MUSKEGON, MI - Julia Charlene Merfeld is "wonderful" and "godly," said the husband she tried to have murdered less than four months ago.

For the first time publicly, intended murder victim Jacob "Jake" Merfeld, 27, of Muskegon spoke out Tuesday, July 30, about his 21-year-old wife. In court at her sentencing for solicitation to murder him, he asked for a light sentence.

"I know that my wife is a wonderful person," Jake Merfeld said to the sentencing judge. "She is a godly woman."

The couple has two children ages 4 and 2, and "she has been nothing but a great mother to them," he said, asking that her sentence be light so their children wouldn't be deprived of their mother.

Julia "J.C." Merfeld also gave her first public statement, tearfully expressing remorse for her actions and asking for a light sentence.

"I know that what I did was wrong, and I take full responsibility for it," she told the judge. "My tears are not for pity ... my tears are for remorse."

RELATED: MLive's live coverage of Julia Merfeld's sentencing

After their statements and what amounted to a rebuttal by Muskegon County Prosecutor D.J. Hilson, Chief Muskegon County 14th Circuit Judge William C. Marietti kept close to the minimum-sentencing cap he committed to at the time of Julia Merfeld's guilty plea last month.

Marietti ordered her to serve a prison term of at least five years and eight months but no more than 20 years, with credit for 111 days she's already spent in the Muskegon County Jail. It will be up to the state parole board to eventually decide whether she gets out after the minimum or stays in prison longer, up to the 20-year maximum.

Marietti had committed to cap her minimum sentence at six years. That was about a year below the top end of state sentencing guidelines for the minimum sentence.

At that time, June 27, Marietti said he would have capped the minimum higher, but for the intended victim's request that his wife serve no jail or prison time at all.

Merfeld was caught on video in the act of what she believed was hiring a killer. The "hit man" was actually an undercover Michigan State Police detective. She promised to pay him $50,000 from her husband's life insurance proceeds and gave him a $100 down payment.

The secretly recorded conversations took place April 9 and 10, 2013, in the detective's vehicle parked outside the Harvey Street Meijer store in Fruitport Township. Merfeld was arrested soon after the second meeting and has been lodged in the Muskegon County Jail ever since.

Authorities said she admitted her motive was to collect on her husband's $400,000 life insurance policy.

On the video, released publicly by the Muskegon County Prosecutor's Office after her guilty plea, she said she wanted her husband killed because "it was easier than divorcing him. ... I didn't have to worry about the judgment of my family, I didn't have to worry about breaking his heart, all that stuff like this. It's, like, how I got a clean getaway."

After both husband and wife spoke, Hilson said Julia Merfeld deserves prison time for her actions and her callousness.

"Certainly we have to look at the actions that got us here today ... how cold she was when talking to the undercover officer, as if she was ordering groceries or ordering something off the menu," Hilson said.

Most important, he said, was "the chilling effect of how she talked about how she wanted her husband, the father of her children ... to die."

"I wonder how remorseful she would be if the (murder) had been carried out, if she had gotten the $400,000," Hilson said.

The dramatic high point of the sentencing was the statement of Jake Merfeld, who has declined to be interviewed outside court.

God and forgiveness were his major themes.

"I would like to say I start this off by (saying I) wholeheartedly forgive my wife for all she has done in this act of hatred," Jake Merfeld said.

"I know that this is a crime that is on the top of the list of the most, I guess, evil, non-godly things you could probably do," he said. "But I know my wife, I've been with her for four years, known her for five, and I know she is a godly person. After talking to her, she is very repentive of the sins she has committed."

Addressing the judge, Jake Merfeld said, "I don't know what kind of a godly man you are, I won't ask, it's your opinion, but if you could look in your heart today and have mercy on my wife ... I just ask in God's name that you would just show mercy."

Julia Merfeld, after expressing remorse, said she knew she deserved punishment but asked for a "lighter" sentence. She said she was glad the crime she attempted was not carried out. "I would rather be incarcerated for however long you deem, knowing that my husband is alive and well," she said.

"Fortunately the two people who matter the most have already forgiven me ... my husband ... and God. Honestly they're the only two people who matter," she said.

Before the couple spoke, Julia Merfeld's public defender, Joseph A. Fisher, asked the judge to change her listed religion in the pre-sentence report from "Protestant" to "Baptist." Julia Merfeld then turned her head, smiled and winked at her family in the audience.

Jake Merfeld sat with his wife's parents, Joe and Christina Antonaccio of Keyport, N.J. That's where the Merfelds used to live before moving to Muskegon.

"The court doesn't have the power to forgive," Marietti said before pronouncing the prison sentence. "We're not here to forgive or not to forgive."

Email John Hausman at jhausman@mlive.com or follow him on Twitter at @johnshausman