As the year and the 2010′s approach their conclusion, we thought it might be a good time to take stock and see what Connecticut attorneys in 2019 ended up in criminal hot water.

We found our top five cases of attorneys who were convicted of serious crimes, in some instances pleading guilty to the charges. The list includes attorneys who embezzled from elderly clients to one who stole from his brother to another who stole money from military families.

Here are those attorneys listed alphabetically:

Southbury Attorney Robert Barry

Former longtime Sturges & Mathes partner Robert Barry was sentenced in July to 21 months in prison for stealing from an elderly client and then continuing to embezzle from her estate after she died.

Barry, a trusts and estates attorney, stole $2.4 million from the estate of Catherine Wilens. Federal judge Robert Chatigny, who also ordered Barry to serve three years of supervised release after his prison sentence, said the disgraced attorney needed to repay the $2.4 million and $1.5 million to residual beneficiaries of other estate clients.

Barry, 78 years old when he was sentenced in July, was admitted to the Connecticut bar in 1967. He headed the Sturges & Mathes trusts and estates division.

In his role as executor and successor trustee for Wilens, Barry directed the firm's staff members to prepare checks drawn on the victim's accounts, payable to the firm's operating account, the government said. Once the money was deposited into the firm's operating account. authorities said Barry then directed staff to cut a check against the firm's operating account, payable to a special firm account over which he had exclusive control. Federal authorities said Barry then wrote himself checks from that special account.

Bristol Attorney Kevin Creed

Attorney Kevin Creed, the founder of a nonprofit aimed at helping veterans and their families, pleaded guilty in August to stealing $1.4 million from those military families.

Creed, who will be sentenced in 2020 and faces a maximum 20 years in prison, pleaded guilty to wire fraud in relation to the scheme to steal from the charity.

According to court documents and statements made in court, the 67-year-old Creed established a charity called Friends of Fisher House Connecticut in 2010. The national Fisher House Foundation builds homes on the grounds of military and Department of Veterans Affairs medical centers for patients and families undergoing treatment. Friends of Fisher House Connecticut's goal, the government said, was to raise funds to build and support a Fisher House in West Haven.

Creed, who operated the Bristol-based Creed Law Firm, stole about $1.4 million which, the government said, he used for personal and law firm expenses. The firm specialized in personal injury, workers' compensation and criminal and civil rights cases.

Waterbury Attorney Alan Giacomi

General practice attorney Alan Giacomi was sentenced in May to 41 months in prison and three years' supervised released for bilking clients. Giacomi, who reported to prison in July, pleaded guilty to wire fraud and was ordered to pay $411,715 in restitution.

Giacomi, 45, had been a Connecticut attorney for nearly two decades. He was accused of bilking clients, including two in their 90s, of hundreds of thousands of dollars and using the money for his own benefit.

In one instance, the government said Giacomi's cousin hired him to assist with her mother's entry into a nursing home. The woman who was to go into the nursing home was the attorney's great-aunt. But authorities said Giacomi convinced his cousin to take out a life insurance annuity in his great-aunt's name for more than $35,000. The money was supposed to be used to pay part of his great-aunt's nursing home bill, but instead was "embezzled by Giacomi," according to the government.

Middletown Attorney Stephen Gionfriddo

Paralegal and former attorney Stephen Gionfriddo was sentenced in February to 46 months in prison and three years of supervised release for several offenses related to the theft of about $900,000 from his former employer law firm and his brother.

Gionfriddo, who also served as Middletown's mayor in the 1990s, embezzled more than $500,000 from the small Rocky Hill law firm LeFoll & LeFoll, where he worked as a paralegal, and then stole nearly $400,000 from his brother to pay back the law firm, according to authorities.

It's not the first time that Gionfriddo, who went to prison in April, had run-ins with the law. He was convicted of federal wire fraud and mail fraud offenses in 2006 for embezzling more than $633,000 from clients while acting as their attorney. He spent 18 months in prison for that offense.

Bristol Attorney Jodi Zils Gagne

Disbarred for 12 years from practicing law in Connecticut, former Bristol attorney Jodi Zils Gagne was sentenced to 46 months in prison in April for stealing more than $169,000 from clients while she served as a court-appointed conservator.

The 43-year-old Zils Gagne, who reported to prison in July, was among probate court-appointed conservators tasked with overseeing financial or personal affairs of incapacitated adults. But, according to authorities, Zils Gagne used that position for her own personal gain.

Prosecutors said Zils Gagne, an attorney for 16 years, defrauded several people under the court's protection, including a client over 90 years old and another who had multiple sclerosis. They said she misappropriated clients' money and overbilled them too.

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