St. Louis ? The two Florida men accused of bilking consumers of $500 million through their Miss Cleo TV psychic operation flew Wednesday to St. Louis, pleaded no contest to felony fraud, were sentenced and flew home after their corporations paid a $50,000 fine.

Steven L. Feder, 52, was on probation for less than an hour without ever leaving a courtroom. Then a judge ruled that, his fine paid, he had satisfied his probation and was free to go.

His cousin, Peter Stolz, 54, got a longer probation: The judge gave him a maximum of two years. His lawyer said he expected that to last no more than five months.

“It was a very good deal,” Feder’s defense attorney, Ed Dowd, told reporters outside the courthouse. “My client paid no fine” his corporations did “and is not on probation.”

Missouri Atty. Gen. Jay Nixon’s office investigated the men for more than a year and filed a total of eight felony charges against the men and their two corporations.

“If it’s a good deal, then it’s a good deal for us, too,” Nixon said after the sentencing. “They are swindlers who pled guilty to criminal action today.”

Prosecutors say the case is significant because it’s the first time the two defendants have been charged with criminal acts. They still are being investigated for civil fraud by the Federal Trade Commission and several states.

Defense attorneys and prosecutors worked through the night to come up with the plea agreement. Part of it is that there will no record of either man’s conviction unless they violate their probations.

Feder said his criminal record already is sealed.

Is he embarrassed by what he did? “Not at all,” he said as he ran from the courthouse.

In Stolz’s case, he will have a clean criminal record unless he commits any more frauds in Missouri, which he denies he ever did.

Assistant Atty. Gen. Rex M. Burlison estimated that the Miss Cleo operation had collected some $1 billion nationwide, and that half of that was gained by deceit.

Feder and Stolz did that by advertising free telephone consultations with “Miss Cleo,” supposedly a Jamaican-accented psychic, but actually a U.S.-born actress and playwright.

Initially, the men hired “in-house” psychics, who supposedly had some qualifications, Burlison said.

But after they were inundated with calls, he said they subcontracted the hiring of 250 to 1,000 “readers” per day. “No experience necessary,” ads said. The readers worked from their homes.

Callers paid $4.99 per minute for a reading. Readers had to keep them online for more than 19 minutes or they might not get any other callers. Thousands of callers were put on hold, running up hundreds of dollars in bills without ever talking to any psychic, real or otherwise.