He called himself the ‘Lottery Lawyer’, and developed a national reputation for helping winning lottery winners with their investments.
He promised to secure their wealth for generations and protect them from scammers.
But on Tuesday, federal prosecutors in Brooklyn accused the lawyer, Jason M. Kurland, of collaborating with a mob party to steal millions of dollars from his clients.
Mr Kurland, 46, was arrested Tuesday morning at his home on Long Island alongside three other men – including Christopher Chierchio, 52, who prosecutors said was a reputable soldier for the Genovese crime family.
As part of the scheme, Mr. Kurland three lottery winners who had hired him to put $ 107 million into various investments, prosecutors said. The lottery winners lost more than $ 80 million in total.
One of them was the winner of last year’s Mega Millions Jackpot $ 1.5 billion in South Carolina.
After the lottery winners were persuaded to invest, the four men then spent some of the funds on memberships to golf clubs, yachts, private jets, a Porsche and other luxury cars and shopkeepers at stores like Fendi, prosecutors said.
“Lottery winners can not believe their luck if they win millions of dollars, and the men we arrested this morning used that euphoric feeling to their advantage,” said William F. Sweeney Jr., head of the FBI’s bureau in New York.
Mr. Kurland and his suspected accomplices countered several counts of fraud, money laundering and conspiracy. They plead not guilty every Tuesday to their arraignments.
An attorney for Mr. Kurland declined to comment. A lawyer for Mr Chierchio said his client was not affiliated with the mafia and expected him to be cleared of the charges.
Law enforcement officials had wiretapped the men’s phone calls for months, including interviews in which they discussed whether they might be able to go to jail.
The lottery winners will pay between $ 75,000 and $ 200,000 in advance payments to hire Mr. Kurland and his law firm, according to court papers. Mr. Kurland then charged monthly fees of between $ 15,000 and $ 50,000.
A spokeswoman for Rivkin Radler, the law firm where Mr Kurland has worked since 2018, said the company was cooperating with the authorities and plans to remove him as a partner.
In a 2016 interview with Vice, Mr Kurland discussed the prevalence of scams targeting lottery winners. “A lot of these winners are not sophisticated enough to see it,” he said, “so you have to really trust the professionals.”
Op Mr. Kurland’s Twitter account, he often advised lottery winners around the country to hire him, using hashtags like #callme. In previous interviews, he said he has been representing lottery winners since 2011, and he specializes in navigating the laws around real estate and trust.
Behind the scenes prosecutors said Mr Kurland received kickbacks for sending lottery winners to invest in business deals controlled by Mr Chierchio and the two other suspects, Frangesco Russo, 38, and Francis Smookler, 45.
Some of the offers went to companies that sold personal protective equipment during the coronavirus pandemic to the state of California and to the New York Police Department, court papers showed.
During a phone call last month that was intercepted by law enforcement, Mr. Kurland told an associate that the growing outbreak of coronavirus in Florida would be good for business. “The less it is, the better,” he said, according to prosecutors.
The men handed some of the lottery winners’ money to a jeweler named Gregory Altieri, who had promised sky-high returns to his investors. Last month, federal prosecutors in Brooklyn accused him of defrauding his investors in a $ 200 million Ponzi scheme.
Earlier this year, when Mr Altieri failed to repay a loan, Mr Russo and Mr Smookler threatened to torture him and shoot his family, prosecutors said.
The father of Mr. Russo was a captain of the Colombo crime family, who died alive in prison for murder, and he named his father while threatening Mr Altieri, prosecutors said.
A lawyer for Mr Russo did not respond to a request for comment. Mr Smookler’s lawyer had no immediate comment.
Law enforcement officials are trying to recover all stolen funds by reviewing 13 bank accounts linked to the scheme, which has been in place since at least 2018.
In one instance, Mr. Kurland transferred $ 19.5 million from a client’s account without the client’s permission and funneled much of it to Mr. Chierchio, prosecutors said.
In 2004, Mr. Chierchio pleaded guilty in a state court case in Brooklyn to falsifying business records. Last year, he was acquitted on probation on bid rigging charges.
Prosecutors say Mr. Chierchio lives in a $ 11,000-a-month luxury building in Manhattan and is striving for a plumbing business.
In a call last month that was subject to law enforcement, Mr. Chierchio expressed the concerns of an associate about a federal investigation into the lottery scheme, saying he has been pursued his entire life by the authorities.
“So bring the FBI. Who cares?” Mr. Chierchio said, according to prosecutors. ‘It does not matter. I laugh at her. OK? I laugh at her. ”
In phone calls, Mr Kurland discussed with his colleagues how to cover the scheme, fearing they would “play with fire,” according to court papers. The men questioned whether giving the money back to the lottery winners would deter the investigation or if they could resemble the theft on legitimate business transactions, prosecutors said.
At one point, Mr. Smookler and Mr. Russo predicted, according to court documents, that they might be facing freight charges; Mr. Smookler said on a phone call that he hopes to get only a fine and not go to jail.
“We’re a bit of a pickle,” he said.
