Minnesota Couple Sentenced In Project Swindle

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) -- A Wayzata couple has been taken to jail to serve a yearlong sentence for theft that prosecutors say led to a bank's failure.

A Hennepin County judge this week sentenced Philip and Virginia Carlson to 21 months in prison.

The couple will not have to serve prison time if they remain law-abiding.

Judge Lois Conroy also ordered the Carlsons to serve a year in the workhouse.

She denied the couple the option of electronic home monitoring.

In August, a jury found the Carlsons guilty of taking hundreds of thousands of dollars from an office development project in Orono.

Prosecutors say the swindle played a role in the collapse of First Commercial Bank of Bloomington, which loaned about $3 million before the project came to a halt in 2008.