Businessman sentenced to prison for defrauding investors

BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) – A Louisiana businessman who pleaded guilty to defrauding investors out of hundreds of thousands of dollars has been sentenced to more than three years in prison.
  
U.S. District Judge John W. deGravelles on Wednesday sentenced 52-year-old William Todd Cutrer, of Addis, to 42 months in prison and ordered him to pay more than $500,000 restitution to his victims.
  
Cutrer pleaded guilty in October to mail fraud.
  
U.S. Attorney Brandon J. Fremin’s office said in a news release Friday that Cutrer owned and operated West Baton Rouge Credit Inc., a Port Allen-based lending company that made high-interest loans.
  
Fremin’s office says Cutrer used customers’ money to write checks to himself and his family members and to make payments owed to other customers instead of investing the funds as he had promised.