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A “horrible mistake”
The three-week trial of ‘Lottery Lawyer’ Jason Kurland has began in a Brooklyn federal courtroom with the accused’s legal professional describing him as “one of many victims.”
Speaking on Wednesday, Kurland’s counsel — Tim Kasulis of Morvillo Abramowitz Grand Iason & Anello PC — addressed the jury in his opening remarks. He argued that prosecutors had made a “horrible mistake” by wrongly charging his consumer of defrauding purchasers out of $80m.
a scheme to swindle lottery winners
Prosecutors from the US Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York (USAO-EDNY) indicted Kurland for his function in a scheme to swindle lottery winners again in August 2020. Kurland constructed his follow round giving authorized and monetary recommendation to lottery jackpot winners, directing them in the direction of conventional routes to take a position their funds.
Assistant US Attorney Louis Pellegrino stated in his opening argument Wednesday, nevertheless, that after Kurland gained his purchasers’ belief, he started to promote them on “sure different investments” for his personal achieve. “The defendant by no means advised the purchasers that he was one of many house owners of the companies that he was invested in, and the defendant by no means disclosed the 1% kickback price that he was receiving,” Pellegrino defined.
Kickbacks and Ponzi schemes
Prosecutors originally charged Kurland with conspiracy, wire fraud, and money laundering, accusing him and his companions in Cheddar Capital of bilking three lottery winners out of tens of tens of millions of {dollars} by steering them to take a position unknowingly right into a $200m Ponzi scheme run by Long Island jeweler Gregory Altieri.
According to a 2020 DOJ press launch, Altieri confessed to wire fraud for duping over 80 traders in a two-year $200m rip-off involving “nonexistent wholesale jewellery offers.”
According to the New York Daily News, one of many victims supposedly duped by Kurland, $245m Powerball jackpot Lotto winner Nandlall Mangal, spoke through the listening to on Wednesday. In response to a query from the protection, he stated “it will have made a distinction” to him on the time had he recognized Kurland was getting an alleged 1% kickback.
“And if [Kurland] was getting paid, it wasn’t due to my greatest pursuits,” Mangal stated through the trial’s opening day. He turned to the self-declared “lottery legislation professional” after his large win in 2018, citing lack of monetary information concerning the place to take a position the money. Mangal stated Kurland made him really feel “very snug.”
Russo testifies
Kurland’s Cheddar Capital companions, Francis Smookler and Frangesco Russo, are each cooperating witnesses within the three-week trial having already pled responsible to fraud, cash laundering, and extortionate lending. When Russo took to the stand on Thursday, he stated Cheddar Capital filed a confession of judgment for $68m {dollars} towards Altieri and his enterprise, however “he by no means paid us again.”
borrowing from Peter to pay Paul”
By the time the companions entered a sketchy deal to promote private protecting gear to California on the top of the primary outbreak of COVID-19 in 2020, Cheddar Capital, in accordance with Russo’s testomony on Thursday, had entered right into a tailspin, “borrowing from Peter to pay Paul.”
“At this level, the FBI was knocking on doorways of [Kurland’s] purchasers,” Russo advised the jury in New York. “He began to turn into frantic.”
Kurland’s lawyer, nevertheless, maintains his consumer is as a lot of a sufferer because the lottery winners he’s alleged to have tricked. Kasulis stated Kurland was conned by Russo and Smookler, who stole from him, lied about it, and had been heard in a wiretap belittling the lottery lawyer as a dupe.
