HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) – Former Rite Aid Corp. chief executive Martin L. Grass was sentenced to eight years in prison Thursday for his part in a billion-dollar accounting scandal at the drugstore chain his father founded.

Grass, 50, who headed up the nation’s third-largest pharmacy chain in the late 1990s before being forced out in 1999, also was fined $500,000 and given three years’ probation.

Six former Rite-Aid executives in all were convicted or pleaded guilty in the scandal, in which the company inflated its earnings.

Before U.S. District Judge Sylvia H. Rambo handed down the sentence, Grass apologized to Rite Aid, its stockholders and employees.

He pleaded guilty to conspiring to commit fraud and obstruct justice. Under the plea bargain, he could have gotten 10 years behind bars.

Prosecutors said Grass admitted to a series of illegal activities, from backdating contracts and severance letters to misleading the company and federal investigators about a real estate deal. They said he also met with employees called to testify before the grand jury and encouraged them to lie.

During Grass’ time at the head of the Camp Hill-based company founded by his father, Alex Grass, in 1962, its stock price soared as Rite Aid engaged in an aggressive expansion effort.

But prosecutors said the boom years were accomplished by “massive accounting fraud, the deliberate falsification of financial statements, and intentionally false SEC filings.”

Less than a year after Grass left, the new management team restated the company’s earnings for 1998 and 1999, lowering them by $1.6 billion.

“As it turns out, I tried to do too much, too fast,” Grass told the judge. When the company’s finances took a turn for the worse in early 1999, he said, “I did some things to try and hide that fact.”

“Those things were wrong. They were illegal,” he said. But he added: “I did not do them to line my own pockets.”

Grass’ sentence is considerably longer than those imposed on three other former Rite Aid executives.

sentenced this week after pleading guilty to conspiracy. Two more executives are awaiting sentencing.

Rite Aid operates 3,400 stores in 28 states and the District of Columbia and has 72,500 employees.

AP-ES-05-27-04 1512EDT