Of all the ridiculous sentences handed down, this one has to be the worst. UBS private banker Bradley Birkenfeld was this week sentenced to three years four months for conspiring to defraud the US by helping clients to cheat taxes.

Let's forget the fact that Birkenfeld was actually the whistleblower who helped the US crack open the secret Swiss bank accounts. As the Financial Times pointed out earlier this month, none of this would have been possible without Birkenfeld. This was the guy who provided details of how UBS solicited business from rich American clients and helped create structures that enabled them to dodge tax and, in effect, defraud US taxpayers. Why did he do it. Apparently, he was sick of his bosses getting big bonuses for putting pressure on client advisers such as himself to break US laws.

Birkenfeld came forward because he was expecting to get some sort of whistleblower protection. How wrong was that!!

As Bloomberg's legal commentator Ann Woolner says, the sentence is a disgrace. "If you're looking to ferret out waste, fraud and abuse, that notorious trio of government parasites, there is nothing like an insider. That is why Congress has for years passed laws encouraging whistleblowers by offering job protection to government employees and a cut of any funds recovered because of their informing. The Birkenfeld sentence stands as an insult to any claim that the government wants whistleblowers to step up. Fear of retaliation and career suicide make it hard enough to rat on your boss. Now you can add the possibility of prison time as payment for your effort."

Birkenfeld will spend the next few years in jail. But the US Government should not expect too many other whistleblower to come foward now.