BLUEFIELD, West Virginia – The former owner of several strip clubs was sentenced to more than three years in prison in federal court on Tuesday, the U.S. Attorney’s Office announced.

Timothy Ray Cline, 51, of Princeton, pleaded guilty to income tax evasion and defrauding the Social Security Administration in March 2007.

According to an information filed in federal court, Cline failed to pay more than $84,000 in income tax he owed and improperly received more than $35,000 from Social Security between 1995 and 2003, when he claimed he was so disabled physically and emotionally that he could not work.

Federal authorities maintain that Cline, who owned three different Southern XPosure clubs in Barboursville, Bradley and Princeton, skimmed more than $51,000 from “cover charges” at the door of the venues in 2001.

He failed to file a federal tax return for 2001, and when he filed one late in 2003 he failed to report the money as income, according to the information.

U.S. District Judge David A. Faber sentenced Cline to 37 months in prison.

Man pleads guilty to trying to make meth

In a separate case, a Cross Lanes man pleaded guilty in Charleston to trying to make methamphetamine.

Jeffrey Wayne Jones, 42, faces up to 20 years in prison when sentenced by U.S. District Judge John T. Copenhaver Jr. on July 2.

According to the news release, police officers responding to a tip smelled an odor consistent with a methamphetamine lab when they visited Jones’ home on July 31, 2007.

After obtaining a search warrant, members of the Metropolitan Drug Enforcement Network Team found two large meth labs and a small amount of the drug on Jones, the release states.