A Barrie, Ont., man who spent 10 years in a psychiatric hospital for the shooting death of an Ottawa sportscaster was sentenced to two years in prison Thursday for assaulting a U.S. border agent in Buffalo, N.Y., last November.

A federal judge in Buffalo told Jeffrey Arenburg, 51, that he was concerned because the attack on the Customs and Border Protection officer happened less than a year after Arenburg was released from mental health supervision.

In 1995, Arenburg shot to death Brian Smith, a sportscaster with Ottawa television station CJOH, in the station's parking lot.

Arenburg was found not criminally responsible in the slaying because he suffered from paranoid schizophrenia. He was sent to a psychiatric hospital in Penetanguishene, Ont., but the Ontario Review Board granted him unconditional discharge in 2006.

Arenburg was convicted of assault for sucker-punching the officer, who questioned him as he tried to enter the U.S. at the Peace Bridge.

Officers at the bridge said Arenburg had already been refused entry to the U.S. three weeks earlier because of his past problems with the law in Canada.

Prosecutors had sought a four-year prison term.