A former employee of Bernard Madoff was sentenced to 10 years in prison for his role in the convicted con man's Ponzi scheme, the Associated Press reported.

As Madoff's director of operations for investments, Daniel Bonventre helped bring about the fraud's "smoldering ruins," U.S. District Judge Laura Taylor said. She also ordered the 67-year-old to forfeit $155 billion, the news service detailed.

"You lived a prestigious and luxurious life for decades. We now all know it was supported by a massive fraud," the judge told Bonventre. "(But) you were not an architect of the Ponzi scheme and are not a person who is evil at heart. You should not spend the rest of your life in prison."

Nevertheless, Taylor characterized Bonventre as "a pampered, compliant and overcompensated employee who willfully blinded himself to inconvenient truths," according to USA Today.

"Dreams and trusts were shattered. Charities were wiped out," the judge said about Madoff's Ponzi scheme. "This is the harm that you, Mr. Bonventre, and your co-conspirators wrought."

Federal sentencing guidelines had called for Bonventre to spend up to 220 years in prison, the AP detailed. Prosecutors had pushed for a sentence significantly longer than the 20 years recommended by the Probation Department. Madoff in June 2009 had received a 150-year term.

Bonventre's defense, meanwhile, had asked the judge to sentence their client to home confinement, community service or a short prison term. Taylor ordered Bonventre to begin his confinement Feb. 19.; she said she would recommend he be permitted to spend the last year of his sentence in home detention.

Bonventre's sentencing was the first in a series of five expected in an eight-day stretch, the AP noted. Madoff's former secretary, Annette Bongiorno, 66; computer programmers Jerome O'Hara, 51, and George Perez, 48; and account manager JoAnn Crupi, 53, will also learn their fate. They and Bonventre were convicted at trial earlier this year.

Bonventre had maintained that he knew nothing about Madoff's fraud and was unwittingly duped by his boss, USA Today recalled.

"I was used by the ultimate con man," Bonventre said. "I feel regret for what I was unable to accomplish and what I was unable to do -- to see Bernard Madoff for what he really is."