The former attorney for the City of Mount Vernon has begun serving a prison sentence in a corruption case.

The attorney for Lawrence Porcari says he surrendered earlier this month.

Porcari was convicted of diverting $360,000 from the city’s Board of Water Supply to pay then Mayor Richard Thomas’s lawyer and a public relations firm. He was sentenced to one to three years.

An appellate court upheld the conviction last month.

Porcari’s lawyer says he must serve one year before he is eligible for parole.

Stephen Lewis called Porcari’s conviction a terrible travesty of justice.