John Byors, known to many investors as the "Marble Man" who solicited more than $10 million for a Vermont marble mine, has been sentenced to 11 years in prison in U.S. District Court in Vermont.

Byors, 51, a former North Shore resident, was ordered to pay $9.1 million in restitution to nearly 70 investors from all over New England, including a Rowley woman.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Internal Revenue Service investigated the case in which Byors ultimately pleaded guilty to 16 of 42 counts of fraud and money laundering last spring in the U.S. District Court in Burlington, Vt.

Byors, of Essex Junction, Vt., was a former associate of Jon Conant, a disbarred Gloucester attorney who relocated to Vermont a few years ago.

The mining operations of a rare, red marble in Vermont coupled with stories of business in Dubai and China raised the hopes of some investors. The pursuit of money from investors led to a web of lawsuits, both civil and criminal, against both Byors and Conant.

The Conant and Byors scheme was referred to as a "fictitious marble mine" in a civil suit brought by heiress Hilda Ayer of the Ayer family of Hamilton, whose wealth goes back generations. Byors settled out of that suit early on. Conant settled out a couple of years later.

Byors and Conant are also named in civil suits in two states brought by Elizabeth Bonnie Akerley of Gloucester. The suit against Conant and Angelo Zakas of Gloucester is awaiting judgment in the U.S. District Court in Boston, said Akerley's attorney, Robert Wolf. In her case against Byors in Vermont, her attorney moved to add Oliver Danforth, who led the Barney Marble Co. in Vermont, to the lawsuit.

Some of those on the Byors restitution list were also listed in Conant's bankruptcy papers a few years ago.

A trial brief in the Byors criminal case before the U.S. District Court in Vermont described the Byors' operation as a "classic Ponzi scheme" in which the former hairdresser and sculptor made principal payments only to a few lenders and paid almost no one else while promising future returns.

Akerley, who operates a local fishing vessel and was listed as having lost $615,000, the fifth-largest amount, was not available for comment yesterday.

The Burlington Free Press reported that government lawyers and investors held little hope that investors would recover their losses.

Chief U.S. District Judge William K. Sessions III heard from five investors Monday, Sept. 22, in court.

According to the Burlington Free Press, Cheryl Forster of Rowley, an Ipswich school principal, spoke at the sentencing.

"(She) talked of how she invested $200,000 — the proceeds from the sale of her parents' home, the realization of their lifelong dream — with Byors after her father died, her mother moved to a nursing home and the bills began to mount. Forster said she struggled with guilt and shame, especially when her mom thanked her for all she was doing. Her mother died two years ago without learning of the deceit. 'I never told her there was no money to bury her or to give to her grandchildren,' Forster said to Sessions ..." according to the Free Press report.

According to court records, Byors moved to Vermont from Massachusetts around 1999 and began attempting to raise money for a number of marble-related ventures. By December 2005, when Byors was arrested, he had raised more than $10 million from approximately 100 investors.

"As general matter, Byors promised to double investors' money within one year. Byors memorialized the investors' loans in a series of promissory notes and security agreements, in which he pledged as collateral various raw blocks of marble that had been extracted from quarries Byors leased. Byors flagrantly overstated the value of the collateral as he tried to induce prospective investors to lend him money," according to a press release from the Office of the U.S. Attorney for the District of Vermont. "In the course of his fund-raising, Byors made numerous false statements and promises about how he was to use the money he raised. Contrary to Byors' promises that he would use the money for various business-related purposes, Byors in fact used a substantial portion of the money he raised to make partial payments to earlier investors and to support a lavish personal life-style."

Byors' scheme exploded in December 2005 when he was arrested by federal agents.

The prosecutor, Assistant U.S. Attorney Gregory Waples, said this is among the largest fraud cases for the state of Vermont.

Byors filed a notice of appeal on the sentence, Waples said.