An attempt to expose an improper political ad brought a two-month federal prison sentence Wednesday, with the judge calling the would-be whistle-blower a vigilante.

"It's about taking the law into your own hands ... and doing what you knew was wrong, which was stealing someone's e-mail," U.S. Magistrate Judge Michael Urbanski told Willow L. Rosenblatt.

Rosenblatt, a 39-year-old resident of Roanoke County, had been a freelance sportswriter for The Roanoke Star-Sentinel when she tried to document then-Roanoke City Councilman Brian Wishneff's connections to a campaign ad. The ad, which ran in The Star-Sentinel and The Roanoke Times during the last days of the 2008 city council elections, questioned the qualifications of candidate Court Rosen.

Rosen won a seat, and Wishneff lost his. On Election Day, Wishneff admitted that he was the "Joe Smith" who'd put his name to the Roanoke Times ad. Both ads were credited to a citizens group with which Wishneff was associated.

Both ads flouted state laws because the citizens group was not registered as a political action committee and Wishneff did not report the ad's funding source as a campaign contribution. Wishneff was indicted in state court on two misdemeanor counts, but they were dropped when he paid a $3,700 penalty to the state.

Rosenblatt was charged last year with violating the U.S. Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, a misdemeanor offense rarely seen in the federal Western District of Virginia. She was convicted in May.

The charge stemmed from actions Rosenblatt took after losing her freelance job in a dispute with Star-Sentinel publisher Stuart Revercomb. She forwarded scores of e-mails from The Star-Sentinel to her personal account.

Included were e-mails originally sent to Revercomb with private material such as information about a Paypal account, Assistant U.S. Attorney Sharon Burnham said.

This occurred near the end of the council campaign. On the weekend before the election, Rosenblatt sent some of the e-mails to The Roanoke Times, saying they showed Wishneff was behind what was by then a much-discussed attack ad. The Roanoke Times did not publish the e-mails.

In court Wednesday, much of the discussion revolved around whether Rosenblatt, who had several minor criminal offenses in her past, mostly related to a dispute with a former boyfriend, deserved prison or probation.

Burnham called the case "a very classic example of someone prying into someone else's affairs" and called e-mail theft a growing problem in a society reliant on online communication.

Urbanski, calling the case "fascinating ... on a number of levels," said he thought Rosenblatt was out to embarrass her former boss, who was a political ally of Wishneff, as well as to expose wrongdoing.

Rosenblatt agreed that she'd broken the law, but said she felt at the time that she had to do it. After the hearing, she said she felt justice had been done.

"I'm not a vigilante. I'm not a martyr. I'm just a decent human being who cannot stand to see illegal activity going on around me," she said.