A husband and wife were taken into custody in state court Wednesday after they were each sentenced to 10-year prison terms for stealing $278,653 from the company that owns Hawaii Kai Shopping Center.

Lyle and Adrienne Saffery of Hawaii Kai each pleaded guilty in March to first-­degree theft. Adrienne Saffery also pleaded guilty to 203 counts of second-degree forgery. Lyle Saffery pleaded guilty to 96 counts of second-degree forgery.

They offered their guilty pleas without the benefit of a plea deal and asked acting Circuit Judge Paul B.K. Wong to defer their guilty pleas to give them an opportunity to avoid conviction. Wong denied their requests and sentenced each Wednesday to the maximum 10 years in prison for the theft and five years for each of the forgery counts, and ordered all sentences to run at the same time. He also ordered Adrienne Saffery to repay Hawaii Kai Dunhill IDG LP the $186,442 she stole and Lyle Saffery to repay the company $92,211.

“What really controls the sentence here is the magnitude of the theft as well as the complexity of the scheme that was undertaken to commit these thefts,” Wong said.

The Hawaii Paroling Authority will decide how much of the 10 years each Saffery must serve behind bars before either is eligible for parole.

“I just feel sick that my family gotta see us over here like this,” Lyle Saffery said.

Deputy Prosecutor Chris Van Marter said Adrienne Saffery was an accountant for Hawaii Kai Dunhill until she resigned in November 2015. He said that during the last four years of her employment, Saffery created fraudulent invoices, doctored bank records and created 293 counterfeit checks to steal more than $286,000. The actual amount of loss was less because, toward the end of the scheme, establishments refused to cash some of the checks, Van Marter said.

Still, he said Saffery and her husband were able to cash 10 counterfeit checks two months after she resigned from her job.

“There were some months when the two of them cashed over 20 fraudulent checks — checks of $900, $1,100 and $1,200,” Van Marter said.

Adrienne Saffery said, “It’s not what I’ve been raised to be like, and it’s not what I raised my kids to be like.” One of the Safferys’ children is a Honolulu police officer.

After they pleaded guilty, Adrienne Saffery told a state court official compiling information for her sentencing that she and her husband spent the money they stole on gambling and drugs. She said they used about a quarter-gram of methamphetamine per day and spent $1,000 a month at local gambling houses.

Although Lyle Saffery told the court official that he and his wife spent the money on bills, his lawyer Steven Nichols said all of the stolen money went to drugs and gambling. He said Lyle Saffery lied because they hadn’t yet told their family, and there is no evidence that the Safferys made extravagant purchases or lived a lavish lifestyle.