A former Montreal police officer has been sentenced to one year of probation and 60 hours of community service for assaulting a man she was arresting.

Stefanie Trudeau, also known as Agent 728, faced a maximum of six months in jail and/or a $5,000 fine because the matter was handled as a summary judgment instead of a criminal trial.

The Crown had asked for a suspended sentence of 12 months, while Trudeau's lawyer, Jean-Pierre Rancourt, argued for an absolute discharge and no criminal record.

Rancourt said the sentence did not come as a shock and that Trudeau plans on appealing the ruling and sentence.

"I'm not surprised because Tuesday, when we made our case before the judge, he started to argue with me and I knew he would not agree with a discharge, conditional or unconditional," he said.

The incident took place in October 2012 when Trudeau spotted a man drinking beer on the sidewalk in front of the open door to his apartment.

She confronted the beer drinker, Rudi Occhietti, and then forced her way up the stairs and into the apartment.

Once inside she got into a loud argument with several occupants, then placed Serge Lavoie in a chokehold and dragged him downstairs.

Judge Daniel Bedard called Trudeau's use of force on Lavoie "brutal and dangerous," adding there was no need for such conduct given Lavoie was neither armed nor violent.

Occhietti, Lavoie, Simon Pagé and Karen Molina were arrested that night and charged with assault, obstruction and intimidation.

Trudeau also confiscated several phones and then went into a patrol car to talk to a supervisor.

What she didn't realize at the time was that one of the cellphones was recording video, and so recorded her calling the four people that were arrested "rats."

Once the video came to light, the charges against the four were dropped, and Trudeau was suspended with pay. Eighteen months later she was charged with assault.

Other videos came to light showing Trudeau pepper-spraying a crowd of protesters, although the Crown decided not to press charges for that incident. She was also charged in a separate matter of threatening members of the police union.

In February of this year a judge ruled the attack on Lavoie was an excessive use of force.

Trudeau has since left the Montreal police force on a permanent disability pension.

-With files from The Canadian Press