PHILADELPHIA (AP) — The lawyer who represented payday lenders accused of evading state regulations by using Native American tribes and a bank as fronts has been sentenced to eight years in federal prison.

Wheeler Neff, 69, of Wilmington, Delaware, was sentenced Friday on racketeering conspiracy and fraud convictions, The Philadelphia Inquirer reported .

Neff represented Charles Hallinhan, 77, who is awaiting sentencing scheduled for July on conspiracy and fraud convictions last fall.

Authorities said Hallinan charged astronomical interest rates of more than 700 percent on the short-term loans in a “rent-a-tribe” and “rent-a-bank” scheme that netted his companies more than $688 million in revenue between 2008 and 2013 from hundreds of thousands of customers.

Neff, flanked by family, friends and fellow church congregants, told U.S. District Judge Eduardo Robreno that he believed at the time that everything he was doing was legal.

“I now realize how people can be crushed under the weight of payday loans,” he said. “However, it was never my intention to harm anyone.”

District Judge Eduardo Robreno described deals that Neff and Hallinan struck with their Native American partners as “unlawful, a sham, and a fraud.”

In addition to the prison term, Neff was ordered to pay $50,000 in fines and forfeit more than $350,000.