BANGOR (AP) – A Maine biotechnology company has been fined $500,000 for illegally smuggling a chicken virus into the United States from Saudi Arabia so it could create a vaccine.

U.S. District Judge John Woodcock on Friday followed the prosecutors’ recommended fine against Maine Biological Laboratory of Winslow. The fine includes more than $319,000 in profits the firm made on the illegal vaccine.

Last month, Woodcock sentenced four former company executives to prison for their part in the smuggling scheme and their attempts to hide it from federal regulators. In all, eight people were sentenced in the case.

The company through its chief executive officer pleaded guilty last month to various charges in connection with the scheme. The judge gave MBL five years to pay the fine and placed it on probation during that time.

“I can only consider the $319,000 as a starting point,” Woodcock said. “Ordering MBL to pay only the amount it made in illegal profits is equivalent to requiring a bank robber only to return the loot.”

Travis Dunton of Pittsfield, who has worked at the lab for 14 years, urged Woodcock to consider the lab’s 135 employees and their families in making his decision. He said that recent closings at mills and other companies in central Maine had employees worried that they would become another statistic in the struggling Maine economy.

“I’ve watched this company grow and struggle financially over the years,” he told the judge. “I ask that you carefully take all the innocent people into consideration who are examples of the hardworking people of Maine.”

The case dates back to 1998, when a company customer in Saudi Arabia discovered one of its chicken flocks had an avian influenza, according to court documents.

To produce a vaccine, the lab required a sample of the virus, which then was smuggled into the United States. It is illegal to import avian influenza into the country even for research purposes.

After producing a vaccine, company officials falsified production records and shipping documents to send it back to the Saudi producers.

The Winslow firm was paid nearly $900,000 for 8,000 bottles of the vaccine, but a whistle-blower among the lab’s workers told federal authorities about the scheme.

Woodcock fined the company late Friday after a six-hour sentencing hearing in which he heard testimony about MBL’s ability to pay a fine that would not prevent it from continuing to operate.

The federal sentencing guidelines, used to calculate fines in cases of corporate wrongdoing, called for the fine to be between $560,000 and $1.1 million in addition to the illegal profits made from the sale of the avian virus vaccine.

Assistant U.S. Attorney George “Toby” Dilworth, who prosecuted the case, said that the $500,000 fine he recommended was based on MBL’s ability to pay and remain in business.

“We asked for the most significant penalty our expert said the company could pay,” Dilworth said after the hearing.

David Zacek, MBL’s chief executive officer, said after the hearing that the fine was fair.

“The fine is a fair amount and the judge allowing us to pay over time will allow us to continue operations,” he said. “It will be difficult but not impossible.”