The one-time owner of the Chicago Rush was sentenced Thursday to more than three years in prison for defrauding investors in the failed arena football team that played its home games at Allstate Arena in Rosemont.

Prosecutors said David Staral was a serial fraudster who lied to Arena Football League owners four years ago when he bought the struggling franchise, claiming to the league he was a successful investor even as he was drowning in debts that included fines for another scam.

U.S. District Judge Ronald Guzman said Staral presented “a unique case,” noting that Staral had lied even on his bankruptcy paperwork and to a bankruptcy judge working out of the same federal courthouse where Staral now faced sentencing.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone in my 20 years on the bench who has committed fraud in so many ways,” Guzman said as Staral swayed nervously in front of the judge.

“To come into this building and deliberately lie in so many different ways, under oath and to judges, in writing ... the public has to know: you don’t come into this building and lie. If you do, you go to jail,” Guzman said.

Staral, who gave lengthy interviews when he bought the now-defunct Rush in 2013, pledging to rebuild the failing team even if he had to dig into his own pockets, declined to comment as he left the courtroom.

Staral’s lawyer said in the years since he was charged with fraud, he had taken care of his ailing younger sister, and avoided trouble with the law.

Lisa Julin, a financial adviser who was taken in by Staral, was unmoved by the testimony.

“I thought he was a friend of mine,” Julin said. “He was good to his sister with my money ... He not only took money from me, he also took my reputation as a business person.”

Staral, 37, pleaded guilty to one count of bankruptcy fraud and one count of wire fraud, and faced more than seven years in prison on the charges.

During Staral’s brief tenure at the Rush, players and vendors went unpaid and the AFL eventually took over the club in order to finish the season, incurring losses of more than $1 million. The team has since folded.

A Northwest suburban native, Staral asked to report to prison in August, and requested assignment to the federal facility in Oxford, Wis.