PORT HURON, Mich. — A judge today sentenced a “tormented and disturbed” Michigan woman to at least five years in prison for falsely accusing two men of rape, a punishment that came just days after she pleaded no contest to a cancer scam in a separate case that also challenged her credibility.

St. Clair County Judge Daniel Kelly exceeded the guidelines, saying it would be a “travesty of justice” to sentence Sara Ylen to less.

In December, Ylen, 38, was convicted of making up a story about two men attacking her at her Lexington home, 80 miles northeast of Detroit. The jury also convicted her of tampering with evidence by using makeup to create what looked like bruises.

Ylen’s integrity has been shattered after years of being considered a sympathetic figure in eastern Michigan.

She accepted thousands of dollars from supporters and was treated by a hospice service for two years after claiming to have end-stage cervical cancer that had spread throughout her body. But state police found no evidence confirming a cancer diagnosis, and Ylen on Monday pleaded no contest to fraud in Sanilac County.

“This is a tormented and disturbed woman who will go to extraordinary lengths to wreak havoc upon other individuals, potentially subjecting them to life in prison in order to gain sympathy and notoriety for herself,” the judge said Friday.

Ylen declined to speak in court.

The judge noted that the two men could have been charged except for their “air-tight alibis” and doubts about Ylen’s story by police.