A federal judge on Tuesday sentenced a former Los Alamos National Laboratory employee for stealing gold in 2009 that was contaminated with radioactive material.

Alex Maestas, 46, was sentenced to one year in prison and three years of supervised release by Senior U.S. District Judge C. LeRoy Hansen in Albuquerque.

Prosecutors said Maestas stole 2 ounces of gold worth an estimated $2,000 from a LANL facility. The gold had been irradiated with small amounts of americium and plutonium and posed a serious human health risk, the U.S. Attorney's Office said.

Maestas was arrested March 24, 2009, after he tried to leave the lab's plutonium-processing facility carrying gold shavings in a plastic bag clutched in his fist, according to news reports last year. He was stopped by lab security personnel while trying to leave the work area and later arrested. Lab officials said no one had been exposed to the radioactive material.

According to an April 2006 LANL newsletter, Maestas was then an "NMT-2" staffer completing a fifth anniversary as a a lab employee. NMT stands for "nuclear materials technology," according to lab information.

Maestas was indicted in October with theft of government property and engaging in a prohibited transaction involving nuclear materials, following an investigation by the FBI and the Office of the Inspector General.

Maestas entered a guilty plea in January to theft of government property, prosecutors said. During his plea hearing, Maestas said he stole the gold knowing "the gold was taken from an area that was used to store materials that contained plutonium and nuclear material."

U.S. Attorney Kenneth J. Gonzales said in a statement after the sentencing: "Everyone who works at LANL, no matter what job he or she holds, is entrusted with the important responsibility of safeguarding the property of the laboratory."

"When LANL employees help themselves to lab property, they violate that special trust," Gonzales said. "In this case, Maestas not only violated that special trust by taking gold used in LANL experiments, but did so knowing that the gold was contaminated and could have endangered the lives of his family, friends and neighbors."