Months after he abducted and tried to extort money from a successful Alberta businessman, Larry McClelland has been sentenced to ten years in prison.

On September 15, 2011, McClelland, now 50, kidnapped successful businessman Blair Vold at gunpoint from his Ponoka-area ranch before trying to extort money from him.

Vold owns one of the largest cattle auctions in Canada, and is associated with the Ponoka Stampede and the Wolf Creek Golf Course.

An agreed statement of facts outlined how McClelland watched Vold for days, before laying a fallen tree across the road – blocking the road out of the Vold Ranch.

When Vold got out of his truck to move the tree, McClelland ambushed him with a gun, tied him up, and held him in his truck for about an hour and a half.

The accused then drove to area banks, and ended up at a branch in Lacombe, where Vold managed to escape.

On Wednesday, a Wetaskiwin courtroom heard McClelland's apology, which said he had been secretly unemployed for some time, in desperate need of money to pay bills and suffering from depression when he came up with the plan to abduct Vold.

"He and his family were trying to keep themselves afloat, and he had been unemployed for four months," Defence lawyer Alex Pringle said. "He got himself to a point where he lost a job at the last minute."

The accused had been lying to his family, claiming he had a job in Fort McMurray at the time.

Members of the Vold family were in court Wednesday, although Blair Vold and his wife chose not to attend.

A victim impact statement was read in court, in an excerpt, Vold talked about the affect his abduction continues to have on his day to day life:

"I always question myself, what would have happened had I not escaped? The two hours I was abducted will always remain as a fear…that never leaves your mind."

The Crown Prosecutor and the defence agreed on the length of sentence, taking into account McClelland's state of mind at the time.

McClelland, who pleaded guilty to charges of kidnapping, extortion and use of a firearm without trial, was given credit for 245 days already served, with just over nine years left in his sentence.

With files from David Ewasuk