A federal judge sentenced a former Maui postal carrier to 41 months in prison Tuesday for helping his friends use the mail to import heroin from the mainland.

U.S. District Senior Judge Susan Oki Mollway gave Michael Trento a little over a month to turn himself in to begin serving his sentence.

Addressing Mollway, Trento said, “I know I committed a terrible crime and put a lot of people at risk. I betrayed the postal service, I betrayed my community.”

He pleaded guilty in July to conspiring to possess and distribute at least 1 kilogram of heroin over nearly a three-year period between 2012 and 2014. He also pleaded guilty to bribery for accepting a portion of each heroin shipment in exchange for his help.

Defense attorney Jefferson Willard said Trento has been addicted to heroin for more than 20 years but was able to hide the addiction from his family.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Tony Roberts said Trento helped import 2,837 grams — more than 6 pounds — of heroin.

Because of the amount of heroin involved, Trento was facing a mandatory minimum 10-year prison sentence.

Mollway, however, said Trento qualifies for a lesser sentence because he is a first-time offender and he provided substantial assistance to investigators.

Willard said Trento helped the U.S. Postal Service check on the rest of its employees. Roberts said the investigation found no other employee involved in the same criminal activity Trento committed.

Prosecutors said former Maui resident Curtis Howard mailed the heroin from Oregon to a vacant address on Trento’s route. When the drug parcels arrived on Maui, Trento took a portion of the heroin and handed the rest over to two other co-defendants, John Fleischauer and Leonard Balgas.

Fleischauer and Howard pleaded guilty last year after Trento. Balgas was scheduled to plead guilty today.

Trento, a 16-year veteran of the U.S. Postal Service, worked as a mail carrier out of the Lahaina Post Office. He retired in mid-April, three weeks after he was indicted, and is receiving a pension.