Activist and journalist Barrett Brown was sentenced in a Dallas, Texas federal court Thursday to 63 months in federal prison and ordered to pay nearly $900,000 in restitution and fines.

Brown, 33, pleaded guilty to charges of transmitting threats, accessory to a cyber attack, and obstruction of justice for interfering with the execution of a search warrant. He faced a maximum sentence of eight years over charges stemming from his alleged involvement with the hacker-activist collective Anonymous, after Brown in 2012 shared a link to a cache of emails and credit card data stolen by Anonymous hacker Jeremy Hammond from Austin-based think tank Stratfor. Hammond was sentenced to 10 years in prison in 2013.

Brown was arrested in 2012 after he threatened a federal agent in a video uploaded to YouTube. The video came six months after the FBI conducted a search on Brown’s apartment and the home of his mother in search of material related to Anonymous and a splinter hacking group known as LulzSec. Agents confiscated a laptop, but did not charge Brown with a crime. In the video, Brown demanded that investigators return the computer, threatening that he would “ruin” the life of FBI agent Robert Smith and “look into his fucking kids” if Brown’s property was not given back to him.

Brown’s legal team described the charges thusly: “This breaks down to uploading YouTube videos that contained unfortunate statements, efforts to redact sensitive e-mails that had been procured by hackers, and hiding laptops in a kitchen cabinet.”

Activists, journalists, and other supporters of Brown, including Hammond himself, had hoped he would be able to walk away from the charges after having already served two years in prison awaiting trial. His backers coordinated a letter-writing campaign to seek leniency on his behalf in 2014.

In his sentencing statement Thursday morning, Brown told U.S. District Judge Sam Lindsay, “The fact that the government has still asked you to punish me for that link is proof, if any more were needed, that those of us who advocate against secrecy are to be pursued without regard for the rule of law, or even common decency.”