Chaka Fattah

PHILADELPHIA — Former U.S. Rep. Chaka Fattah was sentenced Monday to a 10-year prison term by a judge who said he was “astonished” that a veteran legislator would steal government and charity funds to pay his son’s debts and buy a vacation home.

Fattah, a Democrat who was born into a family of black activists in Philadelphia, spent two decades in Congress working on housing, education, gun control and other issues of concern to his mostly poor district. Fattah and his TV anchor wife meanwhile took in more than $500,000 a year.

Yet Fattah’s finances grew increasingly dire after a failed 2007 run for mayor, when he faced new campaign spending limits that led him to take an illegal $1 million loan from a friend. The trouble escalated when the friend called in the debt.

As he awaited his sentence, Fattah told U.S. District Judge Harvey Bartle he had mixed emotions: saddened to find himself in court but grateful for the work he did as a state and federal lawmaker.

Fattah, 60, lost the spring primary days before trial and resigned his seat after his June conviction. The jury found he took the $1 million loan from the chairman of Sallie Mae, the student loan corporation. He returned $400,000 of it and repaid some of the rest with federal grant money he had steered to a nonprofit run by his former aides.

Fattah was also ordered Monday to repay $600,000 to Sallie Mae and NASA.

Fattah used the money on campaign and personal expenses, the jury found. He put $23,000 in nonprofit funds toward his son’s college loans and took an $18,000 bribe to try to help a friend become an ambassador. Fattah and his wife used that money for a down payment on a Poconos vacation home.

Fattah had insisted the Department of Justice had been out to get him and his family for years. He plans to appeal the conviction.