The former vice-chair of the state House Committee on Finance who took $30,000 in bribes from a wastewater executive between 2014 and 2021 was sentenced to two years in federal prison this morning.

Senior U.S. District Judge Susan Oki Mollway also fined Ty J.K. Cullen, 42, $25,000 and a $100 special assessment. Cullen paid $23,000 in criminal forfeiture before he was sentenced this morning.

He was facing 20 years in prison after he pleaded guilty to a single count of honest services wire fraud for helping Milton J. Choy manage legislation to the benefit of his company, H20 Process Systems.

>> RELATED: Dirty money: Corruption case highlights Hawaii cesspool mess

“One of the things that concerns me very much is that this was not a momentary lapse of judgment on your part,” said Mollway, speaking after informing Cullen of her sentence. “This was a grievous breach of public trust…it appears to be motivated by greed and it stretched out over years.”

Cullen had asked for 15 months, citing his traumatic childhood and year-long cooperation with the U.S. Department of Justice’s ongoing public corruption probe. The government filed a motion granted by Mollway for a downward departure from the U.S. Probation Office calculation that Cullen spend between 37 and 46 months behind bars, with a recommendation on the low end of 37 months.

The motion by federal prosecutors recommended a sentence of 24 to 30 months of incarceration, and Assistant U.S. Attorney Ken Sorenson asked Oki Mollway to consider sentencing Cullen to the low end of that range.

She agreed to Cullen’s request asking her to recommend that he serve his time at either the Federal Prison Camp in Yankton, South Dakota or Montgomery, Alabama. Cullen remains free on an unsecured $50,000 bond and will self-report to federal prison on May 18.

Cullen expressed a desire to pursue inmate education programs in horticulture offered in South Dakota or commercial driver’s license training in Alabama.

Cullen, dressed in a dark blue suit, fought through tears and got choked up while apologizing to his family, constituents, community and the “people of Hawaii.”

“I will continue to work to make my wrongs right,” said Cullen, speaking in court. “I’m sorry.”

House Speaker Scott Saiki issued a written statement this afternoon following Cullen’s sentencing.

“What Ty Cullen did was wrong, and the House of Representatives does not condone his actions,” Saiki said. “This incident was a wake-up call and we have learned from it. The House has increased its ethics trainings for members and staff, and advanced over two dozen pieces of legislation to improve our ethics laws and how we operate in the Legislature. We are taking this action because we do not want this kind of incident to happen again.”

Choy will be sentenced in a separate bribery case involving Maui wastewater contracts at 9 a.m. May 17.