Leonard F. Pickell Jr., former president of the James Beard Foundation, has been sentenced to one to three years in prison for stealing thousands of dollars from the culinary organization, the New York Times reports.

Pickell pleaded guilty in January to second-degree grand larceny in the theft of more than $50,000, but assistant state attorney general Johanna Sullivan told the judge that in the past three years, he actually stole more than $1.1 million in cash and payments for travel, flowers, rented limousines, parties, a BMW, and other unauthorized personal expenses. He has done "irreparable financial and reputational harm to the foundation," she said, and he does not have a "psychological disorder, a desire to please the wealthy and fit in with them," as the defense claimed.

Pickell said he was relieved both by the sentence, which he called "fair," and by the end of his tenure as chief of the foundation. "It grew into so many personalities, so many responsibilities," he said. "By the end, I was about to crack." From the time he joined the group in 1988, shortly after its founding, to his departure last summer — after it was revealed that, between 2001 and 2003, the organization had failed to file tax returns, could not account for over a million dollars in revenue, and was spending less than 1 percent of its revenues on scholarships for culinary students — the Beard Foundation grew from a debt-ridden organization to the most prominent culinary charity in the country, with $4.7 million in revenues. Pickell became president in 1995.

According to his lawyer, the board approved his expenses and budgets every year, but he had been unable to distinguish between some expenses that benefited him and those that benefited the foundation. Pickell repeatedly declined to be paid for his work, but the decision to reject compensation "does not mean that he can compensate himself from the funds of a charitable organization," Sullivan said.