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A former Missouri legislator was sentenced Friday to five years' probation and ordered to repay $19,874 for his part in a credit card scam.

John L. Bowman Sr., 51, a Democrat from Northwoods, had admitted to one misdemeanor count of bribing a bank official. He paid $1,000 to the scam ringleader in exchange for processing his phony small-business credit card application.

Bowman resigned from the Missouri House of Representatives when he pleaded guilty in January to a reduced offense.

A former Northwoods alderman, Bowman had served a north ¹û½´ÊÓƵ County legislative district for four years and was chairman of the legislative Black Caucus when he resigned.

He was among 17 defendants who were indicted in U.S. District Court in January 2007 along with Robert Conner, a former vice president with Bank of America's branch in Chesterfield, for a credit card scheme that allegedly rang up $1.5 million in fraudulent charges and cash advances.

Bowman originally had been charged with bank fraud and credit card fraud, both felonies, and had faced as much as 40 years in prison.

The indictment alleged that the application Bowman submitted to Conner was for a company known as "Bowman Consulting."

Bowman appeared at the federal courthouse downtown Friday morning before U.S. District Judge Henry Autrey, who imposed the sentence. Autrey also could have given him as much as 12 months in prison and said that his choice of probation "does not diminish the significance or your conduct."

Bowman told the judge he accepted responsibility.

"This is truly one of the most regrettable situations I have found myself in, " Bowman said. "The burden this has put on my family and friends has made it clear to me I would never get involved in anything like this again."

Autrey scolded Bowman for violating the trust of his constituents "at a time when people in the community need to be able to have the greatest amount of faith in their elected officials. ... You had a duty and an obligation to stand above things like this."

After the hearing, Bowman declined to elaborate on his offense. Standing next to his attorney, Scott Rosenblum, Bowman said, "I am looking upon this as a comma in my life, not a period."

He now works in the automation department at Chrysler Corp. in Fenton.

Conner, the former bank official, fainted in the courtroom when he was sentenced Feb. 20 to 9½ years in federal prison. According to prosecutors, Conner took bribes from the other defendants to create phony small-business credit card accounts.

All told, 21 people eventually were charged in the scheme. Some pleaded guilty, others entered pretrial diversion programs to avoid prosecution or had their cases dismissed. Conner was the only one who went to trial. A jury convicted him in November on all 36 counts.