PORTLAND, Maine, March 21 (UPI) -- A Maine businessman was sentenced to 20 days in jail Thursday for promotion of prostitution in a scandal that rocked the Portland area.
Mark Strong Sr., 57, apologized at a hearing in Cumberland County, the Kennebunk Journal reported. He was convicted March 6 of 12 counts of promoting prostitution.
Strong's wife, Julie, wept as she asked for a short sentence.
"Go easy on my husband," she said. "He clearly has learned from this experience."
Judge Nancy Mills, who also imposed a $3,000 fine, ordered Strong jailed immediately and said he must pay $80 a day for the expenses of his incarceration, The Portland Press-Herald reported. She rejected a defense request to delay his jail sentence.
Charges that a Zumba instructor in Kennebunk was also running a prostitution business out of her studio became a major story in Maine and across the country.
Strong lives in Thomaston, an old seaport about 50 miles northeast of Portland.
