Kenneth Smukler, a former political aide to retired U.S. Rep. Bob Brady, D-Pennsylvania, has been sentenced to 18 months in prison for his role in two schemes that involved breaking campaign finance laws.

Smukler, an attorney, had been found guilty in December on several criminal counts, including defrauding the U.S., making contributions in the name of another person, and causing false campaign expenditure reports and false statements to be made. The charges stemmed from actions he took during congressional campaigns in 2012 and 2014.

The sentence, which was handed down Friday by U.S. District Judge Jan E. DuBois of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, includes one-year supervised release and a $75,000 fine.

In a statement to the press, William McSwain, U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, said his office will “continue to prosecute public corruption wherever and whenever we uncover it.”

“In order to win at all costs, Smukler knowingly and purposefully undermined our democratic process by misusing campaign funds and lying about it,” McSwain said. “Now Smukler is headed to jail, and I am grateful that the court imposed a just sentence reinforcing the fact that this kind of corruption will never be tolerated.”

Smukler's attorney, Brian McMonagle of McMonagle Perri McHugh Mischak and Davis, did not return a call for comment Friday afternoon.

Smukler was accused of paying one of Brady's political opponents $90,000 to drop out of the 2012 Democratic primary. He was also charged with making hundreds of thousands of dollars in illegal donations to the campaign of former U.S. Rep. Marjorie Margolies, D-Montgomery, in her failed 2014 bid to reclaim her seat, while obstructing the corresponding federal investigation.

Neither Brady nor Margolies have been accused of wrongdoing.

According to prosecutors, the Margolies campaign was running out of money to pay for primary election expenses, but Smukler directed the campaign treasurer to continue purchasing goods and services. Prosecutors allege Smukler used his companies, Black and Blue Media and InfoVoter Technologies, to funnel money to the campaign while it was active and also after it had lost the election in order to pay off its debts. The alleged contributions exceeded the limits set by the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 for individual donors during a single election cycle, the indictment said.

Smukler was first indicted Oct. 24, 2017. He pleaded not guilty to the charges against him. The investigation netted guilty pleas from former Brady aide and political consultant Don “D.A.” Jones, former Philadelphia Judge Jimmie Moore and Moore's former campaign manager, Carolyn Cavaness.

Brady was never charged and prosecutors have since missed their window to indict him.

The alleged scheme involving Brady's 2012 congressional campaign involved Moore withdrawing from the race in February of that year after an agreement was struck where his opponent allegedly promised to pay $90,000 in campaign funds to repay Moore's campaign debts, prosecutors said. However, prosecutors noted that the law does not allow one campaign to contribute more than $2,000 to another during a primary election.

Prosecutors alleged that Moore instructed Cavaness to create a company whose only purpose was to receive the funds. Those payments, prosecutors alleged, to the announcement, were routed through Voter Link Data Systems and D. Jones & Associates, the political consulting companies run by Smukler and Jones.