An American businessman previously pardoned of fraud by former President Clinton was sentenced on Monday to 18 months in prison for failing to pay millions of dollars in federal income tax said to be squirrelled away to a Bermuda company.

Almon Glenn Braswell, 61, admitted in March that his Marina del Rey-based mail-order vitamin business Gero Vita International did not pay $4.5 million -which grew to $10.5 million with penalties and interest - in federal income taxes.

The sentencing followed Braswell's arrest in January, 2003 after US tax authorities in California charged him with hiding $22.2 million between 1994 and 1997 in a Bermuda-registered company he owned.

As part of a plea agreement hatched earlier in the year, Braswell agreed to pay the full amount claimed to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) within three weeks as well as the $6 million in penalties and interest.

A news report by NBC on Monday said authorities had discovered Braswell had stashed away $52 million in a Liechtenstein account, and suspected there were further millions hidden in other accounts in other jurisdictions, including Bermuda.

But on Monday, US District Judge Margaret Morrow said Braswell - who faced a maximum penalty of more than three years in prison - was handed down an 18 month sentence because he cooperated with authorities in their case against Braswell's tax attorney, who was acquitted of charges.

The sentence also took into consideration that Braswell had kept to the terms of his plea agreement in paying the Government the $10.5 million agreed, according to US news reports.

Braswell, 61, has been jailed without bail since his January 2003 arrest in Miami.

He was previously convicted of fraud in 1983 over what were said to be false claims for a baldness treatment but was pardoned by President Clinton when he granted 177 pardons and clemencies just before leaving office in 2001.

His pardon became one of the most criticised after it was learned that the president's brother-in-law, Hugh Rodham, had been paid $200,000 to work on the case. Mr. Rodham later returned the money.

Attempts to convict Braswell of the tax evasion offence, led the IRS to a Bermuda court last year where pursuant to the USA Bermuda Tax Convention the Finance Ministry was asked to order certain documents - understood to include accounts from Bank of Bermuda and Bank of Butterfield - handed over to the IRS.