A current Fairfield County resident is headed to federal prison for tax evasion and for defrauding investors by using their money to pay his personal expenses. 58 year old Briah Hughes was sentenced to two and a half years in prison on Monday according to the US Attorney’s Office for the District of Connecticut. The case dates back to March of 2015 when Hughes founded an LLC to raise money to purchase the alcoholic beverage company Salute American Vodka. As soon as Hughes got his first investment, for $150,000, he used it to pay his taxes and his American Express credit card. Then, even after he bought Salute for $450,000, Hughes would still solicit funds from investors and use hundreds of thousands of dollars for personal expenses. Hughes was also ordered to pay full restitution of just under $3 Million to investors and the IRS, and he will have to serve three years of supervised release after his prison sentence.