A one-time insurance executive who defrauded the city of Hartford, the state and others of over $2 million was sentenced to 78 months in federal prison Wednesday.
The sentence for Earl O’Garro was lower than what prosecutors had asked for. But Judge Alvin Thompson nevertheless cited what he said was O’Garro’s “pure and simple greed to live a luxurious life at the expense of others.”
O’Garro -- who once ran Hybrid Insurance -- was also ordered to pay restitution of more than $1.3 million.
O’Garro first made news more than two years ago when he failed to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars in premiums on behalf of the city of Hartford. That drew the attention of federal prosecutors and began an inquiry that would involve, but not implicate, city Treasurer Adam Cloud. O’Garro had a personal relationship with the treasurer, and a business relationship with the treasurer’s family. Cloud's attorney has called him one of O'Garro's victims.
Eventually, prosecutors charged O’Garro – saying that he used the money he took for his business, Hybrid Insurance, and used it for things like a million-dollar beachfront condo in the Dominican Republic. O’Garro’s attorneys told the court that their client was robbing Peter to pay Paul -- but that he always intended to pay Paul back.
“In this case, he did not start out to defraud,” said O'Garro's public defender Tracy Hayes, who told the court that O’Garro was a role model in his community and that he had a bright future ahead of him.
Hayes told Thompson that there was “no intention on his part to hurt or harm anyone,” but rather that his business just started to spiral out of control. Once a big contract fell through and news about O’Garro’s troubles broke, he lost his access to capital and his ability to pay his lenders back.
But prosecutors said O’Garro never intended to pay anything back. Instead he used other people’s money to pay for things like that condo and private school tuition for his children.
Though he didn’t testify during trial, O’Garro addressed the judge at his sentencing. He described for Thompson how his business was promising before his cash dried up -- even saying that, in the months before the trouble started, he had an offer from a “a hedge fund that did business with the city” of Hartford. That company, O’Garro said, was contemplating investing $200 million in Hybrid.
O’Garro also told the court that prosecutors first came to him to be a cooperating witness in an investigation about “potential public corruption within the city of Hartford.” But O’Garro said he refused the offer because he “didn’t want to aid in the destruction of other people to save myself.”
He also said that the prosecutors were on a “witch hunt against people that looked like me.” O’Garro is black. No one else has been charged in this case.
And when it was time for prosecutor Avi Perry to speak, he told the judge that O’Garro’s statements made it clear that he “continues to live in his own version of reality.” Perry called what happened a “brazen” and “carefully planned out and executed fraud.” Perry asked Thompson for a sentence around 97 months.
After considering some mitigating factors about O’Garro’s criminal record, Thompson opted for a lesser sentence of 78 months, or six-and-a-half years.
O’Garro must surrender himself on May 13 and serve a minimum of five-and-a-half years. (Earlier in the process, O'Garro rejected a deal that would have meant anywhere between 33 months to 51 months in prison.) When he is eventually released, he’ll be supervised for three years, and he’ll have to start paying restitution of $1.3 million.
Meanwhile, O’Garro’s attorney is considering an appeal.