The brother of "The Dark Knight" film director Christopher Nolan made it clear on Wednesday how much he hated prison.

Speaking at his sentencing for an October escape attempt, Chicago resident Matthew Nolan, 41, said that to keep his mind from rotting while confined to a 7-1/2 by 11-foot cell, he read books, taught himself to draw and wrote letters to his wife and two children.

"This has broken my nerves," Nolan said as his wife, sitting in the courtroom, sniffled and dabbed her eyes with a tissue. "It's shattered me."

While conceding that prison "is not a nice place," U.S. District Judge William Hibbler on Wednesday sentenced Nolan to 14 months behind bars for his botched escape attempt.

Because Nolan has already served 16 months, he will be extradited to Costa Rica to face charges that he used a fake British passport.

"I don't think a single person wouldn't want to get out of jail," Nolan's lawyer, Eugene Steingold, said at Wednesday's hearing. Steingold argued that Nolan's chances of escaping from his 11th-floor cell were impossible.

Nolan in April pleaded guilty to plotting to escape from the Metropolitan Correctional Center in downtown Chicago.

Authorities last October discovered about 31 feet of rope and a harness made from bed sheets, a metal clip that could unlock handcuffs, and a razor inside a mattress in Nolan's cell. At the time, he was awaiting extradition to Costa Rica on murder charges.

The FBI arrested Nolan in February 2009 as he left bankruptcy court in Chicago and charged him with the 2005 kidnapping and murder of Florida accountant Robert Cohen in Costa Rica.

A judge later ruled that because of insufficient evidence from Costa Rican authorities, Nolan could be extradited to Costa Rica to face only false document charges.

Nolan had been in bankruptcy court in a separate case in which a judge entered a $600,000 judgment against him for not paying back a loan from a suburban businessman. Nolan claimed he was using his military skills to run an international bank collection service and needed the loan to finish a job in Costa Rica.

At the time of his arrest, Nolan was being investigated by Chicago police in a check-kiting scam where he allegedly made $1 million by using the connection to his movie director brother to cozy up to local banks. Charges were never filed in that investigation.

On Wednesday, Nolan was also ordered to serve two years of probation and submit to drug tests. If he violates his parole, Hibbler warned, he'd be sent back to prison.

"I'd like to be allowed to close this chapter in my life and hug my wife and kids again," Nolan said.

dburnette@tribune.com