SYRACUSE, N.Y. -- A former New York Deputy Secretary of State who gave himself a $95,000 raise with public funds has landed in prison after lying to investigators.

Joseph Felix Strevell, 56, was sentenced to two and a half years in prison last week.

Strevell admitted to five counts of perjury in connection to restitution payments he owed the state over his crimes in the late '90s and early 2000s.

Strevell was previously convicted of charges relating to his time as head of the state-funded Institute for Entrepreneurship from 1999 to 2001.

At the time, he admitted to stealing thousands of dollars from the Institute. He gave himself the $95,000 raise without approval, and used public funds for personal and family expenses, prosecutors said.

As part of his guilty plea in 2007, Strevell agreed to pay $111,500 in restitution to the state.

He was required to pay a minimum of $100 a month, or 10 percent of his earnings, whichever was greater. He also agreed to pay the restitution in full if he was able.

Investigators began asking questions about Strevell's restitution payments in 2014.

They questioned how he could afford his daughter's wedding or a $75,440 down payment on a 138-acre horse farm in Rensselaer County.

Strevell lied to investigators, telling them his mother and aunt provided the money for the property, and that he only contributed a "couple thousand dollars" to the wedding.

But investigators found the mom and aunt contributed nothing to the property, and he'd spent $30,000 on his daughter's wedding, including more than $10,000 in cash to a single vendor.

Strevell was sentenced to prison and three years of supervised release on the perjury charges.