TROY, Ill. (AP) — Federal authorities say a southern Illinois business owner has been sentenced to four years in prison for withholding more than $8 million in payroll taxes from employee paychecks to help “build his empire.”

Gary Hunsche was sentenced Tuesday after pleading guilty in May to willfully failing to pay millions of dollars in federal payroll taxes.

The 56-year-old was the owner-operator of a Troy-based staffing company. The Belleville News-Democrat reports Hunsche acknowledged that between 2011 and 2016, he withheld federal income taxes, Medicare and Social Security taxes totaling $8 million from employee paychecks without turning those funds over to the Internal Revenue Service.