Exec gets 22 years for payroll-tax fraud

ORLANDO, FLORIDA: Frank Amodeo, founder of a private-equity fund that sought bankruptcy protection last year, was sentenced to 22 years in prison in what prosecutors say was the largest payroll-tax fraud case in US history.

Amodeo, Mirabilis Ventures Inc's controlling shareholder since its creation in 2004, was ordered by a federal judge to serve 270 months in prison and pay more than $181 million in restitution for masterminding a scheme to defraud the Internal Revenue Service of payroll-withholding taxes.

"The offense was committed out of greed," US District Judge John Antoon II said on Tuesday in Orlando, Florida. Amodeo pleaded guilty in September to defrauding the government.