Portraying April Goodman as motivated by "evil obsession," a judge Monday sentenced the once aspiring actress to 30 years in prison for hiring an undercover police officer to kill her wealthy ex-husband, Albert Goodman.

"The defendant's homicidal plot was premeditated, well-organized and planned," said Cook County Circuit Judge John Moran.

Had the undercover officer been a real killer, "Albert Goodman would likely be dead today," Moran said.

That comment elicited gasps from Albert Goodman and his friends, who were seated in the courtroom.

"I'm very thankful to be alive," Albert Goodman said outside of court.

He called his former wife "a dangerous person" and said he hoped she would "find some peace of mind" in prison.

April Goodman, 35, was convicted in October of solicitation to commit first degree murder for hiring undercover Chicago Police Officer Peter Bukiri, who was posing as a hired assassin, to kill Albert Goodman for $5,000.

During the dramatic three-day trial in October, jurors heard two tape-recorded conversations of the defendant discussing the plot with Bukiri. In one, she told him "I don't want [Albert Goodman] to live or breathe."

In a second conversation a week later, which was videotaped, April Goodman was seen passing a $1,000 down payment to Bukiri as the two discussed the murder plot in a parked van Aug. 10, 1998.

She was arrested the same day.

Dressed in the light-blue uniform of female county jail inmates, Goodman, who was facing a maximum prison sentence of 40 years, stared directly at the judge as he imposed the sentence. She showed no reaction to the judge's remarks.

She had declined to speak on her own behalf at a sentencing hearing Friday.

The judge appointed the Illinois Appellate Defender's office to represent her in her appeal.

Goodman will be required to serve 85 percent of her sentence, meaning she could be released in about 25 years.

During the trial, prosecutors Kevin Byrne and Michael McHale said Goodman's crime was motivated by greed and revenge. They said she had designs on millions of dollars that Albert Goodman was to inherit from his now deceased mother and added that she had accused him of physical abuse and claimed he had caused the miscarriage of their unborn son.

During the sentencing hearing that began last week, prosecutors introduced the testimony of April Goodman's first husband, Paul Leventhal, who said he began wearing a bulletproof vest after the couple had separated and he received an alarming call from April's psychiatrist or psychologist.

"Anyone who did not experience this trial first-hand would write this off as something from the Hollywood grist mill," McHale said during the sentencing hearing Friday. "She wanted [Albert Goodman] out of the picture. What she wanted was his money--all of his money. The beautiful young woman believed she was entitled to it."

Defense attorneys Thomas Breen and Todd Pugh insisted April Goodman would have had no legal rights to Albert Goodman's money at the time of her arrest since the couple were legally divorced a year earlier.

During the trial, the defense depicted April Goodman as a troubled woman who was twice hospitalized for psychiatric illnesses. She was a victim, they said, of Barry Wolf, her former boyfriend whom she allegedly had solicited to kill her husband, according to testimony at trial.

Wolf went to the police after April Goodman gave him a packet of personal information, including keys to Albert Goodman's home and office, and financial documents.

He set up the first meeting with Bukiri and April Goodman.

Wolf, who was convicted of theft in Cook County and is now awaiting trial on federal fraud charges, was described by defense attorneys as a con artist who preyed on vulnerable women for money.

Moran flatly rejected the defense arguments, saying the evidence undermined the theory that April was set up by Wolf.

"The defendant's obsessive desperation to kill Albert Goodman ... began long before she met Barry Wolf," Moran said. "She spoke of it frequently over a period of months and years. She was so obsessed that she solicited several men who were mere acquaintances."

Three men testified at trial that April had befriended them at Rush Street bars and restaurants and asked them if they could kill her ex-husband.

One of the witnesses notified federal authorities, and an FBI agent called April Goodman, warning her that they had learned that she was talking about having Albert Goodman killed, according to testimony at the trial.

In sentencing Goodman, Moran also did not take into account evidence that indicated she suffered from bi-polar illness--a mood disorder.

Moran noted that April Goodman was receiving medical treatment for her illness prior to her arrest and that a court-ordered psychiatric exam showed she was "symptom free" after her arrest.

"Sadly, in our society today, many people have grievances against other people; real or imagined," Moran said. "People who feel slighted must know that murder is not an option and that the price to be paid is too high to consider it an option.

"Today, the defendant will learn that the price she will pay for her acts is a term of 30 years in the Illinois Department of Corrections."