The owner of a prominent Cherry Creek bridal studio offered up a public apology Monday after she was convicted of failing to pay employment taxes on her employees’ withholdings for more than a decade.

“Yes, I am guilty,” Donna M. Savoy, who owns Donna Beth Creations at East Second Avenue and Steele Street in Cherry Creek, told The Denver Gazette after she was sentenced in federal court to a year in jail.

“I’m deeply remorseful and embarrassed,” Savoy added, noting that she intends to make restitution for the losses.

According to a statement released by the Justice Department’s National Fraud Enforcement Division, Savoy admitted that she had withheld employee taxes for over a decade starting in the first quarter of 2014 and had “willfully failed” to pass them on to the IRS. She did not file employment tax returns over the same period, the statement added.

The statement said that Savoy allegedly spent the withholdings on personal and business expenses, resulting in losses to the federal government in excess of $1.3 million.

Savoy told The Denver Gazette that she was initially not aware she was in violation of the law.

“I don’t want to make light of it,” she added. She noted that she was discussing an appeal of the sentence with her attorneys.

Donna Beth Creations has fitted brides for more than 40 years, Savoy said, and the store remains in business.

The Justice Department statement said that, as owner and operator of the studio, Savoy was responsible for withholding Social Security, Medicare and income taxes from her employees’ wages, and for paying the funds to the IRS and filing quarterly employment tax returns.

According to the statement, Savoy pleaded guilty to one count of willful failure to account for and pay taxes. The sentence handed down was for 12 months and one day in prison.