After testifying against them at trial and serving a federal prison sentence, he earned a college degree and held two city jobs, one working with children.

He may have to testify again in the pending death penalty phase of Russell Peeler Jr.'s case. Peeler has been convicted for his role in the 1999 homicides of an 8-year-old witness and his mother.

King, meanwhile, since Aug. 13, has been training with 17 other new Bridgeport firefighters at the Joseph Elias Fire Training Center in Fairfield, despite past opposition from the city's fire chief and personnel director to former felons being hired as firefighters.

Fire Chief Brian Rooney and Personnel Director Ralph Jacobs, however, now are looking past King's history.

"I will teach and train whoever the city gives us," Rooney said. He added he is too busy as chief to personally help train the rookies.

Jacobs said recently that his hands were tied.

"If he's on the list, I have to hire him. For me, it's a legal obligation," he said.

King could not be reached for comment, but Susan Wallace, the lawyer who successfully argued to keep his name on the list, was pleased.

"We've been waiting," she said. "Justice delayed but served. Sometimes it takes patience."

The events leading to King's hiring started when Jacobs, shortly after he was hired 2 years ago, scrapped a 69-year-old, unofficial civil service policy that discouraged people with felony convictions from applying.

A felony is a serious, but not necessarily violent, crime that carries at least a year in prison.

King's supporters have called his involvement with the Peeler gang a youthful indiscretion.

In addition to Jacobs and Rooney, the city's Board of Fire Commissioners also opposed hiring King and the other felons.

After the controversy, the commission toyed with different restrictions on allowing felons to be firefighters. But the panel stopped when the state Legislature tried — but ultimately failed — to enact such a policy.

Other communities don't have policies that ban the hiring of ex-felons, either, Jacobs said. But he would still like to craft a legally defensible city policy.

State law allows the hiring of former felons for public jobs on a case-by-case basis, accounting for the time since the offense and its severity. The exception is the prohibition on hiring a former felon as a police officer because state law bars them from carrying firearms.

King and the other firefighter rookies must now pass 13 weeks of training and a year of different assignments through the city's fire stations. The rookies are on probation until next Aug. 13.