Woman behind prison bars.

As attorneys throughout the country are requesting compassionate releases of their clients due to COVID-19 concerns, Jonathan Einhorn is seeking the same for a sixth client: former Bristol attorney Jodi Zils Gagne.

Zils Gagne was sentenced to 46 months in prison in April 2019 for stealing more than $169,000 from clients. She reported to the Danbury Federal Correction Institute in July 2019. She still has about 35 months left on her sentence.

Einhorn, a New Haven solo practitioner, said Zils Gagne has multiple sclerosis. He said if Zils Gagne contracts the coronavirus, she would be at more risk than other prisoners because of her medical condition.

"She is in great danger, and more so than the average prisoner because of her MS," Einhorn said Wednesday. "The MS is the key to our argument. She doesn't have COVID-19, but the prison site she is at is one of the hot spots in the country for COVID-19."

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Lack of evidence?

Einhorn said of his five previous motions asking for the release of other clients, three were granted and two are pending.

He joins attorneys throughout the country asking for compassionate release for older prisoners and those with medical conditions that put them at high risk for COVID-19. Among them: President Donald Trump's former campaign chairman and Connecticut native Paul Manafort, 71, who was released from prison to home confinement on Wednesday because of COVID-19 concerns. Manafort was serving a seven-and-a-half-year sentence for bank and tax fraud.

But prosecutors are fighting release efforts.

Responding to Zils Gagne's May 1 compassionate plea motion, the government said it didn't believe a compassionate release of the attorney was warranted.

In court pleadings, prosecutors wrote, "While the government is not unsympathetic to Zils Gagne's concerns, the lack of evidence of compelling or personal or institutional considerations that place her at a heightened risk of serious disease, coupled with her victim's strong objections to her compassionate release, make her ill-suited for release at this time."

In his May 11 reply to the government's motion, Einhorn included a letter from a neurologist that indicated that multiple sclerosis is an autoimmune disease that makes her more susceptible to contracting the coronavirus. In addition, the motion states, Zils Gagne would have "different medical complications than the ordinary inmate."

Zils Gagne was a probate court-appointed conservator. Prosecutors alleged she had defrauded several people under the court's protection, including a client who was older than 90 and another who, like the attorney, had multiple sclerosis.

In the latest development, Einhorn said U.S. District Judge Vanessa Bryant could make her ruling "any day now."

"Judges have been acting quickly on these motions," he said. "I need to give them credit for that."

Late Tuesday evening, U.S. District Judge Michael Shea ruled that the conditions at three lockup facilities in Danbury were so bad that the warden needed to compile a list of at-risk prisoners for a furlough release, meaning they'd have to return to prison sometime down the road.

"What Judge Shea ruled is an alternative route for Jodi to come home," Einhorn said. "We'd hope that Judge Bryant gives her a compassionate release, but the other way is for the warden to give her a furlough. We don't care how she comes home, as long as she is safe."

Representing the government was David Huang, assistant U.S. attorney for the District of Connecticut. Tom Carson, a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's Office, declined to comment.

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