SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- A disbarred Harvard University-trained attorney was sentenced to 40 years in prison Thursday for a kidnapping so elaborate and bizarre that police in California initially dismissed it as a hoax.

Federal prosecutors had asked for the 40-year sentence for Matthew Muller, who pleaded guilty in September to holding a San Francisco Bay Area woman for ransom.

They realized that Denise Huskins was telling the truth about her March 2015 abduction only after Muller was implicated in a different crime.

Muller, 39, could have been sentenced to life in prison by U.S. District Judge Troy Nunley, but prosecutors agreed to recommend 40 years in exchange for his guilty plea.

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“Public safety requires that he be imprisoned until he is old and weak,” wrote Assistant U.S. Attorney Matthew Dean Segal, calling the crime “depraved and egregious.”

Defense attorney Thomas Johnson had asked for a 30-year sentence, saying his client has been diagnosed as manic and depressive and can be rehabilitated with proper treatment for what he called “a truly debilitating mental illness.”

Federal prosecutors say Muller used a remote-controlled drone to spy on his victims before he broke into the Vallejo home Huskins shared with boyfriend Aaron Quinn, tied up the couple and made them drink a sleep-inducing liquid. They were blindfolded while Muller played a pre-recorded message that made it seem as if there was more than one kidnapper.

He put Huskins in the trunk of his car, drove her to his home in South Lake Tahoe, and held her there for two days before eventually releasing her in her hometown of Huntington Beach.

Denise Huskins and her boyfriend, Aaron Quinn, listen as their attorneys speak at a news conference July 13, 2015, in Vallejo, Calif. Mike Jory/Vallejo Times-Herald via AP

He claimed in emails to a San Francisco reporter that Huskins was abducted by a team of elite criminals who were practicing their kidnapping tactics.

After Huskins reappeared, Vallejo police called the kidnapping a hoax and erroneously likened it to the movie “Gone Girl,” in which a woman goes missing and then lies about being kidnapped when she reappears.

Investigators dropped that theory after Muller was later arrested in an attempted robbery at another San Francisco Bay Area home. Authorities said they found a cellphone that they traced to Muller, and a subsequent search of a car and home turned up evidence, including a computer Muller stole from Quinn, which linked him to the abduction.

Vallejo police have since apologized. Huskins is suing the city and two police officers, accusing them of defamation and inflicting emotional distress.

At the hearing Thursday, a judge called the crimes heinous and atrocious, CBS Sacramento reported via Twitter. Huskins and Quinn both spoke, saying they didn’t believe Muller acted alone.

Huskins had to stop several times as she was overcome by emotion, the station reports. She turned directly to Muller and said, “There is a face to the voice.”

Muller reportedly told the court he is “sick with shame.”

Muller, a former Marine, was admitted to practice law in California in 2011, and his state bar profile says he attended Harvard Law School. He lost his law license in 2015 in an unrelated incident.

“He will be dangerous for the rest of his life,” Quinn wrote in advance of Muller’s sentencing.