Businessman Bryan Reichel, found guilty last fall in a multimillion-dollar investment fraud scheme, was sentenced Wednesday to 22 years in prison.

A federal jury convicted Reichel, 62, of Prior Lake, of 11 counts, including wire fraud, bankruptcy fraud and making false statements.

In addition to the prison sentence announced by Assistant U.S. Attorney Gregory Brooker, Reichel faces three years of supervised release, restitution to victims of $22.3 million and a $7.6 million forfeiture judgment.

Reichel was indicted in 2014 on allegations that he lied to investors to get them to fund his start-up company, PureChoice. Last year, the grand jury added five charges alleging that after PureChoice closed its doors in 2011, Reichel tried to defraud the bankruptcy court.

Jurors heard hours of testimony from former PureChoice employees and investors during the nearly monthlong trial that ended in November.

Throughout the trial, federal prosecutors depicted Reichel as a crooked, self-serving salesman who wanted the luxurious life of a successful CEO but didn't want to work for it.

According to prosecutors, Reichel spent years soliciting investments in PureChoice, an air filtration equipment company, by insisting that it was always on the verge of success. In reality, the Burnsville-based company was accumulating tens of millions of dollars in debt — and investments were being used to pay off previous investors, as well as to enrich Reichel and another investor, Richard Perkins.

Between 1992 and 2011, PureChoice investors lost a net total of about $25 million, according to government court filings.

"Reichel operated PureChoice solely for his own benefit," Brooker in a statement on Wednesday. "For 18 years … Reichel defrauded investors out of millions of dollars simply to enrich himself. Today's 22-year sentence appropriately underscores Reichel's momentous and multifaceted criminal conduct."

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