MIAMI - A former University of South Carolina president was sentenced Monday to three years in prison for scheming with an undercover officer to get visas under false names and to launder drug money.

James Holderman, 68, of Charleston, will face three years' probation and will have to do community service after completing his sentence. U.S. District Judge Paul Huck denied him bond and sent him straight to prison.

Holderman, who has been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, had no visible reaction when the sentence was announced.

"For me, time is pretty precious," he told the judge before being sentenced. "I've been told many times that I'm bipolar, a manic depressive. ... I'm slipping daily in my short-term memory."

He was convicted in September on all four counts: conspiracy to launder money, attempted laundry of money, conspiracy to sell false immigration documents and offering to sell false immigration documents.

The maximum sentence he faced was seven years, three months.

Defense attorney Neil Nameroff said he would appeal the conviction and the sentence.

Holderman had said the FBI lured him into crimes he never intended to commit while he was desperate for money to treat his mental illness.

In the FBI sting, Holderman brought a protege, former Dallas college administrator Rafael Diaz Cabral, into dealings with the officer, who was posing as a drug-dealing Russian mobster.

Diaz testified against Holderman in exchange for a 14-month sentence.

Prosecutors said Holderman and Diaz agreed to accept $250,000 in drug profits for the purchase of a casino license from Diaz's father in the Dominican Republic.

Holderman testified that he took $30,000 from Miami Beach police Detective Sgt. Peter Smolyanski as part of his own "charade" to get mental health treatment.

Smolyanski told the pair he wanted U.S. visas for himself and up to 200 associates and $500,000 to $1 million a month in clean profits from his crimes.