A member of the Earth Liberation Front who admitted to setting fires that caused more than $1-million in damage at Michigan State University in 1999, and who later became an FBI informant, has been sentence to nine years in prison, the Associated Press reported.

The activist, Frank Ambrose, who is 33, had pleaded guilty to conspiring to starting a fire and explosion in the university’s Agricultural Hall. Three other members of the radical environmental group have been charged in the attack, which it said was a protest against genetically modified crops. The damaged building housed a project, supported primarily by the U.S. Agency for International Development, that was intended to bring biotechnology research to agricultural scientists in the developing world.

Mr. Ambrose apologized at Monday’s sentencing. “I wish I could take all I did back,” he said. “I’ve changed significantly from all those years where I did the bad things.”

Mr. Ambrose became a government informant in 2007, a few months after his home was raided by the FBI following the discovery of an explosive and personal items that he had dumped in a trash bin in the Detroit area.

He originally faced a sentence of 20 years, but federal prosecutors sought a reduced term of 100 to 125 months. Mr. Ambrose was also placed on a lifetime of supervisory release and ordered to pay $3.7-million in restitution to the university. —Caitlin Moran