SANTA ROSA -- Piedmont oncologist Dr. Maurice Wolin, who challenged his prosecution in connection with a sexual predator sting operation in Petaluma in August 2006, was sentenced to three years probation and two months in the Sonoma County jail Wednesday in Sonoma County Superior Court.

Wolin, 52, pleaded no contest on Dec. 17 to attempting to commit a lewd or lascivious act with a child under age 14.

At the time, Judge Arthur Wick told Wolin he would not send him to prison but would require him to serve three years probation, serve some time in the county jail and require him to register as a sex offender for the rest of his life, Sonoma County District Attorney Stephan Passalacqua said.

Wick also said Wolin could apply for an alternative to serving the county jail term. Alternatives typically include home confinement or community service. Wick said Wolin could not withdraw his no-contest plea if those alternatives are not available to him.

Passalacqua said his office concurred with the Sonoma County Probation Department's recommendation of three years probation, six months in the county jail and registration as a sex offender.

Passalacqua said Wolin's sentence is in line with the sentences imposed in approximately 20 prior cases arising out of the 2006 NBC Dateline television program, "To Catch a Predator" sting operation. He said there are still about a half-dozen cases pending.

Wolin was among 31 men who were arrested after they drove to a Petaluma house to have sex with young girls they had conversed with online.

Dateline NBC interviewed and filmed some of the men at the house and their subsequent arrest as part of its "To Catch a Predator" program.

Defense attorney Blair Berk argued at Wolin's preliminary hearing in Oct. 2007 that Wolin was entrapped by police and Perverted Justice founder Xavier Von Erck, who posed as 13-year-old "willowfilipino" during instant messaging chats with Wolin over a four-day period.

Berk said Wolin told the 18-year-old actress who greeted the men at the Petaluma house, "I can't" when she asked Wolin to join her in a hot tub.

She said Wolin was there for only 49 seconds and started to leave when he noticed video monitors used in the sting operation behind a screen.

She said Von Erck initiated the online conversations and he badgered Wolin and called him a "chicken, a liar and a player'" when Wolin balked at meeting "willowfilipino" two days before his arrest.

Deputy District Attorney Brian Staebell argued during the preliminary hearing that Wolin, whose online name was "talldreamydoc," engaged in "classic grooming behavior" and that his driving 60 miles to the Petaluma house was an act in furtherance of an attempt to commit a lewd act.