NEW YORK – A United Nations translator was sentenced to a year in prison for using U.N. stationery and fraudulent documents to smuggle people into the United States from Uzbekistan.

Vyacheslav Manokhin, a Russian national who had been living in Greenwich, Conn., pleaded guilty in March to one count of conspiring to obtain visas by means of false statements.

The visas were supposed to be for foreigners attending U.N. conferences in the U.S., but either the gatherings never took place or the visa holders didn't attend them, prosecutors said. Manokhin forged invitations to the conferences from a nonexistent U.N. official.

He apologized at his sentencing Thursday, though he said he didn't initially think what he did was illegal.

“I learned my lesson. I paid a huge price for this,” he said.

Prosecutors said Manokhin was a key accomplice in the schemehatched by a fellow translator, Vladimir Derevianko, who worked fora Manhattan lawyer.

One of the Uzbek travelers paid $15,000 for the pair's helpgetting the travel papers.

Manokhin has already spent 9½ months in prison, so he is likelyto remain for only another two months. Manokhin's attorney, JamesRoth, said he and his family are likely to be deported to Russiaupon his release.

Derevianko, a former KGB informant who was granted politicalasylum in the U.S. in 2004 after running afoul of organized crimefigures and government officials in Ukraine, also pleaded guiltyand was sentenced earlier this month to the nine months he hadserved following his arrest.