Business Notes Financial

Jake Butcher wiped away tears as he stood last week with his wife and four children in a Knoxville court. The room was not far from the site of the 1982 ; World's Fair, which he made a success, and the gleaming headquarters building of the United American Bank, where he had been chairman. "I want to apologize for what I've done," said Butcher, 49. "I pray for the opportunity to try to restore or right some of the wrongs . . . My little boy there, nine years old, thinks I'm going to be gone 20 years." But Federal Judge William K. Thomas remained unmoved, sentencing Butcher to 20 years in prison, the maximum he could receive, for a series of frauds that caused the collapse of eleven banks controlled by him and his associates in Tennessee and Kentucky. Butcher had used his banks' deposits to make illegal loans to himself and friends between 1980 and 1982.

The penalty, one of the toughest ever for embezzlement, is part of a federal crackdown on white-collar crime. Said Judge Thomas: "The fact that you used multiple frauds to obtain millions from your own banks warrants a sentence comparable to one that would be imposed on a person who uses violence to obtain a far smaller amount of money from one of your banks."