Convicted Swindler Will Not Repay Millions He Stole From Elderly Clients

April 17--A former South Windsor insurance agency owner who swindled eight elderly clients out of millions of dollars will not have to repay the bulk of what he stole.

Galan Newton, 65, was released from probation Tuesday after Hartford Superior Court Judge Laura F. Baldini found that there was no way for Newton to repay the $2.3 million he owed.

In February 2001 Newton was sentenced to 15 years in prison after pleading guilty to larceny. A year later he was ordered to pay $3.2 million back to his victims, eight elderly clients and insurance companies that covered some of the losses.

Newton's lawyer, Hartford Public Defender R. Bruce Lorenzen, said Newton now works low-paying jobs, is "a man of modest means," and will never be able to repay the money.

"He's fallen pretty far from where he was," Lorenzen told the judge.

Newton was released from prison on Oct. 28, 2013, and began five years of probation. One of the requirements was that he repay the victims $476,129 a year. He could not and did not, Lorenzen said.

Newton was charged in November 2017 with violating the terms of his probation. Newton made some small payments while his case was pending, but after a hearing in March and an inquiry into money Newton had inherited, the determination was made that he could not repay the money. The state Department of Administrative Services seized some of the inheritance to cover the cost of incarcerating Newton.

Assistant State's Attorney Joseph LaMotta, who handled the original prosecution of Newton, said told Baldini on Tuesday that all of Newton's elderly victims are dead and the insurance companies he owed have all be acquired by other companies and no records about what Newton owes them exist.

The judge who sentenced Newton to prison in 2001, Elliot N. Solomon, said at the time that he expected the case to end the way it did Tuesday.

"I will be incredibly surprised if they ever see these funds back," Solomon said in 2001.

Newton claimed a bad divorce and gambling is where the money went. His victims suspected he hid some of it South America while visiting his wife's family right before his arrest. He claimed when he was sentenced that he always planned to pay the money bag.

His victims included a retired seamstress from Manchester who worked hard her whole live and saved. Katherine Hughes, 92 when Newton was sentenced, told Solomon that Newton's thefts "ruined the rest of my life." She lost $500,000 to Newton, who she told the judge she trusted like a son.

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