BRADENTON -- Phillip D. Casciola was under pressure Wednesday, ordered by a judge to produce hundreds of thousands of dollars for victim restitution by 4 p.m. or face going to prison for fraud. Casciola scrambled, and prosecutors wondered whether he would return to court.

"Show me the money," Circuit Judge Janette C. Dunnigan declared before Casciola left court.

Casciola returned that afternoon -- this time, accompanied by his wife and a daughter -- but he did not have the money. The judge did not have mercy.

Casciola -- whom prosecutors described as a longtime con artist, intelligent and persistent -- was sentenced to 22 years in prison, and 10 years of probation, for two fraud schemes that bilked more than a dozen victims out of hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Authorities said he systematically defrauded customers through the Internet-based airplane parts company he ran from his Bradenton home. More than a dozen customers filed complaints against Casciola, saying he shipped incorrect parts or withheld shipment altogether.

"This is a man without legitimate income," Assistant Statewide Prosecutor Michael S. Williams said in court. "He doesn't know how to make an honest living."

Casciola, 51, pleaded guilty in March to fraud charges. He will spend his "golden years" in prison thinking about how his greed affected victims across the country, Williams said. In some cases, the victims were elderly. (Swanny note : Are Elderly People trading in Jet parts?)

Casciola used mass faxes to advertise and build his client base for his Internet-based jet parts company.

In an unrelated insurance fraud scheme, Casciola reportedly took premiums and neglected to deliver the money to the parent company.

His attorney, Steven G. Lavely, called the jet fraud case "extremely thin" and said he was confident Casciola would have prevailed at trial.

The insurance charges were lodged after Casciola was arrested in the jet case in December 2005.

Lavely said in court that Casciola was working diligently in recent months to acquire -- with the intent to return -- more than $350,000 owed to the victims in the fraud cases.

But unforeseen problems derailed that effort, Lavely said. For one, the Internal Revenue Service slapped a lien on Casciola's home in Bradenton -- a house on Riverview Boulevard that Casciola was preparing to sell for more than $600,000.

Casciola "came to realize the errors of his ways" and was prepared to be punished for the schemes, Lavely said. Lavely had asked for a 30-day extension to allow Casciola a last-minute push to come up with the money owed to the victims. Casciola would have served house arrest and probation if he had come up with restitution for the victims.

In the airplane parts world, the Internet is critical for business. Hobbyists use the Web heavily to track down and purchase parts at affordable rates. There is a built-in level of trust.

What do you think about this arrest?

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