(Reuters) - Parker Petit, the former chief executive officer of biotech company MiMedx Group Inc, has been sentenced to a year in prison after being convicted of a scheme to inflate the company's revenue.

U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff handed down the sentence on Tuesday, saying that 81-year old Petit's age, his bladder cancer diagnosis and history of charitable works spared him more time behind bars. Addressing the judge during a video hearing, Petit said he accepted the jury's verdict but did not believe he had committed a crime in his handling of the company's finances in 2015.

"In some ways I admire that," Rakoff said. "In so many cases I face the crocodile tears of people who say 'I'm so sorry,' when what they really mean is 'I'm sorry I got caught.'"

Nevertheless, Rakoff said that prison time was necessary to deter others from similar crimes and rejected the suggestion of Petit's attorney, Eric Bruce of Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, that any incarceration could be life threatening given Petit's need for consistent cancer treatment.

Rakoff said Petit should serve his sentence at a federal medical facility and ordered him to report to prison in September and pay a $1 million fine.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Edward Imperatore argued for a "substantial" sentence at the hearing, saying that Petit's crime was the kind that "undermines the integrity of the entire system." In filings, prosecutors had sought six years.

Petit and former MiMedx chief operating officer William Taylor were indicted in 2019, having resigned from their roles the previous year amid an internal investigation. Petit and Taylor were convicted in November of securities fraud and conspiracy, respectively, following the first white-collar criminal trial to begin in Manhattan's federal courthouse since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Prosecutors had alleged that in 2015, Petit and Taylor schemed to inflate reported revenue by about $9.5 million to make it appear that MiMedx, which sells biologic products including skin grafts and amniotic fluid, had met its public revenue targets. They used sham consulting agreements and other means to induce distributors to buy products they later intended to return, prosecutors said.

The defendants' lawyers argued that all of the transactions were legitimate and affected only the timing of when revenue was realized.

Taylor is scheduled to be sentenced on Wednesday. Prosecutors have sought five years in prison while his attorneys at Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan have asked for community service.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission also filed parallel civil claims against the company and executives in 2019. MiMedx agreed to pay $1.5 million to settle the allegations without admitting or denying them. The case against the individuals has been on hold while the criminal case is pending.

The case is USA v. Petit et al, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, No. 1:19-cr-00850.

For the government: Assistant U.S. attorneys Edward Imperatore, Scott Hartman and Daniel Tracer

For Petit: Eric Bruce and Jennifer Loeb of Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer; and Matthew Menchel and Amanda Tuminelli of Kobre & Kim