A man who prosecutors said sabotaged a levee during the 1993 Midwest floods because he wanted to strand his wife was sentenced today to life in prison.

The man, James R. Scott, 24, of Fowler, Ill., got the maximum sentence from Judge Bruce Normile of Adair County Circuit Court for his November conviction on charges of causing a catastrophe.

At the trial, which was moved to this northeast Missouri town because of publicity, prosecutors played tapes in which Mr. Scott admitted to the police that he had removed four or five sandbags from the levee, opening a breach that allowed the swollen Mississippi River to flood 14,000 acres of farmland and destroy scores of buildings in West Quincy. The breach also closed for 71 days a bridge that was the only link between Missouri and Illinois for 100 miles.

Prosecutors said that Mr. Scott, who had earlier been convicted of arson and burglary, had told a friend that he wanted to make sure his wife could not return home across the river from her Missouri job, so he could have affairs and party.