Felony Justice
Lottery lawyer’s ‘luck has run out’ after sentencing decide says he’s chargeable for $62M in shopper losses
Jason Kurland was featured in a 2016 ABA Journal article about attorneys who characterize purchasers who’ve obtained monetary windfalls. (ABA Journal file picture by Len Irish)
Self-described lottery lawyer Jason Kurland, a former Rivkin Radler companion, has been sentenced to 13 years in jail for participating in a scheme that allegedly value his purchasers greater than $100 million in web losses.
Misrepresentations by Kurland, 49, and his co-defendants precipitated losses of greater than $80 million for his lottery-winning purchasers, in accordance with a June 15 Justice Division press release. Kurland additionally took $19.5 million from the account of 1 lottery winner for an funding that was largely plundered by co-defendants, the federal government says.
The sentences for Kurland and a co-defendant present “their luck has run out, and this workplace will prosecute anybody who chooses to have interaction in fraud—regardless of their title or diploma,” mentioned U.S. Legal professional Damian Williams in an announcement.
U.S. District Choose Nicholas Garaufis imposed the sentence after discovering that Kurland was chargeable for $62 million of losses incurred by his purchasers, in accordance with reporting by Law360. “This abuse of energy can be problematic in any career, however it’s grotesque and unfathomable for a lawyer,” Garaufis mentioned.
Kurland’s lawyer had argued that solely $626,000 in shopper losses was attributable to Kurland. In response to a June 15 prosecution sentencing memorandum, that was the sum of money he obtained in kickbacks.
Prosecutors say Kurland retained three lottery winners as purchasers starting in mid-2018. They had been the winners of a $1.5 billion Mega Thousands and thousands lottery, a $245 million Powerball jackpot, and one other $150 million jackpot. They’d employed Kurland for funding recommendation.
Kurland steered his purchasers to spend money on service provider cash-advance companies Kurland partly owned, and he obtained undisclosed kickbacks on a share of the winners’ investments, prosecutors mentioned within the sentencing memorandum and press launch. On one event, Kurland persuaded a lottery winner to buy the enterprise he partly owned for $2 million, leading to a big payout to Kurland and two different house owners who had been co-defendants, the federal government says.
“Motivated by greed,” the press launch says, Kurland and the 2 co-defendants “haphazardly invested the lottery victims’ cash in high-risk offers, which turned out to be a Ponzi scheme. … Inside somewhat greater than a 12 months, a big portion of the Lottery Victims’ funding capital, totaling greater than $40 million, was misplaced.”
To attempt to recoup the losses, Kurland and his co-defendants “resorted to investing” in COVID-19 private protecting gear offers, the press launch says. Kurland allegedly took $19.5 million from one of many lottery victims’ accounts—with out permission—for the investments, however a lot of the cash was skimmed off the highest by the co-defendants.
Kurland, 49, of Dix Hills, New York, was convicted in July 2022. He was discovered responsible of wire fraud, wire fraud conspiracy, trustworthy providers wire fraud, illegal financial transactions and a associated conspiracy cost.
Along with serving a jail sentence, Kurland will probably be ordered to forfeit $64.6 million, Garaufis mentioned. The decide mentioned he would additionally contemplate acceptable restitution, in accordance with the Law360 story.
