A former government official hailed for helping two people escape the World Trade Center on 9/11 has received a prison sentence for taking payoffs related to the cleanup.

Mark Jakubek was sentenced yesterday to one to three years in prison. The defense plans to seek bail while a planned appeal plays out.

Yesterday’s sentencing was specifically about a case in which Jakubek took payoffs to let a company overbill for work on the trade center cleanup and other projects, but it was peppered with broader references to the terror attacks and Jakubek’s role in rescuing people from them.

The Port Authority official could have received as much as 25 years behind bars.

He previously spent about a year in prison for a separate case. In that case, he admitted taking kickbacks to hasten payments to contractors whose bills got lost in the attacks.