Get a job.

That’s the de facto order from a Butler County judge to a young woman convicted of helping her boyfriend steal copper wire from a railroad in Slippery Rock Township.

The defendant, 20-year-old Nicole Watterson of Harrisville, faces up to $10,000 in restitution to Canadian National Railway.

But paying the tab could be a problem since Watterson — who last month pleaded guilty to her role in the theft — is unemployed.

That’s where Judge William Shaffer comes in.

In addition to restitution and four years on probation, Shaffer on Tuesday sentenced Watterson to submit six job applications a week until she finds full-time work.

The bit of creative sentencing earned the praise of Watterson’s attorney.

“I think it was a wonderfully-shaped remedy for the crime and for the person to get a job,” Armand Cingolani said. “It gives her a chance to be rehabilitated.”

Shaffer’s outside-the-box sentencing spared Watterson prison time.

Under state law, she had faced a maximum five years behind bars for the crime of conspiracy to commit receiving stolen property, a first-degree misdemeanor that she pleaded guilty to in January.

“I got a good deal,” Cingolani said. “She walked out of here. No jail time. But what she did is serious.”

State police last summer arrested Watterson and her boyfriend, Zachary Atwell, 21, of Harrisville, for teaming up to steal at least 900 feet of signal wire from the CN Railway.

Atwell, according to court documents, on Aug. 23 stole the wire from tracks near McCandless Road in Slippery Rock Township. Watterson served as the getaway driver.

The wire, which carries 220 volts, helps operate the railroad’s safety detection system, police noted. It controls the signals that engineers use to maintain separation from other trains and avoid collisions.

The theft disrupted service at the Branchton Road crossing, railroad officials told investigators.

Police said it also posed a clear-and-present danger to public safety.

That’s why troopers charged Atwell with a top count of risking a catastrophe, a third-degree felony.

He pleaded guilty to that charge in January, court records showed. In exchange, prosecutors withdrew lesser charges of conspiracy, receiving stolen property and theft.

Since there is no plea deal in place, Shaffer alone will decide Atwell’s sentence March 12. The charge of risking a catastrophe carries a maximum penalty of seven years in prison.

A CN Railway representative addressed the court in January when both defendants entered their guilty pleas. No one from the railway attended Watterson’s sentencing.

A company official declined to comment when contacted at the firm’s rail yard facility in Mercer County.

Cingolani, meanwhile claimed Watterson’s irrational love for Atwell was her motivation in the crime.

“Being the girlfriend,” he said of his client, “was more important than right and wrong.”

He said he hoped Shaffer’s sentence would prove to be a better motivation for Watterson, a recent high school graduate who has never had a real job.

“I believe she’s hiding her light under a bushel,” Cingolani said. “She’s a nice girl but her laziness keeps her in bad company.”

Watterson and Atwell, he noted, remain a couple.