PORTLAND – A federal judge has sentenced a Monmouth man to nearly four years in prison for illegally possessing a firearm.

Shane Rines, 35, was sentenced to 46 months in prison after pleading guilty to possessing at his home a stolen Ruger .22-caliber pistol, Assistant U.S. Attorney Darcie McElwee said Wednesday.

That gun was one of three stolen from a Phillips home on Oct. 18, 2006. The other weapons were a Les Baer .38-caliber semiautomatic pistol and a Smith & Wesson .22-caliber revolver.

All three firearms were recovered by the Central Maine Violent Crimes Task Force.

Rines was living at an Auburn apartment at the time of the crime, McElwee said.

Rines had been convicted of numerous felonies, including a 2002 federal firearms offense and two revocations of federal supervised release in 2007 and 2008.

Prosecutors were seeking a longer sentence than called for by federal sentencing guidelines, citing Rines’ extensive criminal record. U.S. District Judge D. Brock Hornby granted the request.

The case was part of Maine’s Project Safe Neighborhoods initiative, which is aimed at reducing gun violence and illegal gun possession. U.S. Attorney Paula Silsby said investigations leading to indictments as part of the initiative were conducted by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, Central Maine Violence Task Force, Auburn Police Department, Lewiston Police Department and Maine State Police.