NEW YORK (AP)

Defense lawyers say a Turkish banker convicted of helping Iran evade U.S. sanctions deserves leniency, but prosecutors want him locked up for at least 15 years.

U.S. District Judge Richard Berman will sentence Mehmet Hakan Atilla on Wednesday in Manhattan. The 47-year-old Atilla was convicted at a trial that ended in January.

His lawyers say a calculation by court employees that he should serve life in prison is "draconian" and "stupefyingly unreasonable and unjust." They say a prison sentence should be less than four years.

Atilla worked for Turkey's state-run Halkbank when prosecutors say he joined a multiyear conspiracy in 2011 to help Iran launder billions of dollars in Iranian oil proceeds.

A spokesman for Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan (REH'-jehp TY'-ihp UR'-doh-wahn) has called the trial outcome a "scandalous verdict."