Former Kansas Republican state Rep. Trent LeDoux was sentenced to 18 months in jail Monday for defrauding a bank run by a longtime friend to help fund his political activities.

Authorities said LeDoux obtained three loans from Farmers & Merchants Bank in Colby to buy cattle, but failed to make payments and deposited $28,000 from the loans into his campaign account in late 2011 and 2012. LeDoux pleaded guilty last May and was ordered to pay about $461,000 in restitution to the bank.

In a statement before the court he said he was “sorry for having taken up everyone’s time with this,” and apologized personally to Brent Wiedeman, the bank’s president, who approved the loans and testified at the hearing in favor of a stiffer punishment for LeDoux.

Wiedeman said after the hearing that he and LeDoux first met when both were in high school in 1990 and over the years became “very good friends” as classmates and fraternity brothers at Kansas State University.