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A 69-year-old Wheaton woman who served as the bookkeeper of a multimillion-dollar money laundering scam at a Wheaton restaurant was sentenced Wednesday to two months in jail, a sentence well below the government-recommended penalty of 21 to 27 months.

Consuelo Solano pleaded guilty in June to conspiracy to commit money laundering from El Pollo Rico, a Peruvian chicken restaurant on Ennalls Avenue that her brother, Francisco Solano, owned.

She is also required to comply with a supervised release for three years, eight months of which will be home confinement.

A teary-eyed Consuelo Solano said nothing as she kept her head bowed and dabbed at her eyes with a tissue. Behind her, in the courtroom at the U.S. District Courthouse in Greenbelt, several friends and family did the same.

"I am very sorry for what I did. And I won't do it again," she told U.S. District Judge Roger W. Titus before he issued the sentence.

Consuelo Solano was the first of four defendants to receive a sentence in the case. While U.S. Attorney David Salem tried to paint her as one of the main players in the multimillion-dollar operation that also involved harboring illegal immigrants, Consuelo Solano's attorneys Marc Hall and Jeannie Cho defended her as a remorseful woman who was obeying the other three defendants.

Consuelo Solano's brother, Juan Faustino Solano, 59, pleaded guilty in June to conspiracy to commit money laundering and conspiracy to harbor illegal immigrants. His sentencing is set for Monday.

Francisco Solano, 59, of Germantown, pleaded guilty in July to conspiracy to commit money laundering, conspiracy to harbor illegal immigrants and structuring bank transactions to evade reporting. His wife, Ines Hoyos-Solano, 60, of Germantown, pleaded guilty in July to conspiracy to commit money laundering. Their sentencing is set for Nov. 24.

Prosecutors said the defendants employed illegal immigrants at the restaurant from January 1999 to July 2007 and did not list them on wage records supplied to the government. From January 2002 to July 2007, more than $7 million in cash proceeds from the restaurant was deposited in an El Pollo Rico business account and transferred to a co-defendants' personal accounts. Money was used to buy property, jewelry and vehicles.

About $2 million was found in Consuelo Solano's kitchen cabinet after police raided her house with a search warrant, according to attorneys.