A Connecticut real estate developer who pleaded guilty to defrauding investors in a Florida real estate development will spend almost five and a half years in prison.

A Bridgeport federal judge sentenced Robert V. Matthews to 65 months in prison and three years of supervised release Monday for conspiracy, money laundering, and tax evasion, according to an announcement from the Connecticut U.S. attorney’s office.

Matthews was developing a 54,000-square-foot hotel property in Palm Beach, Florida, that he sought to fund using money from participants in the federal EB-5 visa program. The program gives foreign nationals and their families access to green cards for investing at least $1 million in development projects or other large investments that generate jobs.

Matthews told these foreign investors that their money would be used to develop the hotel, and that they were investing alongside former presidents Donald Trump and Bill Clinton. Instead, however, the money was used to pay credit card debts owed by his wife and brother and to buy to properties in Washington, in the Litchfield Hills, including one which Matthews had previously lost to foreclosure.

The scheme cost 61 EB-5 investors around $30 million, prosecutors say.

Matthews had confessed to the crimes in 2019.