SYDNEY (AP) - An Australian investment banker who admitted chaining a fake bomb to a teenager in a bizarre extortion attempt has been sentenced to 13 years and six months jail.
New South Wales state District Court judge Peter Zahra handed down the sentence against Paul Douglas Peters on Tuesday.
Peters admitted tethering the bomb-like device and a ransom note to the neck of then-18-year-old Madeleine Pulver in August 2011 while she was alone in her family's Sydney mansion. He pleaded guilty in March to aggravated break and enter and committing a serious indictable offense.
Peters' lawyer had argued his client deserved leniency because he was depressed and delusional at the time of the crime. Prosecutors said the attack was calculated and premeditated and said there was no evidence Peters was delusional.
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