A former State Department employee was sentenced to 40 months in prison for accepting thousands of dollars worth of gifts from Chinese intelligence agents in exchange for internal government documents.

Candace Marie Claiborne, 63, failed to disclose her repeated contacts with two agents of China’s intelligence service, who gave her cash, international travel and vacations, tuition at a Chinese fashion school, a furnished apartment, and more over five years.

In exchange, Claiborne, who was employed as an office management specialist, gave the agents copies of internal State Department documents on U.S. economic strategies and visits by dignitaries between the two countries, among other topics.

Claiborne then misled FBI and State Department investigators about her contacts with the agents and urged a co-conspirator to dispose of evidence connecting her to the agents.

She will also have three years of supervised release and a fine of $40,000.

“This is not what I had envisioned for my life. … I still don’t know how I lost myself,” Claiborne told U.S. District Court Judge Randolph Moss on Tuesday. "I lost my job, reputation and the trust of the government. I made a terrible mistake and now I'm paying the price."

China has seen increasing success in recruiting Americans to pass along government secrets. Since March, at least three other Americans have pleaded guilty or were convicted of espionage or attempted spying on behalf of the Chinese.

“The targeting of U.S. security clearance holders by Chinese intelligence services is a constant threat we face, and today’s sentencing shows that those who betray the trust of the American people will be held accountable for their actions,” John Selleck, the acting assistant director of the FBI’s Washington Field Office, said in a statement Tuesday.

Claiborne, who held a top secret security clearance during her employment, joined the State Department in 1999, serving in posts in China, Sudan, and Iraq until she returned to the U.S. in 2015.

The Chinese agents began paying her in 2011 for information. Prosecutors said Claiborne was aware of the consequences of her agreement with the Chinese agents, but was motivated by the financial rewards.

When renewing her security clearance in 2014, Claiborne “deliberately excluded” her contacts with the Chinese agents, the criminal complaint said. She also omitted the contacts to investigators while she continued to communicate with the agents about additional benefits and tried to hide evidence of their agreement.

The FBI also sent an undercover agent, who posed as a Chinese intelligence officer, to her home in Washington, D.C., and Claiborne invited the undercover agent into her home but never reported the contact to the U.S. government, despite the government’s requirement to do so.

Claiborne was arrested in March 2017. She pleaded guilty in April to one count of conspiracy to defraud the United States.