U.S. District Judge Mitchell S. Goldberg required Damien Young to serve the first eight weekends of probation in a halfway house and also to perform 75 hours of community service.

Young, 29, formerly of South Philadelphia but now living in Phoenix, had faced up to six months behind bars under advisory sentencing guidelines.

Defense attorney Catherine Henry said Young had made a "serious error in judgment" that ultimately cost him a job as an analyst for United Health Group in Arizona. She argued for probation, noting that Young had no prior criminal record.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Stephen Miller had argued for some jail time. "The seriousness of the offense speaks for itself," he told Goldberg.

Co-defendant Roshid Milledge, a customer-service representative for U.S. Airways who had been involved in the smuggling scheme, is to be sentenced Monday.

Young and Milledge pleaded guilty last summer to boarding an aircraft carrying a concealed dangerous weapon.

Authorities said Young, a roommate of Milledge, was moving to Phoenix at the time of the incident to begin his new job.

Before boarding the flight, Milledge handed Young a black carry-on bag that Milledge had brought into the airport earlier that morning through an employee's entrance, the feds' sentencing memo said.

Inside the bag was an unloaded Smith & Wesson 9-millimeter semiautomatic handgun and no ammunition.

After Young was seated, an airline official and Philadelphia cop approached him and told him he would need to exit the plane and bring his carry-on bags with him.

Young grabbed a suit bag from an overhead bin but initially left the black carry-on bag Milledge had given him on the plane, court papers said.

But Young explained in court yesterday that he hadn't grabbed both bags initially because he thought authorities would "clear up" the matter without his having to leave the plane. Then, he said, he reached up and grabbed the black bag after being advised that he had to exit the aircraft.

After his arrest, Young told authorities that he had asked Milledge about procedures he would have to follow to transport his handgun on the flight and that Milledge told him he would assist Young to circumvent screening procedures, court papers said.