PORTLAND — A judge has sentenced Brandon Brown of Portland to 17 years in prison for a shooting in 2008 that left a U.S. Marine paralyzed from the waist down.

Brown, 23, was convicted of attempted murder and elevated aggravated assault following a trial in November.

Brown shot James Sanders, 29, around midnight on June 24, 2008. The two had been in a physical confrontation outside a nightclub in Portland’s Old Port.

Sanders, a Marine sergeant who had served as a sniper in Iraq and Afghanistan, moved to Atlanta after the shooting to be near family.

A few months before the shooting, Sanders was a bouncer at the Platinum Plus strip club in Portland and threw Brown out of the club after an altercation between Brown and another patron.

The prosecutor, Deputy District Attorney Meg Elam, said Brown held a grudge from the incident. At the trial, one of Brown’s friends testified that Brown told her he would get revenge against Sanders, and that he wanted to shoot him.

Brown denied ever saying that. He told the jury that he didn’t like Sanders and was angry about the force the bouncer used in tossing him from Platinum Plus, but that he didn’t hold a grudge.

Brown said Sanders tackled him in the moments before the shooting, and that he shot Sanders because he feared for his own life and thought Sanders was reaching for a knife.

After a four-hour hearing at Cumberland County Superior Court today, Justice Thomas Warren sentenced Brown to 27 years in prison, but he suspended 10 years. Warren also ordered Brown to do 300 hours of community service and pay a $10,000 fee to Sanders and his aunt to help make Sanders’ home and vehicle accessible for him.

If Brown gets full credit for good behavior, he will likely get out of prison around 2023, when he will be 36 years old.