New York state has secured nearly $6.3 million intended to benefit local charitable organizations that had been stolen by a Guilderland attorney and his financial adviser.

Richard Sherwood was arrested in 2018 and later pleaded guilty to money laundering and filing false tax returns.

He and financial advisor Thomas Lagan, of Cooperstown, took advantage of their positions as trustees of three sisters’ estates and stole $11.8 million meant for charitable organizations throughout the Capital Region.

Sherwood and Lagan provided real estate planning and legal and financial services for Niskayuna philanthropists Warren and Pauline Bruggeman and Pauline’s sister Anne Urban, of Watervliet. The sisters’ wills directed that all assets, aside from trusts for Anne and Pauline’s other sister, Julia Rentz, go to churches, civic organizations, a hospital and university scholarship fund, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office and Attorney General Letitia James.

However, Sherwood and Lagan made themselves the beneficiaries of their estates and created a sham trust to conceal the theft.

Even while in prison, Lagan tried and failed to stop the money from going to its intended charities, investigators said. It will now be distributed properly.

Victims include the St. Nicholas Ukrainian Catholic Church, the Ukrainian-American Cultural Center, Ellis Hospital Foundation and the Bruggeman ’46 Scholarship Fund at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.