Calling him arrogant, reckless and without remorse, a judge on Wednesday sentenced a former police chief to 32 months in prison for breaking in to the home of a surrogate mother who was carrying twins for the actors Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick.

“Your attorney began this trial by saying what you did may have been stupid but it wasn’t criminal,” the judge, John M. Solovan of Belmont County Court, told the former chief, Barry P. Carpenter. “I disagree. It was stupid, and it was criminal.”

A jury last month found Mr. Carpenter guilty of receiving stolen property and tampering with evidence and theft in office, though it acquitted him of the three most serious charges of burglary.

He was the police chief of Martins Ferry, Ohio, and prosecutors accused him and two other men, including another police chief, of conspiring to steal items from the surrogate’s home and sell them to tabloid newspapers.

Judge Solovan told Mr. Carpenter, 40, that he gave him the most time — two years — on the felony charge of tampering with evidence because “this offense is more significant than the theft in office because the cover-up is always more significant.”