A brother and sister were sentenced Wednesday to two years in federal prison for their schemes to promote prostitution at 10 Portland-area strip clubs and adult video stores.

Kandace Desmarias, 65, and her brother, Gilbert "Mace" Desmarais, 52, also were convicted of conspiring to evade paying more than $728,000 in federal income taxes by concealing $2.6 million in income from the clubs' strip shows and prostitution.

The ringleader of the operation, their stepfather Lawrence G. Owen, 75, was sentenced in April to two years and six months in prison.

U.S. District Judge Michael H. Simon rejected the siblings' request for a probation sentence, based on the large scope of the family's tax fraud and illegal prostitution, according to prosecutors.

The Desmarias siblings, together with Owen, owned and operated strip clubs called The Landing Strip, Oh! Zone, Sugar Shack, Tommy's and Tommy's Too, Dillingers Pub, Peek-A-Boos and video stores called Video Visions and Video Visions Plus, according to prosecutors. Gary Bryant, an owner of several of the clubs, will be sentenced in late August.

There were a total of 19 private show rooms on the premises of these businesses, where customers paid at least $160 for half-hour private shows with dancers. During many of these shows, the dancers performed prostitution with the customers, according to Assistant U.S. Attorney Seth Uram.

As a result of search warrants at the business locations, investigators found 39,000 dancer slips. Each slip had the date and time of the encounter and the dancer's stage name. The dancer signed that she was serving as a private contractor, leasing a room for the purpose of performing "one on one modeling shows,'' Uram told the court during Owen's sentencing. Customers had to pay "the house'' $60 in cash and the dancer at least $100 for a 30-minute private show.

Owen never disclosed any personal income to the IRS yet directed the transfer of nearly $1 million in business proceeds to himself while living in Mexico, according to prosecutors.

Federal officials seized $557,000 in cash from the home of Kandace Desmarais, and more than $840,000 in cash during the execution of search warrants at 10 strip clubs, video stores and homes of the defendants.

In Jul 2015, the defendants sold the Town Plaza property in Portland's Cully neighborhood where they had operated two strip clubs and a video store. They sold the property to a coalition of nonprofits and neighborhood groups for $2.3 million. The net proceeds of the sale have been placed in escrow to pay the federal income taxes owed, including penalties and interest, according to plea agreements.

"The fact that these defendants and their coconspirators were forced to forfeit more than $800,000 in cash and the proceeds of the sale of the Town Plaza to the IRS underscores our ongoing commitment to force criminals to disgorge their illegal profits and to compel tax cheats to pay their fair share,'' said U.S. Attorney Billy J. Williams, in a prepared statement.

-- Maxine Bernstein

mbernstein@oregonian.com

503-221-8212

@maxoregonian