A career that began on Sesame Street will end in prison early next year, as disgraced former school executive Brenda Belton was sentenced to 35 months in jail and an additional two years of probation for pilfering hundreds of thousands of dollars from the schools she was supposed to help.

“What you did was to further damage an already crippled system,” federal Judge Ricardo M. Urbina told Belton, 61, as she wiped away tears and squeezed a tissue. “This city deserves better.”