A businessman with ties to a Bermuda-based company who was once pardoned by US President Bill Clinton plead guilty on Tuesday to federal tax evasion charges.

Almon Glenn Braswell admitted his Marina del Rey-based mail-order vitamin business Gero Vita International did not pay $4.5 million in federal income taxes, according to a report in the Associated Press yesterday.

Braswell, who was previously convicted of fraud in 1983 over a baldness treatment, was pardoned by former President Clinton in 2001.

However, he was arrested in January, 2003 after US tax authorities in California alleged he hid $22.2 million between 1994 and 1997 in a Bermuda-registered company he owned.

He has been jailed since his 2003 arrest in Miami.

This week, as part of his guilty plea, Braswell agreed to pay the full amount claimed to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) within three weeks. Braswell also must pay about $6 million in penalties and interest.

He could also be spending more time behind bars with his facing 18 months in federal prison under his plea agreement. A sentencing hearing is scheduled for September.

Attempts to convict Braswell led the IRS to a Bermuda court last year, where pursuant to the USA Bermuda Tax Convention, the Finance Ministry was asked to order certain documents ? understood to include accounts from Bank of Bermuda and Bank of Butterfield ? handed over to the IRS.

Braswell was previously pardoned by President Clinton when he granted 177 pardons and clemencies just before leaving office in 2001.

Braswell was pardoned of convictions for fraud and other crimes stemming from false claims in 1983 about a baldness treatment.

His pardon became one of the most criticised after it was learned that the president's brother-in-law, Hugh Rodham, had been paid $200,000 to work on the case. Mr. Rodham later returned the money.