ANACONDA (AP) — A former nurse convicted of having sex with a man in the custody of a state corrections program has been sentenced to 15 years in prison.

District Judge Ray Dayton of Anaconda sentenced Tisha Ann Brunell, 45, on Wednesday to 25 years in the Montana Women’s Prison with 10 suspended for two counts of sexual intercourse without consent. A five-year sentence for tampering with evidence is to run concurrently. She will not be eligible for parole until she completes two phases of sexual offender treatment.

“I don’t want you to perceive my sentence as one I consider lenient,” Dayton said. 

Jurors listened to hours of phone sex calls between Brunell and two inmates in March, including discussion of sex acts that happened at the Sanction, Treatment, Assessment, Revocation and Transition, or START program. People in state custody cannot legally consent to sex. 

She apologized to the judge and jurors for the phone calls.

“No one should listen to themselves or anyone making phone calls like that,” said Brunell. 

“I absolutely take full responsibility of me being involved with the inmate, giving him my phone number, and talking the way we did,” she said. She still maintained she was innocent of the rape charges and had told investigators that the phone calls were just fantasy. An inmate testified he had sex with Brunell at the START facility.

Prosecutors noted the phone calls indicated the two had intimate knowledge about each other’s bodies and that they talked about Brunell hitting her head on a door jamb during their relations. 

“Could they have made that up if they tried?” Anaconda Deer-Lodge County Attorney Ben Krakowka asked jurors during closing arguments. “These are the kinds of details that go way past just fantasies.”

Brunell has been jailed for more than a year after being charged with tampering with a witness in the case.

Anaconda Police Chief Tim Barkell testified that while in jail, Brunell requested a conjugal visit with another inmate and asked to be placed in a jail block with male sex offenders. She also tried to send a letter to a prison inmate through a third party. Officials found out when the letter was returned to the jail. Barkell said a note on the envelope said, “Do not use me as your pawn to send your mail out.”

Jurors also convicted Brunell of three counts of transferring illegal items, such as tobacco and drugs, to inmates. She also was found guilty of 43 misdemeanor counts of unauthorized communication.

In April she pleaded guilty to tampering with evidence for trying to convince a witness not to testify.

An internal investigation into Brunell began in March 2012 when she was suspended from work for violating a policy by trying to visit a former START patient at the Montana State Prison in Deer Lodge. START is a facility that evaluates men who violate conditions of their parole or probation. Staffers determine whether the offender should be returned to prison.