A judge on Monday sentenced Cornell Mills, a city employee and former Boston City Council candidate to probation after he pleaded guilty to posing as a real estate broker.

Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey's office said Mills posed as a real estate broker and asked potential Boston homebuyers to hand over thousands of dollars.

Mills said he would hold the money in escrow while the purchase of the home was still pending, according to Healey's office. He did not have any escrow account.

He spent the money on airplane tickets and a cruise to Jamaica, authorities said.

Judge Elizabeth Fahey suspended a sentence of two and a half years in a house of correction and put Mills on three years of probation.

Mills, a 44-year-old Roxbury man, must pay back $36,651 in restitution and he can't work as a broker or manage funds.

He pleaded guilty in Suffolk Superior Court last week to seven counts of larceny over $250, six counts of fiduciary embezzlement, one count of acting as a broker without a license and one count of being a "common and notorious thief."

Authorities opened an investigation into Mills in 2016, and he was first charged in April 2017. The state's Division of Professional Licensure and the Suffolk County District Attorney's Office referred the case to Healey's office.

Mills, who the Boston Globe reported works for the city, once worked in the DA's homicide division. He ran for City Council in 2011.

Mills is a son of former state Sen. Dianne Wilkerson, a Democrat who pleaded guilty to federal corruption charges in 2010. She was released in 2013.

His attorney Robert Sheketoff did not immediately respond to a request for comment.