New York ? Sam Waksal, the jet-setting drug-company entrepreneur at the center of the insider-trading scandal that has ensnared Martha Stewart, was sentenced to more than seven years in prison Tuesday for what a judge called Waksal’s “lawlessness and arrogance.”

The ImClone Systems founder also was ordered to pay nearly $4.3 million in fines and back taxes.

“The harm that you wrought is truly incalculable,” U.S. District Judge William H. Pauley said.

He said Waksal had damaged his company, his family and investors nationwide.

Waksal, 55, admitted last fall that he tipped his daughter, Aliza, to dump ImClone stock in December 2001, just before it plunged on a discouraging government report about the ImClone cancer drug Erbitux. Stewart, a friend of Waksal’s, also unloaded her stock before the news.

Waksal has not publicly implicated Stewart, who pleaded not guilty last week to charges that could undermine her home-decorating empire and put her in prison.

Waksal pleaded in a broken voice for mercy, apologizing to cancer patients for any delay the investigation might have caused in approval of Erbitux.

“I am deeply distressed and so very sorry for my actions,” he said. “I want to apologize to all the people who may have had confidence in me and whose confidence I betrayed.”

The prison term of seven years and three months was at the high end of federal sentencing guidelines for the eight counts covered by Waksal’s guilty plea. The penalties include a $3 million fine and more than $1.2 million Waksal owes New York state for evading taxes on nine paintings he bought in 2000 and 2001.

After being sentenced, Waksal hugged his brother and his 80-year-old father in the courtroom. He did not address a crush of camera crews and reporters outside the courthouse.

The judge ordered Waksal to report to prison July 2. Until then, he must remain in his New York City apartment and submit to electronic monitoring.

According to prosecutors, he learned in advance that the Food and Drug Administration had decided not to review ImClone’s application for Erbitux.

The judge said Aliza Waksal saved more than $630,000 when she sold at her father’s encouragement. Pauley said Waksal tried to save more than $1 million himself by transferring his own stock to Aliza’s account — a move blocked by his brokerage.