Courtesy the Chicago Sun Times

(January 14, 20110 The onetime business partner of sports radio host Mike North was sentenced this morning to more than 16 years in prison for swindling hundreds of investors out of $6 million and for a lifetime of lying to others.

David Hernandez, onetime founder of the now-defunct Webio, gave a tearful plea to U.S. District Judge Robert Gettleman, saying he suffers from mental issues stemming from childhood abuse.

Gettleman would have none of it.

“I don’t believe you anymore,” the judge said. “You need to be taken away from society for a long time.”

Gettleman called Hernandez a consummate conman who lied and cheated his whole adult life. He even lied to the judge, falsely claiming that he had cancer.

Hernandez, 50, spent his life taking advantage of people, Gettleman said. That included his wife and kids.

Hernandez was arrested last August after he faked a doctor’s note pretending he had cancer and left his home while on home confinement without notifying staff. A doctor testified that he had not written the note and that Hernandez did not have cancer.

Hernandez gave a long, tearful explanation for his behavior, at times he was unable to speak as he cried. He blamed mental illness, a lack of access to inexpensive prescription drugs and on abusive parents. He said he battled an alcoholic father and an abusive mother who forced him to shoplift when he was 11.

Hernandez described haunting dreams, including one where medical tubes are hooked up to him but instead of going into a machine, they connect to his mother.

“She just sits there, smoking a cigarette, laughing at me,” Hernandez said of his dream.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Brian Hayes argued to the judge that nothing less than a stiff sentence would deter Hernandez from going out and conning more people.

“He takes out everybody … even his own wife,” Hayes said. “This man has no regard for anybody but himself.”

Hernandez is best-known for starting up the ChicagoSportsWebio.com sports venture with radio personality North in 2009 then immediately plundering it into non-existence.

After the FBI delivered a letter notifying Hernandez he was under investigation, he fled Downstate, then attempted suicide.

Hernandez scammed hundreds of people through his Chicago-based Next Step Financial Services, based at 225 W. Washington. Hernandez admits to the fraud but will argue to the judge at sentencing that fewer people were scammed, his lawyer, John Meyer, said.

The charges did not involve allegations tied to Webio.

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