(Bloomberg) — Raymond S. Stevenson, the former head of Bermuda-based Tyco International Ltd.'s tax department, was sentenced to three years in prison for filing a tax return that failed to report more than $170 million in company income.US District Judge Donald Middlebrooks in Miami federal court today also ordered Stevenson to pay a $100,000 fine after he pleaded guilty to a single charge of filing a false corporate income tax return. The prison sentence was the maximum Stevenson could receive under the law, Middlebrooks said.

"Today's prison sentence is a reminder that tax laws apply equally to everyone," US Attorney Alex Acosta in Miami said in a statement.

Stevenson, 51, was hired by former Tyco chief executive officer L. Dennis Kozlowski, who was convicted in June 2005 of looting more than $150 million from the company. The Bermuda- based firm is preparing to split itself into security, health- care and electronics companies next year.

Stevenson "accepted full responsibility for Tyco's 1999 corporate income tax return that he signed because, in his view, that was the right thing to do," Carl Schoeppl, his lawyer, said in court papers. Schoeppl didn't return calls seeking comment after business hours.

Stevenson, who worked as a vice president at Tyco, was the company's top tax adviser and oversaw preparation and filing Tyco's corporate returns from his Boca Raton, Florida-based tax department.

Stevenson was charged with filing a corporate return that failed to include about $170 million in capital gains, prosecutors said. If those gains had been included, the company would have been liable for an additional $60 million in taxes, the government said.

Stevenson's lawyers argued that because Tyco had other tax expenses to offset the unreported capital gains, "the US Treasury did not lose any revenue it would have otherwise received," according to court papers.