After apologizing to the court, the state of Missouri, law enforcement, his engineering profession, his friends, his parents and his son, Robert L. Fine II told U.S. District Judge Brian C. Wimes on Tuesday he was ready to accept whatever punishment Wimes would impose.
Fine, 52, Lenexa, Kansas, pleaded guilty last Nov. 12 to one count of mail fraud and one count of money laundering involving bills submitted to the Missouri Petroleum Storage Tank Insurance Fund (PSTIF).
Wimes sentenced Fine to 30 months in federal prison on each count, to be served at the same time - starting Aug. 4.
Before hearing the sentence, Fine told Wimes: "I stand before you filled with shame, embarrassment and remorse."
"Greed" drove his decision to steal from the state fund, Fine said, and his fraud did "not reflect the way I was raised" by parents born in the Depression, who "worked countless jobs" to make sure Fine and his siblings understood they needed "a very hard work ethic" to survive in the world.
"I have fallen short of my own expectations," Fine told the judge.
Wimes told Fine he could have been successful without stealing money from others and violating their trust and friendships.
While appreciating that Fine already has made full restitution - when many who are convicted don't, or can't - the judge noted Fine's crime didn't involve just one or two incidents, but covered nearly a decade,
"The point is, it was stolen," Wimes said, "fraudulently obtained over a long period of time."
Investigators said Fine's total fraud against the storage tank fund was $1,317,469.
His plea agreement with federal prosecutors required him to pay $1,505,514 in restitution to the fund, including the total amount of the fraud and related costs.
Wimes on Tuesday also ordered Fine to pay a $50,000 fine - $25,000 for each count.
U.S. Attorney Tammy Dickinson noted last November that Fine was the owner and sole employee of FINEnvironmental Inc., a Missouri corporation which operated from an office in his Kansas City area home.
"FINEnvironmental performed environmental services for property owners who used or operated a petroleum storage tank," Dickinson explained, using subcontractors to do the work.
"From August 2002 to February 2012, Fine created false invoices purporting to be from one of his subcontractors," Dickinson said, "and inflated the amount of the invoices. Fine mailed the fraudulent invoices to the PSTIF for payment and, over a nearly 10-year period, obtained $924,236 in excess payments from the PSTIF."
Carol Eighmey of Jefferson City, the fund's executive director, told Assistant U.S. Attorney Larry Miller that Missouri lawmakers created the fund as a way to pay for emergency clean ups when storage tanks began leaking their contents into the surrounding ground or nearby water supplies and streams.
Dickinson noted petroleum companies pay for the fund through a fee assessed on each load of petroleum that is transported into Missouri.
An annual fee also is charged to the storage tank owners and operators.
Mary Blew, a Kansas City school counselor and Fine's "significant other" for the last half-dozen years, told Wimes that Fine "is a very good person and a wonderful father."
He also has regular contact with his aging parents, who rely on him to help with their care, she said.
And long-time friend Russ Seybert of Oklahoma told Wimes that Fine is "very reliable" and has an "outstanding character."
Miller recommended Wimes order a 46-month sentence, while Fine's attorney, Tom Bath of Kansas City, suggested a 12-month sentence - six months in prison followed by six months of house arrest, plus 500 hours of community service.
Fine said one of his "biggest challenges will be to try to repair the damage I have done. I will spend the rest of my life trying to atone for this."