Curt Rude will serve five years probation and perform 200 hours of community service, though he could come away with a clean record, an Olmsted County judge ruled Monday.

The on-leave captain of the Austin Police Department, who was found guilty of felony drug possession by a jury in November, will not serve jail time and will not have the felony on his record if he complies with his probation. It is still unclear if Rude — who has been working as a truck driver since being put on leave — will ever be able to work with the APD or another police force again.

Judge Kevin Lund did not sentence Rude on a lesser charge of interfering with property in official custody.

The 12-member jury also acquitted Rude on a third charge of felony theft during the trial.

Rude’s attorney Peter Wold said after the sentencing that the terms were fair.

“(Rude) is not a drug user. Never has been,” the attorney said. “He was completely clean.”

Wold said he is not sure if Rude’s clean slate — assuming he follows the terms of his probation — will allow him to work as a police officer again, but he did say the lack of a criminal record in this case is “a great opportunity” for Rude.

“(The sentence) was fully appropriate,” Wold said.

Before the sentencing, Austin police chief Paul Philipp said no determination on Rude’s future with the department would be coming Monday.

Philipp said the APD will wait for the Minnesota Peace Officers Standards and Training Board — the body that regulates police licensing in the state — to make a decision regarding Rude.

That decision, Philipp said, would not come right after the sentencing.

The POST Board could not be reached for comment before press time Monday.

Philipp said if Rude is allowed to keep his license, the on-leave captain would still face a hearing before the Austin Police Civil Service Commission over whether he could remain with the department.

Asked if he wanted to see Rude back with the APD, the chief said “it is probably not appropriate for me to answer that question” before other issues are resolved.

However, Philipp did have some strong words for Rude in an e-mail he sent to Ross Leuning, the state prosecutor in the case.

Leuning cited parts of the e-mail as he argued for a stricter sentence. In short, the letter claims that Rude’s actions created a “breach of trust between the department and the public” that will be “difficult to restore.” Philipp also wrote that it is “hard to put into the words the damage that has been done to the Austin Police Department” by this incident.

Charges were originally filed against Rude in November 2007 after he took two bottles of the prescription painkiller OxyContin prescribed to Mark Johnson from the APD’s evidence room.

Johnson, a close friend of Rude’s and a former KAAL-TV reporter, died of an OxyContin overdose earlier that year.

Wold said the scars from the death of a friend, as well as the “disappointment” over last month’s verdict, did not simply vanish with Monday’s sentencing.

“It brings to an end a chapter (in Rude’s life),” Wold said. “But it certainly doesn’t end the whole book.”