ALEXANDRIA, Va. ― A federal judge here sentenced former Trump campaign chairman and longtime Republican operative Paul Manafort to less than four years in prison on Thursday in a case that grew out of Robert Mueller’s special counsel investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.

The prison term, handed down by U.S. District Judge T. S. Ellis III in a packed federal courtroom in suburban Virginia, is the first of two sentences for Manafort, who turns 70 next month. Judge Ellis said he believed a sentence in the guideline range of 19 to 24 years would be “excessive,” and said Manafort “has lived an otherwise blameless life.”

Before joining the Trump campaign in March 2016, Manafort made his millions working as a lobbyist for an elite group of clients, known colloquially as the “torturers’ lobby.” A 1992 report from the Center for Public Integrity accused Manafort and his team at Washington, D.C.-based lobbying firm Black, Manafort & Stone of lobbying on behalf of dictators and guerrilla groups “identified as abusing human rights.”

Manafort has been in custody since his bail was revoked in June 2018 and still faces separate sentencing in yet another case in D.C. next week.

“The real essence of his violation is that he stole from us, the people who pay their taxes,” Ellis said of Manafort.

Manafort, who was pushed into the courtroom in a wheelchair and remained seated for most of the hearing, made an emotional plea ahead of his sentence, thanking the judge for his fairness in the high-profile trial.