A Deerfield man on Monday received 15 years in prison for bilking millions from Best Buy by over billing the national retailer for computer parts, according to the Midwest federal branch of the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Minnesota.

Russell Adam Cole, 50, was immediately taken into custody in a Minneapolis courtroom after a federal judge sentenced him on 24 counts of mail fraud, wire fraud and tax evasion.

Cole’s wife, Abby Rae Cole, 53, received three years probation for tax evasion and conspiracy to commit mail fraud. The couple’s multimillion dollar Deerfield home on Kenmore Avenue was seized as part of the criminal conviction, said Abby Rae Cole’s Chicago-based attorney, Shelly Kulwin.

“It think is was an extremely fair sentence (for Abby Rae Cole),” Kulwin said. “She had minimal involvement. She was acquitted on 22 of the 24 charges that were against her.”

Russell Cole’s Chicago-based attorney, Jeff Steinback said his client made an impassioned plea to the judge on Monday before sentencing. Cole explained that the entire scheme to swindle Best Buy out of more than $31 million was his fault, and that his wife was not involved, Steinback said.

Russell Cole had taken over Abby Rae Cole’s business, Chip Factory, which she built up on her own more than 20 years ago. before marrying her husband, Steinback said. After the pair had children, Abby Rae Cole gave her husband full rein of the company while she directed her attention toward parenting, he said.

“I don’t think he expected that it’d go where it did,” said Steinback about why his client scammed Best Buy. “He took one small step, which led to another and then another. He then made a fortune and somehow rationalized that he’d actually earned it himself.”

The pair was indicted July 20, 2009 and were convicted in a 17-day trial on June 3.

The scheme centered on the way the Deerfield company — with Cole as president and his wife as owner — bid on supplying computer parts to Best Buy, federal authorities said.

Abby Rae Cole began the company in 1988 in the basement of her Arlington Heights home, according to a 1996 Tribune article that called her “an unlikely high-tech success story.” She recalled the early hectic days of starting the business, which bought and sold computer chips.

After its humble beginnings, the Chip Factory took off and had a staff of 15, according to the Tribune article.

The Coles reported about $15.5 million on their income taxes from 2003 to 2007. Investigators say in the documents that about $14.2 million of that income was derived from fraud.

The Coles bought their Kenmore Avenue property and an adjoining lot in 2006 for $850,000, tearing down a modest house and building the home for $1.9 million, according to court documents and property records.

The couple’s Chip Factory business folded when Best Buy, based in Richfield, Minn., discovered the alleged fraud and stopped doing business with the Coles, court documents say. After a yearlong internal investigation, Best Buy alerted federal investigators in July 2009.

On thousands of occasions from July 2003 to August 2007, Chip Factory submitted winning low bids to supply Best Buy with computer parts, but later fraudulently charged the company a much higher price using an online bidding system, according to investigators.

Vendors sold the parts to Best Buy through an online system overseen by a third company, National Parts, according to court documents.

“When Best Buy solicited bids for computer parts, Chip Factory would submit fraudulently low bids with no intention of providing the parts at the bid price,” court documents say. “Indeed, contrary to its representation, Chip Factory often did not even have the parts available to ship.”

When National Parts issued a purchase order through the same online bidding system, Chip Factory changed the price to a much higher amount, according to documents.

Even though Best Buy and National Parts officials sometimes questioned price discrepancies, those concerns were smoothed over by a Best Buy employee who received money and gifts from the Coles, officials alleged.

In one example outlined in the documents, Chip Factory won a bid for 20 computer parts at $42 per part, while the next lowest bid was $72. Chip Factory later charged Best Buy $571 per part, according to documents.

Cole’s scam began to unravel when authorities caught up with Best Buy employee Robert Paul Bossany, 39, of Chetek, Wisc., who managed the purchase of parts from outside vendors. He pleaded guilty last year to charges of conspiracy to commit mail fraud and money laundering. He was later fired by Best Buy.

On Monday, he was sentenced to 7.5 years in prison on one count of conspiracy to commit mail fraud and one count of money laundering.