Thomas Lagan probably would have gotten away with it if he had limited himself to stealing a few million dollars, Assistant United States Attorney Michael Barnett said at Lagan’s sentencing in federal court Wednesday.

It was “insatiable greed,” Barnett said, that drove Lagan to steal, with co-conspirator Richard Sherwood, a Guilderland town judge at the time, nearly $12 million from the estates of elderly clients whose trusts and estates they managed.  

Lagan is a “severely ruined man,” his attorney, Kevin Luibrand, told Senior United States District Judge Lawrence Kahn in federal court on Dec. 11. “He is ruined. He has ruined himself.” 

Lagan, a former financial adviser and attorney who lived in Bethlehem and Cooperstown, was sentenced by Kahn to 78 months, or six-and-a-half years, in federal prison, which is the minimum under sentencing guidelines. This will be followed by two years of supervised release. Lagan had pleaded guilty in August to money laundering and filing of false income-tax returns. 

The government had asked for 90 months. Sentencing guidelines recommended between 78 and 97 months. 

The white-haired Lagan, who is 61, limped slightly as he entered the courtroom in a green jumpsuit with “RCJ” on the back. He has been held at Rensselaer County Jail since turning himself in after his sentencing in county court in October.

Lagan looked to a line of friends and supporters filling more than one bench in the gallery of Kahn’s courtroom. He smiled warmly at them and continued to gaze back several times as he sat down.

Lagan had worked together with Sherwood to steal more than $11 million from a family whose trusts and estates they managed. Two members of the family had been Lagan’s close friends. 

Over the course of years, Lagan and Sherwood funneled — into dummy companies and accounts — money that Capital Region philanthropists Warren and Pauline Bruggeman had intended to go to the care of her sisters, also elderly, and then to charity upon their deaths. All of the family members had eventually died since beginning to work with Lagan and Sherwood, and none of them had any children. 

Warren Bruggeman had been Lagan’s first client, Lagan told Kahn, and had taught him how to be a financial adviser. 

In court on Wednesday, Lagan said that he had cared for Anne Urban, Pauline Bruggeman’s sister, in her last years, and that Urban had made him the main beneficiary of her estate, “for taking care of her.” He said he had made a “mistake” related to “monies that I received wrongly from Pauline Bruggeman.” 

During the years of his criminal activity, Lagan had been “the quintessential functioning alcoholic,” Luibrand wrote in his sentencing memorandum to the judge, drinking 10 vodkas or wine drinks a day, waking up each morning and drinking again to alleviate the effects of alcohol withdrawal symptoms from the previous day’s consumption.

Lagan attended court in this case drunk and surrendered to jail after having drunk to intoxication, Luibrand wrote. 

Alcohol cost Lagan, first, his marriage, and later his relationship with his adult children, who are now estranged from him, wrote the attorney.

Alcoholism was a mitigating factor in his criminal behavior, not an excuse, Lagan’s attorney told the judge in court. “What alcohol does is affects your judgment and affects your moral fiber,” Luibrand added. “It totally erodes both.” 

The court should not accept for a minute the defendant’s “proffered explanation that alcohol ruled these crimes,” countered Barnett in court on Wednesday. The crimes were ruled, instead, “by insatiable greed,” he said. 

The crimes lasted nearly seven years, Barnett said, and “involved a dozen brokerage and banking accounts and involved Mr. Sherwood and Mr. Lagan forming a company to hold the fraudulent assets.” 

Lagan was making between $400,000 and $600,000 per year — and as much as $1 million one year — from working as a financial adviser in AYCO, Barnett said, and did not need the money. 

Lagan agreed that he did not need the money, telling the judge that, for the most part, he did not use it, except to buy homes in Cooperstown for people who needed them. Afterward, Luibrand said that Lagan had used the money to help rebuild his church after a fire.

Reverend Sylvia Barrett, pastor of the Milford United Methodist Church in Milford, wrote a letter to Kahn, provided to The Enterprise by Luibrand, stating that she has known Lagan for five years and that he has been “never been anything other than compassionate, generous, and determined to make a difference any way he can” during that time.

He has helped the church community in many ways since an arson attack in 2017, serving on a task force and taking a leading role in fundraising for the congregation. He is, Barrett said, “a gifted leader, with a kind heart … a fine combination for a United Methodist.”

A number of vehicles are included in the plea agreement’s list of items that Lagan must forfeit. These include a Mercedes, a Jeep Wrangler, a Lexus, and a Sea-Doo jet ski. 

Barnett said that he imagined Warren and Pauline Bruggeman “would want their last wishes effectuated; they would want all their money to go where it’s supposed to go.” Barnett asked the judge to “ensure that he repays every last dime that he stole.” 

Lagan had also had a home in Cooperstown, but he did not buy it with the monies from the criminal activity, Luibrand told The Enterprise. It and several other homes he owned were excluded, the attorney said. 

Kahn granted Luibrand’s request that he recommend Luibrand be sent to federal prison in Canaan, Pennsylvania. Luibrand had told the judge that that prison was not a “camp,” but that it did have a very successful drug treatment program known as the Residential Drug Abuse Program. RDAP is a 12-month program for federal prisoners with substance-abuse problems. 

“Mr. Lagan is committed to restoring his life with intensive alcohol treatment,” Luibrand wrote. 

Among the conditions Kahn set on Lagan, in sentencing, was that he attend a substance-abuse program, abide by its regulations, refrain from alcohol use during his eventual supervised release, and be subject to alcohol testing. 

The federal sentence is to run concurrently with the county court’s; Lagan was sentenced in earlier in county court to 4 to 12 years. 

Lagan told Kahn that he wants to pay back as much money as he can.

On his way out of the courtroom Lagan looked back again at his supporters. This time, he let out a sigh and did not smile.