A onetime Twin Cities insurance company controller has been sentenced to prison for embezzling more than $1.2 million from his employer in a scheme that spanned nearly 20 years and cost him his marriage.

John W. Rowan, 65, of St. Paul, was sentenced last week in federal court in St. Paul to nearly 3 ½ years in prison after pleading guilty to wire fraud.

"Over the course of nearly two decades, this defendant systematically abused the trust of his employer," said acting U.S. Attorney Gregory G. Brooker.

Rowan admitted that from October 1995 to July 2015 and while accountant and then controller for North St. Paul-based Garry Insurancenter, he issued 150 checks to himself on company bank accounts totaling $1,216,218.64.

About $875,000 of that money came in the form of inflated quarterly bonuses he issued from 1997 to 2015.

He used the money to pay for his children's private school tuition and "otherwise pave an easier road for his family financially," according to the prosecution's presentencing court filing.

Upon completing his prison term, Rowan will be on supervised release for three years. The court also ordered him to make restitution.

Along with the punishment given to him in court, Rowan's fraud also cost him his marriage of 42 years and strained his relationships with his adult children, court records show.

"She divorced him after learning of this offense and has not wanted to speak with [him] at all since that time," read the defense's presentencing filing that argued for a prison term of one year.