BANGOR – A real estate developer who claimed he spent 25 years helping people buy land and fulfill their dreams of being homeowners left the Penobscot County Courthouse on Tuesday afternoon in handcuffs to begin serving 21/2 years behind bars for bilking more than 170 people out of nearly $5 million.

William A. Gourley, 64, of Dexter was sentenced to five years in prison with all but 21/2 years suspended in Penobscot County Superior Court in what prosecutors called the largest real estate fraud case in recent Maine history.

Gourley also was sentenced to four years probation after his release and ordered to pay a minimum of $50 a week in restitution toward the $5 million. He pleaded no contest in February to one count of theft by deception.

In a plea agreement with prosecutors, three other theft charges and one count each of the sale of unregistered securities and securities fraud were dropped. Prosecutors also agreed to drop similar charges against Gourley’s wife and business partner, Barbara Gourley, 53.

Assistant Attorney General Lara Nomani, who prosecuted the case, told the court during the two-hour sentencing hearing that the couple has repaid less than $2,000 and that it’s unlikely victims will receive all the money they are owed by the Gourleys. She urged the judge to impose a sentence that would require William Gourley to serve 21/2 years in prison.

“I feel justice was served,” Shirley Turner of Hartland said after the sentencing. “But I feel that I’m at a loss. I don’t have my son. I don’t have my land. I could be out on the street. It’s like they got it all – the money, the land, everything – and I got the shaft.”

Turner, whose son William Elliott, 24, of Corinth was one of two sex offenders murdered on Easter Sunday by a Canadian man who later committed suicide, bought what she thought was 57 acres from the Gourleys several years ago. She found out later that she in fact owned only 44 acres and that there are at least three liens on the property where she has been living in a trailer.

“This was my dream house,” she told the judge. “This was my sanctuary. Now I don’t know if I’m going to lose my home.”

The Gourleys ran their business like a Ponzi scheme, Nomani told Superior Court Justice Roland Cole at the sentencing. They solicited investments for their real estate development business, Bill & Barb Gourley Inc., by promising unusually high rates of return, between 12 percent and 20 percent, and then paying interest on the investments by recruiting still more investors.

Before the couple sold parcels in a Newport subdivision located on Down Wind Boulevard, investors were given liens on the properties in exchange for the money they had invested, Nomani said Tuesday. Several investors contributed more than $100,000. State law required that Gourley tell buyers there were liens on the properties.

Gourley’s attorney, Alan Stone of Lewiston, urged the judge to sentence his client to probation. Stone said things were going well until the state stepped in three years ago and told the Gourleys to stop conducting business. The attorney said they cooperated with investigators and tried to make payments to investors, but prosecutors had frozen their assets without telling them. The checks bounced, and the Gourleys were forced to file for bankruptcy, he said.

“When Bill Gourley says, ‘I meant no harm,’ that’s genuine,” Stone said. “He’s a man of simplicity and quietness who has lived his life in his community trying to do good.”

William Gourley, who showed little emotion as his victims spoke, wept as he apologized to the court and his victims. He said that he was not aware that he was breaking the law.

“I would like to thank all who came here on my behalf and wrote letters on my behalf,” the defendant told the judge. “I thought I was doing what I was supposed to do. I never attempted to or desired to steal from anyone. I can repay a lot of the money if given the opportunity.”

In answer to a question from the judge, he said that his and his wife’s income from the real estate business was between $50,000 and $60,000 each year. William Gourley also said that he believed he could make money again in real estate if he could “find some investors.”

Victims guffawed and shook their heads in disbelief at the comment.

In handing down the sentence, Cole said he believed that people who stole from others and were charged with felonies should serve jail time whether they are welfare mothers convicted of food stamp fraud or bank presidents convicted of embezzlement.

The judge said that a 21/2-year sentence struck a balance between the victims’ demands that the defendant serve the maximum sentence of five years and the pleas for mercy outlined in letters Cole received from William Gourley’s family and friends.

After the sentencing, Douglas Thompson, 51, of Newport, who bought land from the Gourleys in 2002, said that neither the media nor lawmakers had done enough to educate the public about the need for people to pursue title searches before purchasing property.

Thompson, who told the court he purchased his first piece of property at age 21 on a handshake, was angry and frustrated after the sentencing even though he has resolved the claims on his land.

“The Legislature should change the law so that you can’t buy land without a title search,” he said Tuesday.