Former Duane Reade CFO William Tennant, 64, was sentenced to three years' probation for his June 2010 securities fraud conviction. He and former CEO Anthony Cuti were tried together on charges they falsely inflated income and misled investors from 2000 to 2005.

and sentenced last month to three years in prison.

On Tuesday, Tennant faced U.S. District Judge Deborah Batts and said, "Please don't send me to jail." She granted his request at the hearing in federal court in Manhattan, after Tennant told Batts he had cooperated in the investigation and suffered from the "long, painful, humbling experience" of the case.

The judge, after the post-trial hearings, found that prosecutors hadn't proved any financial loss resulting from Tennant's crime, according to a Bloomberg News report.

Batts had been tougher on Cuti, whom she called "a gifted, arrogant, driven, entitled individual" who "bullied people into committing fraudulent acts to make the company look better than it actually was" to increase his pay. She also said he was guilty of "the height of hubris" for re-writing his employee compensation plan in way that would allow him to double his compensation even if he was fired for cause, which later occurred, she said.