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| Public defender Eliana Forciniti speaks with Thomas Gage before he was escorted out of the courtroom by a sheriff’s deputy and taken to state prison after being sentenced Thursday for financially exploiting an elderly woman. |
Gage, 58, of Newfields, was sentenced to 2 to 4 years in prison and must pay restitution after pleading guilty in September to two counts of financial exploitation.
During his sentencing hearing in Rockingham County Superior Court, Gage apologized for the pain he’s caused the victim, saying he never set out to hurt her financially.
“It became a reckless enterprise which caused reprehensible harm,” he said, adding, “All I can say at this point is that I’m devastated.”
Gage was charged after taking out five credit cards in the victim’s name and racking up more than $80,000 between January 2015 and January 2016.
Gage, who formerly practiced in Exeter, was disbarred in 2016 for mismanaging other clients’ money.
According to Attorney Brandon H. Garod, Gage told the victim that he was renovating a family home that he inherited from his parents and wanted to turn it into an apartment building, but couldn’t get his own financing. He convinced the victim to allow him to take out five credit cards in her name, claiming she would not be responsible for the debt because he planned to set up a limited liability company, which would inherit any of the debt and not affect her credit. As part of the plan, Garod said Gage told her that eventually she could earn income from the rental.
Garod said Gage never set up the LLC and didn’t actually own the property, which faced foreclosure. After taking out the credit cards, Garod said he maxed them out and used the money to pay off his own debt and his businesses, Gage Law Offices and Quality Title Company.
Garod argued that Gage was manipulative and was able to get the victim to agree to the scheme by a “lifetime of building trust” between him and the victim through their family connections and handling any legal matters as her attorney.
“The trust made this possible,” said Garod, who works in the Consumer Protection and Anti-Trust Bureau’s Elder Abuse.
The victim also spoke about the impact on her her finances and her health and how she’s had to deal with credit card companies looking for repayment.
“He kept making promises that didn’t follow through,” she said.
Eliana Forciniti, Gage’s public defender, disagreed with how the prosecution had portrayed him as a “sophisticated con artist.”
She described him as a man with low self-esteem who has been depressed and felt that throughout his life he was never able to live up to the expectations of others.
Forciniti claimed that Gage was in denial about the state of his own finances and truly thought that he could save the old family home and remodel it.
But she said he has taken responsibility for what he did and agreed that he should be punished, arguing that a 1 to 3 year prison sentence was appropriate.
“His actions were certainly careless and reckless. He was lying to himself,” she said.
Judge Amy Messer said the court would accept the fact that he’s had challenges in his life, but she was “troubled” by the fact that he took the victim’s money while under audit for mismanaging other clients’ money, which led to him being disbarred in 2016.
Messer said Gage had an opportunity to reflect on how he handled the finances of others, but “despite that you continued on a path where you seriously impacted someone else’s life. You took advantage of another person. You violated her trust. You frankly changed the trajectory of her life.”
In addition to the 2- to 4-year sentence, Messer also handed down a 3- to 6-year suspended sentence and ordered that he pay $81,274 in restitution to the victim.
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Former Exeter lawyer heads to prison, apologizes for 'reckless enterprise'
I am glad to see him apologize and have remorse. But, he needs to pay it all back with interest.
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