BANGOR – Three former employees of Microdyne Outsourcing Inc. in Orono who fraudulently purchased computer equipment and had it shipped to family and friends in Maine were sentenced Friday in federal court to home confinement and probation.

The men lowered the prices of products sold by Dell Computers Inc. and kept the computers and electronic equipment for their personal use or sold them at discounted prices.

Erik Flye, Andrew Feldman, and Don Ayers, all 23 and of Bangor, were ordered by U.S. District Judge John Woodcock to pay more than $40,000 in restitution to Microdyne.

Dell uses Microdyne to assist in handling orders and shipments of Dell merchandise, according to court documents.

Because the men allegedly altered prices through the Internet, they had been charged with wire fraud, a felony.

“What you did on your computers laid down tracks just as if you’d been walking in fresh snow,” Woodcock said Friday of the men’s actions and eventual detection by federal authorities.

He likened their crimes to breaking into a Dell warehouse and hauling off stolen goods.

“That’s just what you did, you just did it in a different way,” Woodcock said.

He waived all fines and sentenced Flye, Feldman and Ayers to up to 180 days of home confinement and five years of probation.

The men will be required to wear electronic monitoring devices and to provide their probation officers with access to their financial information.

The conspiracy began in July 2003, when Flye and Ayers allegedly devised a scheme to alter the price of an item to $200 or less so that a customer would not be billed for it.

Feldman allegedly joined the conspiracy after he began working for Microdyne in September 2003.

All three men had the authority to provide “concession” items, valued at $200 or less, free of charge to dissatisfied customers. Each allegedly would alter the price of merchandise, then have it shipped to family and friends in Maine.

Court documents state that Flye, Ayers and Feldman executed the scheme at least twice each between July 29 and Nov. 5, 2003.

The three could have faced up to five years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000 each, but their crimes appeared to be an aberration of otherwise good character, the judge said. None of the men have a prior criminal record, and all three were well-educated and raised by good families, Woodcock said.

The men expressed remorse Friday for disappointing their employer, friends and loved ones, but appeared relieved that they weren’t going to prison. Family members were in the courtroom during the sentence hearing, some of them visibly upset.

“I can’t imagine, now, looking at one of my bosses’ faces right now,” Ayers told the judge.

An emotional Feldman apologized to his parents, saying he betrayed their trust, as well as that of his younger brother.

“I’m supposed to be a role model to him and clearly I am not,” he said. “The guilt, the remorse, the regret will never go away.”