Hi, I've actually done this reaction before. Unfortunately, I'm a couple hundred miles away from the lab I work in, and so I can't provide exact details.
However, I do know that while it can be long and use quite a bit of solvent, careful column chromatography instead of the the distillation under reduced pressure can yield pure para-nitro product. I want to say I started with 1:12 ethyl acetate/hexane mixture (but I'm not 100% on the mixture, it may have been 1:10), and just wash with that until all of the ortho product is gone, and then you are free to rinse with ethyl acetate and get pure para product. In the middle there will be some o/p mixture, but it should be minimal.
I'm not sure about the reduction, but I thought I would mention the other possibility...