A federal judge refused Monday to allow former D.C. Council Chairman Kwame Brown to travel to North Carolina for a higher education program he championed while in office.

Brown, who is serving a sentence of 180 days of house arrest after pleading guilty to bank fraud last summer, had asked U.S. District Court Judge Richard Leon for permission to leave the D.C. area on Saturday “to continue the important work of taking these students from low-income families to North Carolina to talk to college recruiters.”