car.

He was sentenced to the maximum of seven years in Dec. 2002 for offenses involving two girls, aged 10 and 13, who he invited into his home in Iasi. A Romanian woman convicted of being his accomplice is still in prison.

Treptow, who looked visibly emaciated as he left the prison, declined to comment.

The historian was released early because he wrote a book entitled "The life and Times of Vlad Dracul," while he was in prison, his lawyer Liviu Bran said. The book, penned from September 2003 until October 2006, was counted as community service, Bran told reporters.

Bran told the court during the trial his client had sex only with the 13-year-old girl and that he did not know she was a minor.

Treptow, who first studied in Romania as a Fulbright scholar during the communist regime toppled in 1989, has written and edited numerous books on Romanian history, including one about Romania's pro-Hitler World War II dictator, Marshal Ion Antonescu, and another on Vlad Tepes, the historical model for Dracula.

Treptow moved to Romania in the 1990s and was director of the Center for Romanian Studies in Iasi, which is housed in a building owned by the espionage service. The service has declined to say whether Treptow worked for them.