The kingpin of Portland's car-crushing scandal will spend just over a year in prison and pay $500,000 in restitution for a scheme that snared two sons, a daughter and a network of tow truck drivers who scoured the metro area stealing parked cars and selling them to the family businesses.

The racket was discovered only after a Portland detective on a new assignment started listening to people upset that their cars disappeared from in front of their homes or off the side of freeways. He then set up surveillance cameras in 2014 outside the two North Portland auto yards of Tony Schneider, known as "Big Tony" to family and friends.

Dozens of people testified before a grand jury after a nearly yearlong investigation dubbed "Operation Mater" that led to 34 indictments against Schneider and more than 50 others.

Investigators identified more than 100 people whose cars had been stolen and crushed. Many of them were poor and relied on their cars to get to and from work, pick up their children and otherwise support their families, said Multnomah County Deputy District Attorney Kevin Demer.

"The cars were being destroyed and disappeared, unrecoverable if you will,'' Demer said Thursday. "This has been a long road to get to this point.''

Schneider, 54, stood before Multnomah County Circuit Judge Eric J. Bergstrom and was sentenced to one year and three months for racketeering and tampering with a witness as his family watched from the courtroom gallery. He had pleaded no contest to the charges in October 2016.

The negotiated prison term is significantly below the maximum sentence of 20 years allowed for racketeering, or the maximum five-year sentence for tampering with a witness.

But Demer called the prison term "appropriate.'' He said the goal of the investigation was to "shut down a criminal enterprise, which we did.''

A key component of the negotiated sentence: Schneider must pay to cover the losses of victims whose cars were crushed.

Schneider has satisfied about two-thirds of the $500,000 owed and hopes to have the full amount paid off by the end of his prison term, said his defense lawyer Kristen Winemiller.

"I'd guess I'd like to apologize to everybody who had to deal with this,'' he said. "I just hope that everybody does get repaid for whatever their losses were.''

He acknowledged he should have had tighter controls on his auto yard businesses.

"I'd do it a little different, I guess,'' he told the judge. "I hope not to ever see you again.''

His eldest son, Tony Schneider Jr., 36, pleaded no contest to racketeering and was taken into custody on Nov. 30, sentenced to two months. He received credit for good time and attended his father's sentencing. He helped run the businesses.

The Schneiders paid cash to buy stolen cars, then crushed them for metal, often before victims even discovered their cars were missing, according to police and prosecutors.

A network of illegal tow truck drivers hauled the cars from area streets and delivered them to the family's auto yards, A-1 Light Truck & Auto Parts and West Coast Car Crushing on North Columbia Boulevard. The car dismantlers would destroy the cars without titles or ownership documents required by state law, prosecutors said.

"Big Tony" Schneider urged an employee who worked in the weight scale booth at West Coast Car Crushing not to tell the truth before a grand jury, leading to the tampering with a witness charge.

The father and son have dissolved their auto businesses and liquidated their assets to help cover the restitution. The state revoked their license to dismantle vehicles and towing licenses.

The two must provide monthly financial information and other account information to state officials over 10 years. Equipment seized by police during the investigation -- including a car crusher, tow trucks and flatbed trucks -- also have been liquidated. The family is no longer living in a gated community and water-side home on North Lotus Isle Drive, but in a Jantzen Beach RV park.

"Big Tony" Schneider started working in the auto-crushing industry in St. Johns neighborhood as a freshman in high school, ended up marrying his boss's daughter and bought part of the property he owned on North Columbia Boulevard in the early 1980s, his lawyer said. He never completed high school and has worked only in the recycling metal and car-crushing industry.

Winemiller said it's no surprise that the business was going to attract metal thieves. Her client's problems largely resulted from his lack of computer expertise and monitoring of paperwork, she said.

"The fact is my client is the head of the family, the head of the business,'' Winemiller said. "They should have earlier instituted stronger systematic controls so this couldn't happen.''

Some key parts of the state's case against the Schneiders fell apart last year after an Oregon Court of Appeals ruling prompted a judge to dismiss one of the two racketeering charges that both father and son faced. The state also moved late last month to dismiss all charges of illegal salvage procedures against the defendants due to challenges.

Another factor that hampered the state's prosecution was the failure of the Oregon Department of Motor Vehicles to properly monitor the two businesses.

A 2014 investigation by The Oregonian/OregonLive found that the state DMV and Portland police had evidence dating back at least eight years indicating that the two car crushers were a dumping ground for stolen cars. But neither did anything to stop them. In fact, the operation was such an open secret that police would send people to the two auto yards to check for themselves if their stolen cars had ended up there.

"I wish further investigation by the DMV could have identified this much earlier,'' Demer said in court.

Carpet layer Daniel Speer, whose 1991 Ford van was towed away from outside his Southeast Portland home to West Coast Car Crushing and crushed in 2013, lost his truck and $3,000 worth of tools he used for his business. He lost several jobs as a result and had to replace his truck and tools, he said.

"Well, the fine is great," Speer said of "Big Tony" Schneider's sentence, "but I don't think he got quite enough time for all the damage he caused.''

Chris Miller had his metallic blue Ford Aerostar van, parked in front of Bridgeport Brewery in the Pearl District, stolen and towed on a drizzly night in October 2013, he said. "I walked out of a gym and thought I was imaging things,'' he said, when he didn't see his van.

He thanked police Det. Travis Fields for catching on video his car being towed into West Coast Car Crushing. "Without my van, I had no shelter,'' he said.

David Uphoff, whose late father's 1992 F-250 truck was stolen outside his floral shop off North Killingsworth Street in 2013 and towed to Schneider's yard and crushed, said he hopes the sentence serves as a "wake-up call'' for the family.

"It's still just mind boggling that it happened, that it happened so much,'' he said.

As part of the negotiated settlement, after the elder Schneider's sentencing, criminal charges against his wife, Kimberly Schneider, were dismissed.

Schneider's daughter, Andrea Schneider, 27, who police say scouted up and down Interstate 5 for cars to tow to her father's North Portland auto yard, received the severest sentence, six years in prison for racketeering and multiple counts of unauthorized use of vehicles. Another son, Joseph C. Schneider, 35, received three years probation for racketeering.

The elder Schneider hugged his son, daughter, daughter-in-law and his wife before a sheriff's deputy placed handcuffs around his wrists and he was led out of the courtroom.

-- Maxine Bernstein

mbernstein@oregonian.com

503-221-8212

@maxoregonian