An Oak Bluffs man was sentenced last week to six months in prison after pleading guilty to theft of public money and tax evasion, U.S. attorney Carmen Ortiz said Friday.

Vernon Harris, 63, was sentenced by U.S. District Court judge Douglas P. Woodcock to six months in prison, three years of supervised release, and ordered to pay more than $180,000 in restitution, Ms. Ortiz said in a press release.

Mr. Harris pled guilty to the charges in December.

The press release said Mr. Harris applied for Social Security disability insurance benefits in 2002, stating that he had stopped working because of disabilities. But Mr. Harris was running SilkRoad Logistics, a trucking brokerage firm, out of his Vineyard home at the time, the U.S. attorney said. Mr. Harris wrote checks from the business’s account and listed his wife as the proprietor to conceal his operation of the business, Ms. Ortiz said, as well as falsifying information about the company on his 2010 federal tax return.

In total Mr. Harris illegally received $160,025 in benefits, the press release said.

The case was prosecuted by special assistant U.S. Attorney Timothy Landry of Ms. Ortiz’s major crimes unit.