In a highly unusual case, a man who swindled a Richmond bank out of $450,000 was sentenced yesterday to an initial one day in jail and told to surrender his golf clubs.

Charles L. Ellinger O'Brien, a former loan officer for SunTrust Bank, also was ordered to serve 52 additional days in jail on weekends along with three years of home detention and electronic monitoring.

Though he faced 41 to 51 months in prison under federal-sentencing guidelines, O'Brien appeared more anxious than relieved as he was led from the courtroom yesterday in handcuffs, with his tie, belt and other personal items taken away.

"I've never seen a case like this," U.S. District Judge Robert E. Payne told O'Brien minutes earlier. "A fair sentence would include 41 months" in prison, he said.

But the judge said he had to consider O'Brien's unusual needs caused by a combination of a brain injury, bipolar disorder and other problems, some of which the judge said the U.S. Bureau of Prisons either cannot or will not address adequately.

Payne said that while a prison sentence was required for deterrence, punishment and public safety, prison should not harm O'Brien beyond appropriate punishment or prevent him from recovering from an illness.

"Even if the illness is caused by his own stupidity," added the judge, who noted that O'Brien's May 2004 brain injury was caused when "he got drunk and fell down the stairs. . . . He is not a very sympathetic defendant."

Payne also said O'Brien "is without doubt guilty of a very sophisticated duplicity."

O'Brien, 40, a 1989 graduate of Hampden-Sydney College, stole $450,000 from SunTrust Bank by fraudulently obtaining a loan in 2001. The money supposedly was to be used to raise funds for the Hampden-Sydney Foundation he had created.

Instead of helping his alma mater, the money underwrote his membership at Kinloch Golf Club in Goochland County and the purchase of 10 cars, including a Mercedes-Benz and a Porsche. He continued his semiannual interest payments on the loan using the original principal until 2006.

O'Brien has bipolar disorder and a history of alcohol abuse, and he was disabled permanently by the brain injury.

His psychiatrists say O'Brien needs 10 daily medications in a regimen that took years to perfect and costs $1,200 a month. An independent expert said O'Brien's mental health could be jeopardized if care isn't taken in changing his drugs.

The U.S. Bureau of Prisons would not guarantee the treatment regimen would not be altered.

Assistant U.S. Attorney David T. Maguire yesterday urged a prison term within the sentencing guidelines. He said that one or two months after his brain injury, O'Brien was playing golf. O'Brien also was capable of continuing his fraud into 2006, Maguire said.

"The Bureau of Prisons can handle this defendant's manic depression," he said.

But O'Brien's lawyer, Craig S. Cooley, said that as far as the Bureau of Prisons treatment plans for O'Brien are concerned, it is clear "their intent is to do it the way they want to do it."

Cooley said that because of the brain injury and his treatment for manic depression, O'Brien is "a very different person than the person who initiated the fraudulent loan."

According to court papers, since August 2005 things have not gone well for O'Brien -- he has been convicted of bank fraud, divorced, given limited visitation with his young son, lost his friends, and lives on disability and Social Security.

Among other things, the judge ordered O'Brien not to play golf; surrender his golf clubs; pay all the costs of his electronic monitoring; continue with his mental-health and brain-injury treatment; attend a substance-abuse program; and pay $450,000 in restitution.

Contact Frank Green at (804) 649-6340 or fgreen@timesdispatch.com.