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Former Conservative MP Dean Del Mastro was on his way in an police van Thursday from the courthouse in his hometown of Peterborough, Ont., to a maximum-security jail, ferrying him into history as the first former member of Parliament imprisoned for violating Canada’s election law.

Del Mastro, 44, was sentenced Thursday morning to one month in jail for overspending on his 2008 election campaign; breaking his own spending limit; then filing a false campaign report.

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Ontario Court of Justice Judge Lisa Cameron said Del Mastro bears a high “moral culpability” for the spending and his “significant attempts to hide it.

“He was prepared to be deceitful about it,” she said, calling the offences “an affront to the principles of our democratic system” that “must be regarded as quite serious.”

Del Mastro begins serving his sentence immediately but could be released on bail, pending an appeal of the guilty findings, at a hearing scheduled for Friday morning.