This courtroom sketch depicts former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, center in a wheelchair, during his sentencing hearing in federal court Thursday. Manafort was sentenced to nearly four years in prison for tax and bank fraud related to his work advising Ukrainian politicians.

ALEXANDRIA, Va. — Paul Manafort, who managed Donald Trump’s presidential campaign for part of 2016, was sentenced Thursday to 47 months in prison for financial crimes that were prosecuted by special counsel Robert Mueller III.

U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis III could have sent the 69-year-old veteran Republican operative to prison for the rest of his life, but he rejected the recommended sentence of 19 to 24 years, under federal guidelines, calling it excessive.

A high-flying lobbyist and consultant before he joined Trump’s campaign, Manafort was brought into court in a wheelchair, wearing his jail-issued green jumpsuit. He appeared more frail than in August, when a federal jury convicted him of eight charges of tax evasion and bank fraud.

Near the end of a 3 1/2-hour court hearing, Manafort appealed to Ellis for compassion and said he felt “humiliated and ashamed” by his conduct. He thanked the judge for “a fair trial.”

“The last two years have been the most difficult that my family and I have experienced,” he said.

Ellis described Manafort’s crimes as “very serious” and said his tax evasion represented “a theft of money from everyone that pays their taxes.” He also expressed surprise that Manafort did not express more regret when he addressed the court.

Because Manafort has already been in jail for the last nine months, his sentence means he would only serve an additional 38 months. He was sent to jail last summer when U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson, who is overseeing a related case in Washington, D.C., decided he revoked his bail by reaching out to potential witnesses.

Jackson is scheduled to sentence Manafort at another hearing Wednesday. He has pleaded guilty to two related charges of conspiracy in that case.

All the criminal charges against Manafort stemmed from his work on behalf of Ukraine’s former pro-Russian government, although some of the crimes continued while he also managed Trump’s campaign for several months in 2016.

During his trial, prosecutors detailed how Manafort used a network of offshore bank accounts and other schemes to avoid paying millions of dollars in federal income taxes.

When his client, Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich, was overthrown in a popular uprising in 2014, Manafort turned to bank fraud to maintain a lifestyle that included seven homes and luxury cars.

Mueller’s team initially focused on Manafort as part of its investigation into whether Trump’s campaign conspired with a Russian intelligence operation that sought to sway the 2016 election to Trump, using stolen emails and disinformation on social media.

Prosecutors had urged the judge to impose a tough sentence.

Greg Andres, a prosecutor from the special counsel’s office, said Manafort “broke the basic civic covenant of citizens in this democracy” by failing to pay his taxes.