John Baert, the Saco payroll accountant who pleaded guilty last fall to 11 counts of mail fraud against roughly 60 local companies, was handed a nearly six-year prison sentence in U.S. District Court Tuesday.

Baert pleaded guilty to the charges last fall, admitting he failed to pass along to the Internal Revenue Service more than $2 million in payroll tax payments his customers had made to his company, Harmon-Baert Associates. He also pleaded guilty to a charge of obstructing the IRS.

Judge D. Brock Hornby handed down the maximum sentence of 71 months allowed for the convictions Tuesday, after hearing from scam victims in Cumberland and York counties.

Baert will also be required to pay restitution to his clients, though the amount they would get is uncertain, because Baert has filed for bankruptcy protection.

For Mike Anton, owner of Admiral Fire & Safety in Scarborough, the sentence was appropriate considering Baert scammed Anton’s businesses of roughly $700,000 in payroll taxes.

“I think they did what they had to do,” Anton said in an interview. “He has hurt a lot of people.”

Baert inherited his company in 1993, and it was not until he closed and declared bankruptcy in the fall of 2003 that his customers, many of them with the company since he started, realized Baert had not been passing along their weekly tax payments to the IRS. Instead, he would juggle debts with the IRS by making some late payments as new payroll taxes came in, but never fully settling the debts.

With his bankruptcy filing, however, the IRS has held the customers themselves liable for the payments Baert failed to pass along. This, along with the fact the state government did not crack down on Baert while the scam was still under way, has Anton more upset with the government than with Baert himself.

“I considered John Baert a friend, and I trusted him. So they can throw away the key, as far as I’m concerned,” Anton said. “I’m angry at John Baert for what he did. But I am much more angry at the state, and the federal governments. They accepted payment from him repeatedly knowing that he was not bonded or registered. He would pay just enough to keep them quiet, and they let him continue to do this sort of business.”

The IRS is holding roughly $1 million that Baert did pay toward interest and penalties. In Anton’s view, that money should be used to offset the impact of Baert’s scam on his customers.

“It’s been very hard. We have had to pull a second mortgage just to stay in business,” Anton said. “Why didn’t the government go after John Baert for the money, instead of the victims in this case?”

Anton doesn’t believe Baert was malicious in his scam, especially at first, but the problems got beyond him.

“The more I realize about it, the more he seemed to be way over his head,” Anton said. “But when it goes on for years like that, you know it’s not just a mistake.”