A federal judge last week sentenced Mohammed Chowdhury, 47, to 92 months in federal prison for trying to hire somebody to kill his wife after she kicked him out of their house and took up with another man - whom he also wanted to have killed.

Chowdhury’s initial killer for hire absconded with the money Chowdhury paid him, then contacted the FBI, which sent a trio of undercover agents to persuade Chowdhury to hire them instead.

He did, but only after trying to bargain them down from their initial $10,000 price for each murder to just $4,000 apiece, which he told them was all he could afford as a convenience-store clerk. And he wanted to pay on the installment plan.

Chowdhury, a Bangladeshi immigrant who lives in Dorchester, pleaded guilty in January to two counts of using interstate commerce facilities in the commission of murder-for-hire.

In a sentencing memorandum, prosecutors called for a nine-year sentence, saying that “Chowdhury checked every box necessary to arrange for his ex-wife’s and the new partner’s murders – that is, he satisfied every element of a murder-for-hire that would result in his ex-wife’s and new partner’s actual homicide – and only escaped commission of a capital crime because the contract killer he hired was actually an undercover federal agent. Put simply, if ever there was a defendant deserving of a 108-month prison sentence, Chowdhury is it.”

Chowdhury’s attorney argued for a sentence of 87 months, saying that his client initially sought to hire the undercover agents merely to beat up his wife and her boyfriend, and that it was the agents who kept pushing him toward murder.

Prosecutors disagreed, arguing: “Though the victims in this case were not, in fact, killed, the defendant’s conduct was extraordinarily serious, horrifying, and deserving of a significant sentence – specifically, nine years – of incarceration.”