ATLANTA (AP) — A former U.S. State Department employee was sentenced Monday to serve nearly five years in federal prison for accessing young women’s online accounts from his computer at the American embassy in London and threatening to expose their sexually explicit photos.

Michael C. Ford, 36, sent “phishing” emails to women, specifically targeting members of sororities and aspiring models. He claimed to be a member of Google’s account deletion team, which doesn’t exist, to get them to hand over their passwords, prosecutors said.

U.S. District Judge Eleanor Ross sentenced him to four years and nine months in prison followed by three years on supervised release. Ross granted a request to delay the start of his prison term until after Aug. 1 so that he can be present when his wife is due to give birth to their second child in late July.

Ford told the judge he was feeling small and looked down upon in his personal and professional lives and retreated into an online world where the people he was interacting with didn’t seem real, he said. He’s truly sorry to his victims, he said.

“What I did was a low and cowardly act by a person who was desperate,” he said .

He wanted to get caught so he’d be fired and could leave an unbearable work situation without having to say he was a quitter, he said, adding that he suffered from severe depression and suicidal thoughts. He cried as he addressed the judge.