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RALEIGH (AP) — Former Rep. Thomas Wright was sentenced Monday to roughly six years to eight years in prison after a jury found him guilty of mishandling thousands of dollars in charitable contributions and fraudulently obtaining a $150,000 loan.

Deputies immediately took Wright into custody after Wake County Superior Court Judge Henry Hight imposed the sentence and rejected a request to allow the former lawmaker to remain free during an appeal. Wright winked at his wife Joyce as he left the courtroom.

"I don't know if a lot of good is to be done here ... by sending this man to jail," said his defense attorney, Douglas Harris.

Jurors convicted Wright on three felony fraud charges, concluding he misused or mishandled donations from two companies totaling $7,400 and used a bogus letter to take out a loan to build a museum commemorating Wilmington's 1898 race riots. He faced four counts, but jurors decided he did not mishandle a $1,500 donation from AT&T Corp.

Harris called Wright a "doggone, honest politician" and again blamed his political enemies for instigating the investigation. The Wilmington Democrat is the fourth former state House member to be convicted or plead guilty to a crime in state or federal court since 2006.

"This is just another unpleasant chapter in what we've been dealing with for the last two to three years," said Wake County prosecutor Colon Willoughby. "I think he just forgot who he was supposed to be serving."

Harris said it was unfair to try Wright so soon after he was kicked out of office for ethical misconduct. Wright's colleagues in the House voted overwhelmingly last month to expel Wright from office, following the recommendation of a special legislative ethics panel that investigated allegations almost identical to those Wright faced in court.

"This verdict will be set aside because it's awful, awful justice to try somebody in this atmosphere," Harris said.

Wright consistently denied any wrongdoing, but declined to offer a defense to the ethics panel — as he did earlier before the State Board of Elections — for fear of revealing his criminal trial defense strategy.

Once he finally took the stand last week, he blamed his mistakes on sloppy record keeping and insisted he never showed the letter to a bank loan officer, a key element of that fraud charge. He also said his legal troubles began after he failed to support the re-election of Democratic Sen. Julia Boseman of Wilmington in the November 2006 election.

Wright was the first member of the General Assembly to be expelled from office in 128 years. The eight-term lawmaker is on the ballot for the May 6 primary election, but convicted felons are prohibited from holding political office in North Carolina. It wasn't immediately clear Monday how votes cast for him would be counted.

Harris said jurors were influenced by media coverage of Wright's removal from office and he criticized the judge's decision to allow a State Board of Elections investigator to testify about Wright's alleged violations of the state's campaign finance laws. Prosecutors said Monday they have yet to decide if they will try Wright on those allegations.

"He was just being smeared by a bunch of bad things," Harris said.