A South Carolina attorney, who pleaded guilty to defrauding her sorority at the University of Alabama of hundreds of thousands of dollars, was sentenced Tuesday to six months in prison and fined $50,000.

U.S. District Court Judge Madeline Haikala also sentenced Jennifer Elizabeth Meehan, 40, to serve 18 months of home confinement, 40 months supervised probation. She also is to serve eight hours a week community service while on home confinement and probation.

The judge also ordered Meehan to participate in a mental health program while on probation.

Meehan told Haikala she didn't take the money for her personal use.

Instead, according to Meehan's attorney, Richard Rice, Meehan placed $234,000 of the money in a shoebox inside a closet to use for a scholarship program and other sorority expenses. It was a claim a federal prosecutor says isn't credible.

Haikala said she didn't understand why Meehan had taken the money because it didn't appear she needed it for the usual reasons such as drugs or a big debt. "This is extremely bizarre conduct," she said.

Meehan was sentenced for defrauding Gamma Phi Beta Sorority at the University of Alabama of money meant for furnishing a new house for her sorority sisters.

Assistant U.S. Attorney David Estes asked Haikala to sentence Jennifer Elizabeth Meehan to 20 months in prison.

Rice asked for no prison time with three months home confinement, 400 hours of community service, 2 years of probation and no fine.

Meehan also will have to give up her law license. "Her livelihood, her dream is over," he told the judge.

In July Meehan pleaded guilty to bank fraud, one count of an eight-count indictment. The other counts are being dismissed under a plea agreement with the U.S. Attorney's Office.

Meehan was president of the House Corporation Board of the Epsilon Lambda Chapter of Gamma Phi Beta Sorority in an unpaid, a volunteer position. She was tasked with furnishing the $14 million sorority house between September 2013 and March 2015. The new house was the largest in the sorority's national history.

According to the plea agreement, Meehan executed a bank fraud scheme to illegally obtain money from First Citizens Bank & Trust Company and the Bank of Tuscaloosa. Gamma Phi Beta's account was at the Bank of Tuscaloosa and Meehan opened an account at First Citizens Bank under a fraudulent business name.

In September and November of 2014, Meehan submitted fraudulent furniture invoices totaling about $375,000 to Greek Resource Services, a contract company that handles the finances for fraternities and sororities at UA. GRS drew money from Gamma Phi Beta's account at Bank of Tuscaloosa and gave Meehan two checks totaling about $375,000. She deposited that money into the newly opened First Citizens account, authorities said.

Meehan wired money from that account into her personal business account at Bank of America for her personal use, according to her plea agreement.

Under the plea agreement, Meehan agreed to forfeit, as proceeds of illegal activity, $234,648, and to pay additional restitution of $34,815 to GRS. The government also had frozen another $200,000 in her bank accounts.

Meehan's offense involved an ongoing fraudulent scheme that amounted to the theft of over $500,000 in monies that were contributed by the members of the Sorority, according to the federal prosecutors' memorandum. Between the frozen bank accounts, the cash from her home, and more than $150,000 that was caught before it got to Meehan, the sorority has recovered all the money.

According to the sentencing memorandum from Meehan's attorney last week: Meehan accepts responsibility for her misconduct; the offense is an "aberration"; she will be further penalized with the loss of her ability to practice law; she has for many years prior to the crime engaged in extensive community service and works of charity; and she did not profit from the crime, "but was simply trying to do her best for her sorority."

Boot box and envelopes

Meehan kept a ledger of the money and placed it in individual labelled envelopes in a boot box she kept in her closet to save money for a sorority scholarship program, according to her memorandum. "After she was indicted, through counsel, Jennifer turned in the handwritten ledger along with all funds stored in the labeled envelopes to the government," according to her memorandum.

Meehan told the judge that she never intended to "abscond" with the sorority's money, did not use it for personal gain, and shouldn't have kept the money in a shoe box. "I wasn't thinking as an attorney but like a ... sorority girl," she said.

Estes found that explanation hard to believe in his sentencing memorandum and at Tuesday's hearing. "The idea that the defendant has all along had the $234,648.00, but only chose to turn it over on April 4, 2016, some nine months after her arrest is not credible," he wrote.

Meehan's mother testified Tuesday that her daughter had told both her and her then attorney about the money she had put in the shoe box the day after her arrest.

Meehan stated in her memorandum that she became caught up in my own fantasy," Estes noted. "That is what this entire assertion is.....fantasy. It strains credulity to believe that anyone in her position, and considering all of her fraudulent conduct over the course of this scheme, was keeping that amount of cash, all of it stolen, in her closet for an eventual scholarship program," he wrote.

Estes described Meehan as a con-artist during Tuesday's hearing. She rented a post office box, submitted false invoices for years and some false invoices were from companies that didn't even exist, he said. "This is just another con," he said.

An emotional Meehan said she had profound remorse and regret and had embarrassed her family. She said she also never intended to harm the sorority that had been at the center of her life. She said she has lost all of her sorority friends.

"It's really sad I never got to see the house open," Meehan told the judge.

The U.S. Secret Service and the U.S. Postal Inspection Service investigated the case.