Former Illinois Rep. Derrick Smith was sentenced Thursday to five months for corruption.
A jury convicted the 51-year-old Democrat of bribery and attempted extortion last June after he was recorded in 2012 accepting a $7,000 bribe from a purported day care operator seeking a state grant.
Federal prosecutors want U.S. District Judge Sharon Johnson Coleman to sentence Smith to five years in federal prison.
The Chicago-born Smith represented the 10th District in Illinois from March 2011 to August 2012 and again from January 2013 to June 2014.
Smith was charged in February of 2012 for accepting the bribe in exchange for a promise to help steer a state grant to a day care center. The day care center turned out to be just part of the FBI's elaborate sting.
Despite his indictment in the spring of 2012, Smith went on to win the March primary. His colleagues in the House voted to expel him from the body in August -- the first time in more than 100 years such action had been taken -- but he was re-installed by voters in the general election three months later. Illinois law prevented House members from expelling him a second time for the same reason.
He was defeated in the primary election last year and was considered a lame duck lawmaker.
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The bribery conviction carries a sentence of up to 10 years in prison and the attempted extortion conviction carries a maximum of 20 years.
