MILAN--Former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi was found guilty of tax fraud and sentenced to four years in prison Friday in a case involving the purchase of U.S. film and television rights via off-shore companies on behalf of Mediaset SpA (MS.MI), the country's largest private television broadcaster that he controls.
The court in Milan banned Mr. Berlusconi from holding public office for three years. But it acquitted Fedele Confalonieri, chairman of Mediaset, of the same charge.
Mr. Berlusconi and Mr. Confalonieri, who had denied any wrongdoing, have the right to appeal.
Prosecutors had accused Berlusconi, Confalonieri and other suspects of falsely declaring the cost of purchasing the rights to U.S. productions to lower the tax bill.
They also said the price of 470 million euros ($610 million) paid for the rights to U.S. productions between 1994 and 1999 through two off-shore companies had been inflated in order to skim money from the deal for a secret slush fund.
The prosecutors had asked for a prison sentence of three years and eight months for Berlusconi and three years and four months for Confalonieri.
More than five other suspects were involved in the case.
Mr. Berlusconi controls Mediaset through a family holding company called Fininvest SpA.
The Italian billionaire is no stranger to prosecution.
Over the past 15 years, he has faced criminal investigations, indictments and trials on charges ranging from false accounting to corruption. He has always denied the charges.
In some cases, he was acquitted at trial. In others, he either wasn't charged, or the charges were dropped because the statute of limitations on the alleged crimes expired.
In February, for instance, a court dismissed a corruption case against Mr. Berlusconi after the statute of limitations had expired on charges that he allegedly paid his lawyer to give false testimony in the 1990s to shield him from prosecution.
Mr. Berlusconi is still on trial on charges of paying underage woman for sex and abusing his office as prime minister to try to cover it up. He has denied the charges and claimed to be the target of persecution by left-wing magistrates.
On Wednesday, he announced he wouldn't seek another term as premier after he was ousted from government in November 2011 as investors fled the Italian bond market and pulled the country into the center of the European sovereign-debt crisis.
He was succeeded by Mario Monti, whose government of technocrats has pushed through tough reforms.