Shahzad will report to prison on April 15, at an institution to be named by the U.S. Bureau of Prisons.

Ignored warnings

Peterson said that for the sake of profit, Shahzad ignored warnings he received from his gasoline suppliers, Exxon Mobil and BP, from police and from others about the sale of synthetic cannabinoids. Even after the state of Wisconsin served search warrants at stores in June 2015, which should have cemented any doubt about whether the products were illegal, Shahzad continued to sell them until another police raid in 2016.

While others share the blame for the sale of the products — among them the chain’s former general manager, Zahid Shakeel — Shahzad was “still deeply aware and involved,” Peterson said.

Shakeel was charged Monday with money laundering and is expected to plead guilty to the charge at a later date.

Peterson said Shahzad’s lawyer, Stephen Hurley, made a good case for not sending Shahzad to prison, and instead placing him on probation. But in Shahzad’s case, he said, there are also “moral” reasons for incarceration. And this is a rare case, he said, in which the principle of general deterrence — punishing a single person to influence the behavior of others — was valid.

An apology