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A North Tonawanda man who helped federal prosecutors foil a California man's attempt to hire him to kill his wife, an heiress to the Warner Bros. entertainment fortune, has been sentenced to two to four years in prison in two unrelated cases.

Richard Matt, 26, received a combined prison term Friday from Erie County Judge John V. Rogowski on charges linked to a 1989 Buffalo rape and a 1991 stabbing attack on the Tonawanda nurse who bore him a child, District Attorney Kevin M. Dillon said.

Matt was sentenced after he was allowed to plead guilty to a felony count of attempted burglary in the rape case and a felony stolen property charge in the stabbing, Dillon said.

Sources said the charge was dropped because the victim was too intoxicated at the time of the attack to provide legally sufficient evidence against Matt.

Matt was indicted last year on assault and weapons possession charges in the stabbing of his former girlfriend, Vee Harris, 31, in her City of Tonawanda home.

While Matt was in the Erie County Holding Center on charges in the rape case, he met David Telstar, 36, of Los Angeles, who had been arrested at the Peace Bridge on Nov. 26, 1991, on charges of embezzling $1.6 million from his wife, Desiree.

Telstar allegedly offered Matt $100,000 to murder her; her stepfather, Stanley Sheinbaum, president of the Los Angeles Police Commission; her mother, Betty Warner Sheinbaum, daughter of the late movie mogul Harry Warner; and Walter Valentine, a family lawyer.

But Matt alerted authorities in late 1991 and more charges were filed against Telstar, who drew a five-year prison term in June.