A judge in the Eastern District of New York spent nearly an hour reprimanding Brooklyn attorney Lydia Hills before sentencing her to four years' probation Friday, telling her that even though her crime was not particularly serious, she harmed her aunt and did not seem to be taking appropriate responsibility.

Hills was found guilty of obstructing an official proceeding and conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding in March. As a solo practitioner who was also a licensed real estate broker, Hills got involved in a short-sale scheme with her aunt and a man described by U.S. District Senior Judge I. Leo Glasser as a "con man."

Glasser found that Hills' aunt, who is in her 70s, was not competent to stand trial. If he hadn't done that, he told Hills that she would have been complicit in sending an old woman to jail just a few years after her aunt had finished a six-year sentence for a separate fraud charge.