(Reuters) - A federal judge on Friday sentenced Virginia attorney Timothy Litzenburg, 38, to two years in prison for attempting to extort $200 million from a company that makes a chemical used in Monsanto's Roundup weedkiller.

U.S. District Judge Norman Moon in Charlottesville, Virginia, also sentenced Litzenburg's law partner, Daniel Kincheloe, 41, to one year for his role in the scheme.

"These two attorneys flagrantly violated their ethical duties to their own clients as they sought to extort a company out of $200 million," Brian Rabbitt, acting assistant attorney general of the Justice Department's criminal division, said in a statement after the sentencing hearings. "Attorneys who cross the line and abuse their status as officers of the court will be held accountable for their actions."

Both men pleaded guilty in June to transmitting interstate communications with the intent to extort. Federal prosecutors described Kincheloe's cooperation as essential in securing a guilty plea from Litzenburg, allowing the government to more quickly obtain evidence that might have been subject to claims of attorney-client privilege.

Litzenburg and Kincheloe were name partners at the Richmond-based law firm Kincheloe Litzenburg & Pendleton. Litzenburg was part of the trial team that won a landmark jury verdict against Monsanto, which was found liable for causing cancer in their client, groundskeeper Dewayne Johnson, and ordered to pay $289 million in damages in August 2018.

Bayer purchased Monsanto in June 2018 for $66 billion.

The extortion scheme involved a chemical manufacturing company that prosecutors did not name, but which supplies a product used in Roundup. Starting in October 2019, prosecutors charged, Litzenburg pressed the company's outside counsel to pay him and his co-counsel $200 million or they would make damaging public statements about their product and potentially sue.

The Wall Street Journal reported in December that the lawyers' target was Nouryon, an international chemical manufacturer. The company did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Prosecutors said Kincheloe was on board with the plan, which was pitched to the company as "consulting arrangement" in a clear conflict of interest with the lawyers' clients. The company's $200 million would not have gone to those clients, but to a company Litzenburg and Kincheloe established, prosecutors alleged.

Prosecutors on Friday said Kincheloe reached out to the federal government almost immediately after Litzenburg's arrest and indictment in December. Kincheloe requested only probation from the court, arguing in a Sept. 11 sentencing memorandum that while he aided the extortion scheme, it was Litzenburg who "dictated the course and led the way."

The government sought the maximum two-year sentence for Litzenburg.

Attorneys for Litzenburg and Kincheloe did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The cases are USA v. Litzenburg, U.S. District Court for the Western District of Virginia, No. 3:20-cr-00013, and USA v. Kincheloe, U.S. District Court for the Western District of Virginia, No. 3:20-cr-00014

For Timothy Litzenburg: Jacqueline Reiner of Jacqueline M. Reiner, PLC

For Daniel Kincheloe: William Dinkin of William J. Dinkin, PLC.

For the government in both cases: Heather Carlton of the U.S. attorney's office in Charlottesville and Henry Van Dyck and Lawrence Atkinson of the Justice Department.