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PHOENIX — A former U.S. Forest Service fire management officer was sentenced to 24 months in prison Monday for starting a blaze without authorization.

U.S. District Court Judge Paul Rosenblatt rejected the contention of Van Bateman that he simply "cleaned up a little timber" with that and at least one other prescribed burn, albeit without the proper authorization. "My intent and desires have always been to protect the national forest as best I could," Bateman told the judge.

But Rosenblatt said that while he is "familiar with Forest Service bureaucracy," Bateman was wrong.

"You simply were doing what you wanted to do rather that what should have been done," the judge told the 34-year veteran of the Forest Service, who acknowledged setting the Boondock Fire three years ago about 45 miles south of Flagstaff.

Nor was the judge impressed by more than 50 letters from others — many of them former Forest Service employees — who wrote that they had done the same thing. In fact, the judge suggested those letters were one reason he was rejecting a plea by Grant Woods to place his client on probation.

"That's kind of chilling," Rosenblatt said of the letters. "Too much paperwork simply doesn't cut it."

Bateman also will have to pay a $5,000 fine and $10,390 in restitution to the Forest Service. Once released, he will be on supervised probation for another three years and will have to undergo a psychological exam.

The two-year sentence was the maximum Rosenblatt could impose under the terms of a plea deal.

As part of that deal, prosecutors dropped a second charge of burning timber without authorization connected with the Mother Fire several weeks earlier. And they dismissed more serious arson charges in connection with both incidents.

The judge rejected a recommendation from a probation officer that he reject the plea deal and send Bateman away for at least 46 months.

"I've never felt that I did anything wrong," Bateman said after the sentencing. He will be free for the next 45 days before he has to report for incarceration.

"I've never claimed to be lily white," he continued. "The only thing I'm guilty of is not getting the proper authorization to do what I did."

But Bob Schinzel, who had been the assistant special agent in charge of the Department of Agriculture in Phoenix — the agency that includes the Forest Service — said evidence showed otherwise.

Schinzel said once there was suspicion Bateman was setting fires, he was tracked through a satellite positioning system in his computer. Schinzel said that tracking showed Bateman at the scene of several blazes.

More significant, Schinzel said, Bateman fled quickly, something he said clearly is not done when setting a prescribed burn.

And prosecutor Kim Hare told the judge that Bateman, in an earlier statement, never mentioned "prescribed burns."

"He never thought he'd get caught," she said.

"He didn't have a good excuse at the time why he set them," Hare continued. "Now he does."

And she said that excuse, even if true, should not allow him to avoid prison.