New Yorker gets 33 months for threatening Hawaii congresswoman

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A New York man was sentenced on Monday to 33 months in prison for threatening Representative Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii, federal prosecutors said. Aniruddha Sherbow, 44, whose last known address was in Poughkeepsie, New York, was sentenced in U.S. District Court. He pleaded no contest in February to two charges of transmitting threats, the U.S. Attorney's Office said in a statement. Under a so-called "nolo contendere" plea, a defendant is convicted of the offense and agrees he could be proved guilty, but does not admit to the facts of the case. Sherbow had been harassing Gabbard, a Democrat, since about February 2011, including making threats via email and telephone, prosecutors said. He was charged with two threats made in August 2013, one of them a voicemail message in which he threatened to kill her. Mexican police arrested Sherbow in August 2013 on a U.S. warrant and transferred him to U.S. custody. As part of the sentence, Sherbow will have three years of supervised release after his prison term. During that period he is barred from contact with Gabbard. He also must reimburse the U.S. government $538,282 for security expenses and undergo a mental health evaluation and treatment, if necessary, the prosecutors' statement said. (Reporting by Ian Simpson)