Photo: The Canadian Press

A Bahamian man has been sentenced to five years in prison for hacking into celebrities' email accounts to steal scripts and sexually explicit pictures and videos.

Manhattan federal Judge Paul Engelmayer nearly doubled what federal sentencing guidelines recommend as he punished Alonzo Knowles on Tuesday. He said Knowles proved he hasn't learned his lesson by boasting of plans to shock Hollywood with a tell-all book.

Engelmayer said the only way to protect society and more than 100 celebrities in entertainment and sports who had their emails hacked was to keep the 24-year-old man behind bars.

Knowles was arrested after meeting with an undercover agent in Manhattan last December. Prosecutors say Knowles offered to sell "exclusive content" worth "hundreds of thousands of dollars."

Knowles apologized to his victims.