A McDonough man once recognized by the U.S. Small Business Administration as Person of the Year was sentenced Monday to 10 years in prison for bank fraud.

U.S. District Judge Timothy Batten also ordered Jason Slaughter to pay $5.69 million in restitution.

Slaughter was convicted at trial in October of 31 felony counts in a scheme to defraud Branch Banking & Trust of approximately $6 million. At the time, Slaughter, 43, was president of S&W International Foods, a Forest Park company that sold meats and freshly baked biscuits.

As head of S&W, Slaughter was recognized in 1999 by the Small Business Administration as National Minority Small Business Person of the Year. But his business soon struggled and, according to prosecutors, Slaughter ordered employees to manipulate accounts receivable and inventories by more than 200 percent to obtain a BB&T line of credit.

To justify the scheme, S&W kept two sets of financial books — one that reflected the true financial position of the company and another set to show BB&T's auditors.

An investigation by the FBI found that the bank lost more than $5.5 million as a result of Slaughter's fraud, the U.S. attorney's office said.

Slaughter used phony financial numbers to obtain a loan his company otherwise would not have qualified for, U.S. Attorney David Nahmias said in a statement.

"Predictably, the loan defaulted, and the company assets that Mr. Slaughter pledged as collateral were found not to exist."