1:43 AM EST

A federal judge sentenced John McTiernan, the director of action movies including “Die Hard” and “Predator,” to four months in prison on Monday for the crime of lying to an agent from the FBI about McTiernan's hiring of private investigator Anthony Pellicano to wiretap the producer of one of his films.

Mr. McTiernan, 56, became the first Hollywood notable to be sentenced to jail because of dealings with Pellicano, who is awaiting trial on charges of masterminding a long-running wiretapping conspiracy on behalf of Hollywood stars, and big shot studio executives.

According to prosecutors, Mr. McTiernan paid Mr. Pellicano $50,000 to wiretap Charles Roven, one of the many producers of McTiernan's remake of “Rollerball,” in August 2000. But he denied having done so when an F.B.I. agent called to ask him about it in February 2006.

Two months later, the director pleaded guilty to a false-statement charge and offered his cooperation to federal prosecutors digging into Pellicano’s electronic-eavesdropping operation. But after prosecutors made clear that they thought he was not being truthful and would seek a prison sentence, McTiernan hired  a new set of lawyers and sought to withdraw his guilty plea and take his chances at trial.

Federal District Judge Dale S. Fischer rejected that attempt. She appeared angry at McTiernan, and referred to him as "a world-famous director."

“If anything, Mr. McTiernan’s privileged background is an aggravating factor,” she said, imposing a $100,000 fine in addition to the prison sentence. Mr. McTiernan has until January 15, 2008 to surrender. McTiernan's new lead lawyer, Milton Grimes, said he would appeal the ruling.

McTiernan was also ordered to surrender his passport. It was unclear what his sentence would mean for a movie he was preparing to film in Argentina, “Run,” about an Interpol agent who uncovers a conspiracy while pursuing a murder suspect.

The sentence was considered light compared with the many years Mr. Pellicano could face if convicted at his trial in February on racketeering and other charges. But it was severe given that federal prosecutors’ guidelines advise against charging people who merely deny their crimes without embellishing their denials with further lies.

In court on Monday, Assistant United States Attorney Daniel A. Saunders stated that McTiernan lied in insisting to prosecutors that Roven was the only person he had hired Pellicano to wiretap. Saunders expressed a belief that McTiernan had previously hired Pellicano to wiretap someone else, believed to be his former wife Donna Dubrow during their 1997 divorce.

McTiernan, wearing brown cowboy boots and a blue blazer, did not speak when given the chance by the judge. His new lawyers argued that on the night he received the call from the F.B.I. agent, he was jet-lagged from a location-scouting trip to Thailand, had contracted typhoid and had stopped taking his antidepressant medication.

According to The New York Times, McTiernan's lawyers asked for no prison time, saying that his Wyoming ranch, where he raises beefalo, a cross of cattle and bison, would suffer, and that his ranch hands could lose their jobs if he were absent for an extended time.

But Judge Fischer said she found their arguments “completely lacking in credibility.”  McTiernan, she added, had taken two years to make the 1987 movie “Predator” and left Wyoming to work on other projects more recently, and yet the ranch had somehow managed to survive. In a wrestling-related part of this story, and not the only one, one of the scene-stealers in "Predator" was the future Governor of Minnesota, Jesse "The Body" Ventura, in perhaps his best role ever, as Sergeant Blaine.

The judge also scolded McTiernan, according to the Times,  for saying in an e-mail message to his previous lawyer that he was “offended” at the idea he could be prosecuted because he had “refused to make movies in which F.B.I. agents are the bad guys,” and for complaining that his legal woes could get in the way of his making a “patriotic movie.”

The judge also noted that McTiernan had arranged to pay Pellicano by overpaying his own assistant by $50,000, thus involving another person in the wiretapping scheme “so it would not be traceable to him.”

Mr. Grimes said he was “gravely disappointed” by the sentence and took exception to the judge’s characterization of McTiernan as someone who “lived a privileged life and simply wants to continue that.”

Describing his client McTiernan, Grimes stated to the media, “He’s probably one of the most down-to-earth people I’ve met from Hollywood in my 30 years working here."

McTiernan's collaboration with Roven on "Rollerball" was besieged with problems, leading star Chris Klein's fading popularity as the movie was being filmed, and a sub par script that fell apart despite strong performances by "The Professional"s Jean Reno and a surprisingly excellent Paul Heyman. The movie, whose scheduled release was pushed back after the 9/11 attacks, was finally released in February, 2002, and grossed nearly $12 million in its first weekend.