While Minkow admitted to manipulating the company's stock, he claimed that he was forced to turn the company into a Ponzi scheme under pressure from the organized-crime figures who secretly controlled his company, a story he later admitted was false. On December 14, he was found guilty on all charges. On March 27, 1989, he was sentenced to 25 years in prison. He was also placed on five years' probation and ordered to pay $26 million in restitution. In sentencing him, U.S. District Court Judge Dickran Tevrizian described Minkow as a man without a conscience. He rejected Minkow's plea for a lighter sentence as "a joke" and "a slap on the wrist" for someone who had manipulated the financial system. The SEC subsequently banned him from ever serving as an officer or director of a public company again. He served under seven and a half years, most of them at Federal Correctional Institution, Englewood.