UPDATE 1-Ex-Brocade exec gets 4 months in options case

(Adds comments from proceedings, details on sentencing, byline)

By Philipp Gollner

SAN FRANCISCO, March 19 (Reuters) - Brocade Communications Systems Inc's (BRCD.O: Quote, Profile, Research) former personnel director was sentenced to four months in prison on Wednesday for backdating stock-options awards for employees.

Stephanie Jensen, 50, was also sentenced to one year of supervised release after serving her prison term and fined the maximum of $1.25 million. She must spend the first three months after her release in a halfway house.

Judge Charles Breyer of U.S. District Court in San Francisco allowed Jensen to remain free pending an appeal. Jensen and her lawyers declined to comment after sentencing.

Jensen is the second person found guilty of criminal charges related to manipulation of stock option grants in a widespread scandal that has led to billions of dollars in financial restatements and ensnared more than 200 U.S. companies in the past two years.

A jury convicted Jensen in December of one count of falsifying company books and one count of conspiracy. Brocade's former chief executive, Gregory Reyes, was sentenced in January to 21 months in prison and fined $15 million after a jury convicted him in August of 10 counts related to backdating. He is free pending an appeal.

Breyer said Jensen's sentence should deter others and encourage them to report corporate misconduct.

He told the former vice president of human resources that her sentence should send "a message to individuals who may be confronted with a situation very similar to the one you were confronted with, and that if they don't say 'no,' they are going to spend a lifetime regretting the decision they have made."