Bradley Manning was just 22 when he leaked his trove of Pentagon and State Department secrets to WikiLeaks in 2010. By the time he’s released from prison after serving his sentence for those leaks, he may be close to 56 years old.

After a three month trial, military judge Denise Lind on Wednesday morning sentenced Manning to 35 years in prison under the Espionage Act for giving WikiLeaks hundreds of thousands of classified files regarding the Iraq war, the war in Afghanistan, and the Guantanamo Bay military prison, along with more than a quarter million secret State Department memos. That sentence, much longer than Manning had offered to serve in a plea bargain that was largely rejected, represents the longest Espionage Act prison term ever handed out for leaking state secrets to the press.

Manning was convicted last month of 19 charges related to his document disclosures, including 12 Espionage Act and theft charges as well as others including wrongfully storing classified information and misusing computer equipment. He was acquitted of other charges including the most serious charge of “aiding the enemy,” which could have led to a life sentence, but still faced as many as 136 years in prison.

Manning may be able to seek parole after serving one third of his sentence, and has already spent three years in jail since he was first identified as the source of the WikiLeaks releases. He was also credited with serving 112 days of his sentence after Judge Lind ruled that he was improperly treated during his detainment at a facility in Quantico, Virginia. That mistreatment included being kept in solitary confinement, forced to sleep naked nightly. Thanks to those possible shortenings of his prison term, WikiLeaks’ Twitter feed called Wednesday’s outcome a “significant strategic victory,” pointing out that he may be eligible for release in less than 9 years.

Even so, Manning’s sentence is far longer than any other Espionage Act prison term for releasing information to the media in U.S. history. “I don’t think there’s ever been a sentence remotely like this for a leak to the press,” says Ben Wizner, director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Speech, Privacy & Technology Project. “This is the longest sentence by far.”

Manning is only one of seven individuals to be prosecuted under the Obama administration for leaking classified information to the press in recent years. John Kiriakou, a former CIA official, was sentenced earlier this year to 30 months in prison for revealing the name of a covert CIA agent to a freelance journalist. In 2010, FBI translator Shamai Leibowitz was sentenced to 20 months in prison for giving classified secrets to the blog Tikun Olam. Former NSA analyst Tom Drake had his felony Espionage Act charges reduced to misdemeanor charges of computer misuse and was sentenced to a year of probation. So far Manning remains the only defendant to be convicted under Espionage Act charges for his leaks–the others were convicted only of lesser crimes.

Among other leakers to the media, only Daniel Ellsberg, who gave the New York Times and other newspapers the 7,000 page top secret Pentagon Papers in 1971, has faced an Espionage Act prison sentence anywhere near as long as Manning’s. Ellsberg’s charges promised a maximum of 115 years in prison, though he was freed after his case was declared a mistrial due to improper behavior on the part of the prosecutors and the Nixon administration’s attempts to prejudice the judge in his case.

During the sentencing phase of his prosecution earlier this month, Manning apologized for the first time for his leaks, which he’s argued throughout the trial were meant to serve the public interest by exposing wrongdoing. “I am sorry for the unintended consequences of my actions,” he told the court. “When I made these decisions I believed I was going to help people, not hurt people.”

Manning’s defense can still seek an appeal, and Bradley Manning Defense Network activist Nathan Fuller argues there are grounds for one based on factors like Manning’s 11-month pre-trial solitary confinement, the three year delay before his trial began, and comments made by President Obama himself and captured on video, declaring that Manning “broke the law” before his trial had started.

Nonetheless, Fuller admits that he’s “crushed” by Wednesday’s outcome. “I think it’s a tragedy that Bradley might have to spent decades in prison,” Fuller says. “This is going to do exactly what the government asked the judge to do: Send a message…No one can release any information, no matter what crimes or corruption it may expose.”

Source: BBCNews