HARTFORD, Conn. — A New York lawyer was sentenced Thursday in federal court in Hartford to eight months in prison for embezzling more than $500,000 from a trust he managed, which owned a commercial building in New Canaan, the U.S. attorney's office for Connecticut said.

Edward W. Miller, 71, of Lawrence, New York, was also ordered by U.S. District Judge Sarala V. Nagala to serve a year of supervised release. He pleaded guilty to wire fraud May 29.

According to prosecutors, a person identified in court documents only as "M.P." set up a trust in December 2014 to manage real estate, including a commercial building M.P. owned in New Canaan. Miller, a lawyer licensed in New York, was named trustee. He was responsible for depositing rent from the building into a trust bank account, paying the building's costs, overseeing its maintenance and distributing money to M.P. Under the trust, he was to be paid 5% of monthly rents plus agreed commissions on new leases and renewals.

Prosecutors said that from about February 2016 to September 2022, Miller wrote unauthorized checks from the trust to himself, his law practice and relatives, and made unauthorized withdrawals and transfers from the trust account for his own benefit. After M.P. died in 2022, prosecutors said, Miller made false statements and promises to the trust's beneficiaries about where the trust's assets were and how they would be paid out.

Miller previously paid $509,372.82 in restitution as part of a settlement of a separate civil lawsuit brought by the victims, prosecutors said.

He is free on a $200,000 bond and must report to prison Jan. 11.

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