Van Den Heuvel, 64, will serve the 7.5 year sentence at the same time he serves a three-year prison sentence, handed down in January 2018, for a charge of bank fraud. In addition to the prison term, U.S. Judge William Griesbach ordered Van Den Heuvel to make restitution in the amount of $9.4 million to his former investors.

The sentencing concludes multiple criminal and civil cases brought against Van Den Heuvel related to his business, Green Box and the technology that he touted to investors as a way to convert food-contaminated waste into reusable paper and plastic products.

Prosecutors alleged that, between 2011 and 2015, Van Den Heuvel defrauded investors out of $9.4 million and used millions of those dollars to pay past debts, buy Packers tickets and provide his family with a lavish lifestyle.

Van Den Heuvel's attorney, Robert LaBell, argued for a five-year prison sentence. He said Van Den Heuvel's motives were pure, even if his methods were not. A pre-sentencing report completed by Sentencing Mitigation LLC and filed on Jan. 9 made a similar case.

"The problem was that Ronald's 'eternal optimism' and his belief that 'the end justifies the means' resulted in fraudulent submissions and misrepresentations, as well as misuse of investors' funds," the report states. "Ronald is an individual with unlimited imagination who apparently has limitations on his business ethics."

Van Den Heuvel spoke on his own behalf before Griesbach sentenced him and used the opportunity to laud the Green Box business plan's environmental impact. He said it had taken tons of plastic out of the oceans and that he had two lines of credit totaling $1.2 billion from Chinese firms that are building conversion systems now. He eventually admitted his misappropriation of millions of dollars in funds.

"I led this group and I led them wrong," he said. "That money was spent wrong. ... I have put damage on my family that I cannot take off. I need to be sentenced for doing things wrong, but I also need to make sure my kids and grandkids don't live in a world that thinks it's okay to bury (trash)."

Lawyers presented two very different Ron Van Den Heuvels to the court ahead of sentencing.

On one hand,two of his former business partners asked Griesbach for leniency in oral statements, while family members offered written support. They described Van Den Heuvel as a man who was ethical and upstanding in all his business dealings in the 1980s and 1990s.

Robert LaBell, Van Den Heuvel's attorney, said his client was a mixed bag of good and bad.

"Sometimes we do amazingly stupid things in the name of the ends justifying the means," LaBell said. "He recognizes he has hurt many people. ... There's a very lot of good in that bag. He's done a lot for his family and his community."

Prosecutors presented Van Den Heuvel as a person who made fantastic claims about a process that was nowhere near commercially viable in order to defraud friends, the Wisconsin Economic Development Corp. and foreign investors out of millions of dollars in an attempt to stay ahead of creditors.

Dr. Marco Araujo, a onetime friend who invested $600,000 in Green Box, told the court that his investment has cost $1.3 million, contributed to his separation from his wife, and produced feelings of shame and depression.

"I felt like the biggest loser in the world," Araujo said. "I was feeling defeated while he lived in a multi-million dollar home and his wife drove a new Cadillac Escalade. My life fell apart."

Griesbach called Araujo a "hero" because Araujo's pursuit of repayment helped expose Van Den Heuvel's fraud.

"I would say you're the hero in this case," Griesbach said. "You brought it to an end."

Griesbach acknowledged that his 7.5-year sentence was lenient, compared to the 9 to 11 years recommended under federal sentencing guidelines. He asked Van Den Heuvel to face his own actions while in prison and come to terms with why he defrauded his investors.