A former Lehman Brothers broker who shared secrets about pending mergers he learned from his wife's work at a public relations firm dodged prison time Friday by helping prosecutors build an insider trading case that led to the convictions of four others after several people including a former Playboy model and two lawyers made millions of dollars.

US District Judge William Pauley cited the extraordinary cooperation by 38-year-old Matthew Devlin when he said prison time was unnecessary and placed him on probation for three years. But he still spoke harshly of the crime, which was described in court as earning more than $2 million in profits for friends of Devlin who learned tips about deals handled by the high-powered firm where his wife worked. Authorities say the crimes were part of an insider trading ring that garnered nearly $5 million in illegal profits.

The judge told Devlin he was "motivated by a desire for something more even when you had it all."

Devlin pleaded guilty to four counts of conspiracy to commit securities fraud and one count of securities fraud. Without cooperation, federal sentencing guidelines would have called for a sentence of three to four years in prison.

The judge said the crimes "go to the heart of the financial system, the strength of which this nation depends upon." He ordered Devlin to pay a $10,000 fine. Devlin already has forfeited the $23,000 he earned for himself through his tips.

The judge noted that Devlin was a rising star at Lehman Brothers, earning much more money than most Americans, when he took secrets from March 2004 through July 2008 about more than a dozen pending mergers and acquisitions from his wife, Nina Devlin, a partner at Brunswick Group LLC, an international public relations firm.

"There would have been no crime here if Mr. Devlin hadn't started the ball rolling down the hill because he was the source of the inside information," the judge said, calling the crimes "tragic and senseless."