DENVER — Joe Nacchio, the former Qwest Communications chief who was forced to resign during a multibillion-dollar accounting scandal, was sentenced to six years in prison yesterday for illegally selling $52 million in stock while not telling investors that his telecommunications company faced serious financial risks.

Nacchio was ordered to forfeit the $52 million within 15 days. He received a maximum $19 million fine and two years' probation after he serves his sentence. Once a federal prison is chosen for him, he is to report within 15 days. He was denied bail while he appeals his conviction.

"The crimes the defendant has been found guilty of are crimes of overarching greed," declared U.S. District Judge Edward Nottingham as Nacchio stood before him.

Nacchio, 58, a former AT&T executive, is the latest in a string of former top-level executives to be convicted in recent corporate fraud scandals at companies like Enron and WorldCom. He had faced a maximum term of seven years, five months.

The case grew out of the accounting scandal in which federal regulators said Qwest falsely reported fiber-optic capacity sales as recurring instead of one-time revenue between April 1999 and March 2002. They said the practices allowed the company to improperly report about $3 billion in revenue.