Kansas City, Mo. ? The wife of pharmacist Robert R. Courtney was sentenced Friday to one day of unsupervised probation for lying to federal investigators about a bag of cash she had received from her father-in-law.

Laura Courtney, 43, was sentenced immediately after pleading guilty in federal court to a single count of making a false statement to investigators. Prosecutors stressed there was no evidence that she had any advance knowledge of the drug dilution scheme of her husband.

Courtney, 50, was sentenced in December to 30 years in prison. He pleaded guilty in February 2002 to 20 counts of adulterating, misbranding and tampering with the cancer drugs Taxol and Gemzar. But Courtney admitted in his plea agreement that his dilutions had been more extensive, affecting as many as 4,200 patients, 400 doctors and 98,000 prescriptions. Courtney said he diluted the drugs to make money.

Laura Courtney, who has gotten a job and moved from the large house she shared with her husband, addressed the judge before she was sentenced. “I’d like to tell the court I’m very sorry for my actions,” she said. “It’s not normal behavior. I acted out of fear that everything would be taken from me and my children, and we’d be left with nothing.”

Prosecutors said that on Aug. 15, 2001 — the day after a federal criminal complaint was filed that charged Robert Courtney with diluting cancer medications — he delivered a bag containing $168,838.50 in cash to his father, Robert L. Courtney, who gave the money to Laura Courtney. She then gave the money to relatives for safekeeping.

At the time, Assistant U.S. Atty. Gene Porter said authorities were investigating Robert Courtney’s involvement in illegal activities that involved cash transactions.

Laura Courtney said she had no knowledge that her husband gave his father a large amount of cash when she was interviewed on Aug. 31, 2001. It wasn’t until March 2002 that Laura Courtney reported the existence of the bag of cash. The money since has been added to a fund that will be used to compensate victims of Courtney’s drug dilutions.