BAY COUNTY, Mich. (WJRT) - The former director of the Bay City State Theatre has officially begun his prison sentence.
According to federal court records, Mike Bacigalupo is an inmate at the federal prison in Morgantown, West Virginia. Online records list the prison as a minimum security federal prison camp.
In April, Bacigalupo was sentenced to two years in federal prison, two years of probation and $350,000 worth of restitution for the scheme that led to the theatre's bankruptcy.
He pleaded guilty last year to a charge of wire fraud, which totaled around $750,000. Prosecutors sought a four-year prison sentence while Bacigalupo's attorney argued against any more time behind bars.
In his role as director and chief operating officer of the State Theatre, Bacigalupo admitted to diverting money from the facility and the Bay County Historical Society to fund renovations to Wenonah Park.
Bacigalupo obtained two loans of $1 million to pay for improvements to the band shell at Wenonah Park in Bay City and used the State Theatre as collateral. He allegedly siphoned $200,000 from a historical society renovation project to make payments on the loans.
Both loans went into default and the theatre's former board filed for bankruptcy when they could not afford any payments. The theatre closed for a while during bankruptcy proceedings, but has since reopened.