A California man appeared for sentencing Friday expecting to go back home on probation — his attorney said he had a return plane ticket.

But after hearing a heart-wrenching statement from a victim the man swindled out of thousands of dollars nearly 20 years ago, Douglas County District Court Judge Paula Martin cast aside plea-deal sentencing recommendations and ordered the defendant to jail immediately.

She quickly deflected his attorney’s request for an appeal bond.

“You were gone for 14 years in another state under another name,” the judge told defendant James J. Romanek, aka James Smith. “The appeal bond’s denied.”

Last month Romanek, 66 at that time, pleaded guilty and was convicted of one count of securities fraud for crimes that occurred in 1999 and 2000 in Douglas County.

He was charged with three counts of securities fraud in 2004 and successfully evaded authorities — by moving to Sacramento and changing his name to the generic Smith — until 2016, when he was arrested at a casino he frequented.

Romanek has no other criminal convictions, attorneys said. Under Romanek’s plea agreement, his attorney Jonathan Phelps and attorneys for the Kansas Attorney General’s Office recommended probation, along with restitution to the two victims totaling $16,250 and a fine of $5,000.

Instead, in addition to the restitution and fine, Martin ordered Romanek directly to jail for 60 days to kick off a two-year probation.

She called his conduct “reprehensible” and “inexcusable,” and said the sentence was the maximum she could assign under sentencing guidelines.

Earlier in the hearing, Romanek said he planned to work hard going forward to make amends for his actions.

“What I did was wrong, and I accept total responsibility for it,” he said.

Romanek admitted at his plea hearing that he took $6,000 from a Lawrence man and promised to buy shares in a California-based internet company that was about to go public — a company that in fact did not exist. He also admitted he promised to invest $10,000 from an Overland Park woman and pay her gains, but never did.

Victim Jerry Manweiler of Lawrence told the court he did not believe Romanek was truly remorseful and hoped for a stronger sentence than probation.

“The context of this matters a lot,” Manweiler said.

When Romanek took his money, Manweiler said he had just finished his doctoral degree, was teaching at the University of Kansas, had recently launched a small business, and that he and his wife had just had their second child.

“We were very frugal people,” he said. “It was a difficult time. We didn’t have a lot of money.”

In the following year, in 2000, Manweiler’s wife died suddenly, leaving him a widower with children ages 1 and 3.

Manweiler said he met Romanek through a mutual friend and considered him a friend, which is partly why he trusted him. Also, Manweiler said, in the “dot-com era” Romanek’s pitch about the internet company seemed plausible, even the part where he insisted he couldn’t disclose secret information about the bogus startup company.

When Manweiler inquired about the money he was supposed to be getting back from the deal, Romanek would tell him, “It’s in the works. Don’t worry, it’s going to happen.”

Manweiler said that weeks after his wife died, Romanek tried to get him to invest life insurance money, too, which he didn’t even have yet.

Manweiler said he gave Romanek a total of $23,000. He said at one point Romanek repaid him $5,000, then fled. He said he got some money back from authorities when they auctioned Romanek’s house, and that he also filed a civil suit against Romanek (which was long-dormant but renewed following Romanek’s arrest, court records show) in an attempt to recoup all his losses.

“It was very devastating for me,” Manweiler said. “What kind of person would ever do that to a grieving widower?”