An Upper Marlboro man was sentenced to four years in prison Tuesday for embezzling more than $1.7 million in a scheme that a laborers union said bankrupted one of its locals after nearly 80 years in existence.

Anthony Wendel Frederick Sr., 50, also was ordered by a federal judge to return the money to Local 657 of the Laborers’ International Union of North America. The unit, with about 1,650 members from the District and five surrounding counties, was left broke and merged into Local 11 in Northern Virginia, LIUNA leaders said in seeking prison time for Frederick and two Maryland business executives who shared the stolen money.

Between May 2013 and June 2014, Frederick, who was Local 657’s top business official for about 10 years, sent the money to STS General Contracting of Greenbelt, ostensibly to renovate a union hall and build a training center near the Fort Totten Metro station, he admitted in an Oct. 31 guilty plea.

Instead, STS owners Gary Amoes Cooper, also of Upper Marlboro, and Christopher A. Kwegan of Randallstown directed about half the money toward a $225,000 down payment and construction of a garage for a residential property that Frederick acquired, and more than $600,000 to a corporation partly owned by Frederick’s wife, according to court filings.

Kwegan, who pleaded guilty Nov. 1, and Cooper, who was convicted Nov. 22 after a jury trial, took the rest of the money, withdrawing more than $525,000 in cash and checks for themselves, sending $172,000 to a Qatar electrical engineering services company called Specialized Trading Services and using the rest for personal items, entertainment, shopping trips, hotel stays and overseas travel, according to court documents.

Frederick was sentenced before U.S. District Judge Amit P. Mehta of the District.

Prosecutors have requested a four-year prison term for Kwegan, 59, at his sentencing set for Wednesday. Kwegan, a real estate agent and general contractor, has reserved the right to ask for a term of 27 months, which is the time he was sentenced to in November in a separate federal mortgage fraud case in Baltimore.

Sentencing for Cooper, 58, is set for Feb. 27. The FBI and U.S. Labor Department investigated the case after it was discovered through a union audit, and it was prosecuted by the organized crime and gang section of the Justice Department’s criminal division.