BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) – Two high-ranking federal employees face sentencing Tuesday after their convictions for a scheme in which a senior official covered up for a deputy who kept drawing government pay after leaving his post in Virginia for a job in Montana.

Prosecutors are recommending at least two years in prison for John Grimson Lyon of Clifton, Virginia, the former director of the U.S. Bureau of Land Management’s 31-state Eastern States Region. He was convicted following a three-day jury trial in March of wire fraud, false claims and theft of government property.

A federal investigation determined that Lyon’s deputy at the BLM, Larry Denny, received $112,000 in federal wages and benefits after leaving Virginia to take a job with Montana’s Chippewa Cree Tribe.

Denny pleaded guilty to theft, fraud and other charges, and the U.S. Attorney’s office has recommended he spend 15 to 21 months in prison.

Lyon’s attorney, Assistant Federal Defender Evangelo Arvanetes, argued in documents submitted to the court that prison would be too severe a punishment and a sentence of probation was appropriate.

Arvanetes said Lyon made no financial gain from the deal, and has suffered the ruin of a career that included a position as a tenured professor at Ohio State University and senior positions with the BLM, NASA and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Lyon maintained his innocence and described his supervision of Denny as negligent behavior that did not warrant criminal charges.

“Watching this man go to prison will be a travesty. Let us just throw every negligent or disliked or crappy government employee in prison,” Arvanetes said in court filings.

But the office of U.S. Attorney Mike Cotter said the crimes were calculated. Lyon threatened and bullied others at the BLM who attempted to intervene, then tried to conceal his actions with claims that Denny still was doing government work, Assistant U.S. Attorney Ryan Weldon said in the government’s sentencing memorandum.

“They ignored the values that catapulted them to the top of the BLM, they began abusing their power, and they ultimately cost the American people $112,305,” Weldon wrote.

Denny’s attorney, Penelope Strong, said his crimes stemmed from a combination of an unspecified chronic illness and the death of his eldest son. His medical records were submitted under seal.

Strong said incarceration would endanger and degrade Denny’s health, and asked the court to sentence him to probation and home confinement.