A St. Louis area investment advisor and radio show host who labeled himself "The Financial Coach" was sentenced Friday to nine years in prison for losing more than $3 million in investors’ money, the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Missouri announced.

Bryan Binkholder, 43, of Wentzville, Mo., pled guilty to four counts of wire fraud and one count of bank fraud in January in U.S. District Court. In addition to the prison term, he was ordered to pay nearly $3.7 million in restitution to his victims.

Binkholder provided investment and financial planning advice through his websites, YouTube, published books and articles, and an investment related talk-radio show that aired on local radio stations, the U.S. Attorney said.

In 2008, he developed a real estate investment he called "hard money lending." Using his platform as an investment advisor and financial talk show host, Binkholder solicited his clients and others to invest in the hard money lending program.

As part of his sales pitch, he said he had relationships with real estate developers who wanted to purchase, renovate and sell residential real estate in the St. Louis area, but who were not able to secure financing from traditional banks. As part of the hard money lending program, Binkholder told investors that they would invest money with him, and he would act as a bank and provide short-term loans to these developers at a high rate of interest, which would be shared with the investor.

Binkholder actually made only a small number of loans and lost millions of dollars of investors’ money, the U.S. Attorney said.