Lagan, Sherwood’s co-conspirator, pleads guilty to federal charges

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Thomas Lagan pleaded guilty Wednesday morning to money-laundering and filing false income-tax returns here, in the James T. Foley U.S. Courthouse for the Northern District of New York on Broadway in Albany.

ALBANY COUNTY — Thomas Lagan, a co-conspirator with former Guilderland town judge Richard Sherwood, pleaded guilty on Aug. 7, in federal court to charges of money-laundering and filing of false income-tax returns associated with stealing more than $11 million from elderly clients whose trusts they managed together.

Sentencing had been set for Dec. 12; however, Lagan’s lawyer, Kevin Luibrand, asked Judge Lawrence Kahn that sentencing be moved up, which Kahn agreed to discuss at a later date.

Lagan is facing between 78 and 97 months in prison on the federal charges. In April, Lagan, a financial advisor and attorney, pleaded guilty in State Supreme Court to first-degree grand larceny, a felony.

In June 2018, Sherwood pleaded guilty in two courts — in Albany County Court, he pleaded guilty to second-degree grand larceny, a felony, and, in federal court, he pleaded guilty to money-laundering and filing false income tax returns.

Sherwood had said he would testify against Lagan who had originally been scheduled for a trial.

Sherwood and Lagan handled the family trusts of Capital Region philanthropists Walter and Pauline Bruggeman and of Bruggeman’s two sisters, Anne Urban and Julia Rentz, all of whom were elderly and none of whom had any children. Sherwood and Lagan took monies that were intended to go from these trusts to charities and instead funneled them into accounts that they had set up in order to benefit themselves.

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