A federal judge in Los Angeles sentenced former Dentons associate Michael Potere to five months in prison following his guilty plea to using a partner's login credentials to access sensitive documents about the firm's hiring and billing practices.

The sentence, which includes a year of supervised release in addition to the prison term, follows Potere's guilty plea in October under an agreement with federal prosecutors. The erstwhile Dentons lawyer was arrested in June and charged by prosecutors with plotting to shake the firm down for $210,000 plus a piece of artwork from Dentons' Los Angeles office.

Michael Potere.

The scheme allegedly began in the spring of 2017, after Potere told Dentons he planned to leave the firm to start a graduate school program in the fall. Potere had wanted to stay on for the summer, but Dentons declined and instead told him his employment would end in June. Prosecutors initially alleged that Potere downloaded sensitive documents from the firm, then threatened to leak information to the legal blog Above the Law unless he received the payment he demanded, according to the original criminal complaint in the case.

With Potere's plea deal in October, prosecutors agreed to drop a charge of extortion—which would have carried a prison sentence of up to 20 years—while the former Dentons lawyer admitted to a lesser charge of unauthorized access to a computer to obtain information.

Prosecutors said in court documents that Potere accessed information related to Dentons' finances, billing and hiring efforts, including quarterly financial reports, a list of clients and how much they owed in legal fees, confidential employment reviews of other associates and a “detailed analysis” describing lateral recruitment efforts and offers made to potential hires. He obtained the sensitive information in a simple way—through the email account of a Dentons partner who had granted Potere access in the fall of 2015 while the two worked together on a case.

Dentons cooperated with law enforcement and dismissed Potere. Partners from the firm's Los Angeles office gave interviews to the FBI, and at least two unnamed partners helped the agency obtain recordings of a meeting with Potere in which he discussed his demands, according to the original criminal complaint.

Following Potere's arrest in June, Dentons said in a statement that it had “taken appropriate and necessary steps to protect the safety of our employees, the confidentiality of our clients, and the property of our firm.”

Potere's lawyer, public defender Asal Akhondzadeh, didn't immediately respond to a request for comment on Tuesday; nor did a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Central District of California, which handled the prosecution.

A sentencing judgment issued on Monday said U.S. District Judge John Walker, who presided over Potere's case, would recommend Potere be imprisoned in Massachusetts or elsewhere in the New England region. The judge ordered Potere to report to prison by Feb. 28.