URBANA — A former correctional officer at the Ford County Jail was sentenced Friday in U.S. District Court to serve eight months in prison, followed by eight months of home detention for engaging in a sexual act with a female inmate.

U.S. Chief District Judge Michael P. McCuskey also ordered Phillip S. Santefort, 41, of Buckley, to register as a sex offender for at least 10 years and pay a $3,000 fine following his release.

Santefort also will not be allowed to possess a firearm, meaning his law enforcement career is effectively over, McCuskey added.

The sentence was part of a plea agreement negotiated in February between Santefort's lawyer, Reino Lanto of Paxton, and Assistant U.S. Attorney Eugene L. Miller.

Santefort pleaded guilty to one count of sexual abuse of a person in official detention. That is the same charge that a federal grand jury returned in October in an indictment against Santefort, alleging sexual contact between him and a female inmate in her cell, while he was a correctional officer at the Ford County jail in summer 2009. The inmate was a federal detainee, awaiting transfer to a prison in Minnesota.

McCuskey allowed Santefort to turn himself in to the federal Bureau of Prisons to begin serving his eight-month prison term on June 30. McCuskey said he would recommend Santefort be sent to a minimum security prison or work camp as close as possible to Buckley, an Iroquois County village where he and his wife and children live.

Upon his release, Santefort will be required to complete a three-year term of supervised release; during the first eight months he will be required to wear a tracking device and will be restricted to his home in Buckley except for work or approved trips, McCuskey said.

Miller said it appears the sexual conduct between Santefort and the inmate was a "crime of opportunity" and a "consensual, willing act" between both parties. However, Miller added that Santefort "abused his position of trust," even after "destroying his first career" as a police officer.

Miller was referring to a 2006 misdemeanor theft conviction that stemmed from allegations that Santefort stole $26,000 in cash that was seized in narcotics busts when he worked for the Calumet City Police Department in suburban Chicago. Santefort pleaded guilty to misdemeanor theft in a plea agreement in which four felony charges were dropped.

Santefort later began working as a correctional officer at the Ford County Jail.

Meanwhile, a status hearing has been set for 8:30 a.m. June 29 for a civil lawsuit that was filed by Joliet attorney Gregory Leiter on behalf of the victim in the criminal case, seeking more than $300,000 in damages against the county, sheriff's department, the sheriff and four of his employees.