A fixture in North Philadelphia’s sneaker scene who pleaded guilty earlier this year to hiding more than $4 million in sales from the IRS was spared prison time Thursday by a federal judge who recognized the man for his decades-long commitment to his community.

Instead, U.S. District Judge Milton Younge sentenced Yong Lee, the owner of Young’s Sneaker City on Girard Avenue, to five years’ probation and a $55,000 fine. In addition, Lee was ordered to pay more than $493,000 in taxes to the IRS – a sum that the shoe salesman’s attorney said Thursday he had already paid.

“I know I made a big mistake,” Lee, 63, of Dresher, told the judge during sentencing in federal court. “But what I can tell you, Your Honor, is that from now until the day I die, I will be honest and respect the law.”

Nevertheless, after the nearly two-hour hearing, in which several of Lee’s customers, friends and family members praised his decades-long commitment to a predominantly low-income and black clientele, the judge concluded that the sneaker salesman deserved leniency.

Several of them described Young’s Sneaker City as a bright spot in his section of West Girard on the edge of Brewerytown.

Lee opened the store in the mid-’80s after immigrating to Philadelphia with his family from South Korea in 1974. And the shop, where he works with his wife and twin sons, quickly became a popular hangout for families looking to outfit their children and for avid North Philadelphia sneakerheads on the hunt for the latest in fashionable footwear.

The Instagram account, which now has over 30,000 followers, features photos of loyal customers browsing the extensive collection of tennis shoes from New Balance and Nike or just hanging out in the store.

Several witnesses told the court about Lee’s efforts to gain community acceptance – whether by giving free turkeys to families at Thanksgiving or shoes to local schools at Christmas, by having photos of customers who had died in violent crimes hang on the walls of his store and by taking time to attend their funerals.

“He has served this community for decades,” his friend Mark O’Donnell said in court. “He has hired local youth and people of color. The community is loyal to him. They come back generation after generation to bring their children to this store and have this humble man put shoes on their little children.”

The loyalty of Lee’s regular customers was so great that they guarded the entrance to his store to protect him when looting broke out in many parts of the city in May 2020 during anti-racism protests sparked by the police killing of George Floyd.

“As an immigrant from East Asia, it is not easy to find support and compassion in this neighborhood,” Lee told the judge Thursday through a Korean interpreter. “I was robbed many times and my store was broken into. But over time, the people in my neighborhood treated me like family.”

Yet prosecutors insisted that Lee deserved punishment for his crimes. In March, he pleaded guilty to four counts of tax evasion, admitting that he failed to report many of the store’s cash sales on his corporate and income tax returns.

Instead, they said, he used the money he owed the IRS to buy groceries and pay household bills, spending $730,000 of it to buy homes for his sons in Montgomery County.

“He was a businessman for many years,” said Assistant U.S. Attorney Frank Weber. “He knew he had to pay taxes on the money his company made. He couldn’t just take the money out of the till and spend it however he wanted.”

Weber acknowledged that when confronted by investigators, Lee confessed almost immediately and even helped IRS agents investigate his crimes by providing a “fairly expertly prepared” accounting of the amounts of money he had not declared.

And Younge acknowledged that decision when he announced his decision to keep Lee out of prison. The judge acknowledged that the suspended sentence he ultimately imposed was a significant break from federal guidelines that called for Lee to serve between one year and 18 months in prison.

Nevertheless, he sent Lee off with a warning.

“This is the best result possible,” Younge said. “It will never be this good again.”