DENVER -- Arnold Zaler, the self-styled kosher "hot dog king" of Denver, admitted that he was driven by a hunger to be a "big shot" in the city's Jewish community.

Instead the 60-year-old confessed conman hung his graying head in Denver federal court Friday -- a pariah to his own people. He apologized to fellow Jews and family members who gave the twice-convicted swindler a second chance, only to be scammed for nearly $2.5 million.

Zaler and his attorney said his motivation was never money, but an obsession to be the "top dog" that dated to his days as Vietnam War protest leader on the University of Colorado Boulder campus. He even had a failed run for Denver City Council in the 1970s.

"I tried and tried to be a big shot. I wanted to be a leader and look what I've done," said Zaler, clad in a khaki jail jumpsuit. "I let you down and I hurt you."

"How did I get myself in this position? What I have learned is something is wrong with me," said the fallen kosher king, who suffers from manic-depression, alcoholism and diabetes.

But Senior Judge John L. Kane wasn't swayed by arguments that Zaler, beset by mental illness, had concocted an "idiotic" scheme that was never intended to make him rich.

Defense attorney Mitchell Baker had urged the judge to consider advisory sentencing guidelines and give Zaler between six to eight years in prison. Prosecutors and probation officials recommended eight years for the man who had pleaded guilty to four counts of fraud.

Instead the judge sentenced him to 15 years in federal prison and a maximum five years probation when he's released.

"I find the defendant is a hard-core recidivist," said Kane as several of Zaler's victims filled the courtroom.

"The public needs to be protected from further crimes by this defendant," the judge stressed. The only way to do that was to send him to prison until he is "too old to offend again," the judge said.

Indeed, Zaler had concocted a string of clever, convincing schemes to swindle people out of millions, according to court records and press accounts.

His earlier crimes included misleading a disabled woman distraught over her daughter's death that he wanted to marry her. He fleeced her out of $100,000 in the mid-1990s. He infamously forged a U.S. senator's signature on paperwork for business loans in Arizona, where he served just 4 1/2 years of a 14-year sentence.

Denver Jewish community members were not eager to forgive the man whom they had helped get back on his feet after getting sprung from Arizona prison.

"He got what he deserved," said a woman, who asked that her name not be used, after the sentencing. "He should have gotten more."

"You know what's sad is there were people who were willing to give him a second chance when he came back from Arizona -- and he betrayed them," she said. He played on their sympathy, vowing to "do wonderful things for the Jewish community," she said.

The conman returned to Denver to take over Zaler's Kosher Meats, the business his family started in 1913.

Zaler's kosher hot dogs were a fan favorite at Broncos, Rockies and Nuggets games. But his desire to be the "top dog," as his attorney put it, became his downfall.

Zaler was indicted in February 2008 for a scam that involved crafting bogus orders to sell hot dogs at the Pepsi Center, Invesco Field at Mile High, Coors Field and Super Target grocery stores. He then used the forged documents to obtain loans from local businesses and individual investors.

At the time, a judge ordered him to surrender his passport and not leave Colorado. Instead, Zaler fled to Israeli and remained a fugitive until he surrendered to the FBI at the Atlanta airport in February 2009.

After his sentencing Friday, the aging king shuffled out of the courtroom toward a long stretch in prison.