Ex-UBS client, 80, sentenced in tax evasion case

* NY man gets 2 years probation, to pay civil penalty

* Defendant pleased to put matter behind him, lawyer says

NEW YORK, April 21 (Reuters) - An 80-year-old New York man who was once a UBS AG (UBSN.VX) client was sentenced to two years probation for filing false U.S. income tax returns and conspiring to hide $4.9 million at the Swiss bank, federal prosecutors said.

Ernest Vogliano, the defendant, pleaded guilty in December to conspiring to defraud the Internal Revenue Service and five counts of filing false income tax returns, and agreed to pay a $940,381 civil penalty, prosecutors said.

He is one of several former UBS clients to be sentenced to prison or probation in the last two years after admitting to hiding money from U.S. tax authorities.

"Mr. Vogliano is extremely pleased to be getting this matter behind him," his lawyer Richard Albert said.

U.S. District Judge Thomas Griesa imposed Vogliano's sentence, according to the office of U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara in Manhattan.

Prosecutors said that in 2000 and 2002, Vogliano opened UBS accounts in the names of Hong Kong and Liechtenstein shell corporations.

They said that after a U.S. government criminal probe of UBS became public, Vogliano moved $1 million from UBS to a Liechtenstein bank that had no U.S. offices.

Seven people were charged last April 15 by Bharara's office with crimes tied to hiding Swiss bank accounts, and Vogliano is the fifth to plead guilty, that office said.

UBS admitted in 2009 to actively helping U.S. clients evade taxes, and paid $780 million to settle that case.

The case is U.S. v. Vogliano, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, No. 10-cr-00327. (Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by Gary Hill)