EAST ST. LOUIS • A Swansea insurance agent and securities broker who stole $6 million from almost 80 clients was sentenced in federal court here Friday to 17 1/2 years in prison, U.S. Attorney Steve Wigginton said.

Victoria McGee-Harris, 59, ran Metro East Insurance Group. As part of her plea last year to one count each of bank fraud and engaging in a monetary transaction with unlawfully derived property, she admitted using client money for travel, personal expenses, and a chain of clothing stores in Chesterfield, Ladue and Clayton, prosecutors said.

"She's nothing but a financial predator, " Wigginton said in a telephone interview after Friday's sentencing hearing.

The hearing was packed with victims, and Wigginton said, "There was a consistent theme among the victims about the emotion pain, anxiety and depression that this woman inflicted upon their families."

One man, he said, believed that the news that his savings was gone triggered a heart attack.

At the hearing, Special Agent Jeff Anderson of the Internal Revenue Service's criminal investigations division said that only 40 percent of client money Was handled properly. McGee-Harris mixed client money in business bank accounts, and used millions of that money for the clothing stores alone. She paid credit card bills for store and business expenses as well as shopping trips and vacations.

She also used hundreds of thousands of dollars for land purchases around the area.

Jean Philipp, a senior fraud investigator with MetLife, said that McGee-Harris had clients write checks to her business account. McGee-Harris never forwarded some clients' money to Tower Square Securities, a broker affiliated with MetLife. Some she sent months later using a cashier's check. Philipp struggled to reconstruct the thefts because McGee-Harris did not follow MetLife's requirements on recordkeeping and the handling of client money, she said.

MetLife settled with clients who lost money, she said, and in all, suffered losses of just over $7 million.

Scott Rosenblum, one of three McGee-Harris lawyers in the courtroom, said that she admitted her wrongdoing in January of 2010. He attacked the claims of client losses, however, saying that incomplete records made it impossible to tell what the actual amount of loss is.

Just days before Friday's hearing, the defense lawyers presented information that one client's account had been credited with more than they deposited, albeit months late.

U.S. District Judge David Hernon gave McGee-Harris the top of the sentencing guidelines of 168 to 210 months, after agreeing with prosecutors that the range should be increased because of the amount of the theft, the sophisticated method she used and the fact that she preyed on the elderly, Wigginton said.

Wigginton said that Friday's sentencing, and the 20-year term handed to Edward Moskop, 64, of Belleville in December for a Pyramid scheme, should send a message to others that "You will be investigated, prosecuted and convicted."