‘Lottery Lawyer’ Jason Kurland sent to prison for 13 years – A lawyer who billed himself as the “Lottery Lawyer,” the “go-to” counsel for winners of jackpots in the billions and hundreds of millions, has been sentenced to more than a decade of federal prison time for committing frauds against his clients, stealing and misappropriating more than $100 million and losing more than $40 million in investment capital to a Ponzi scheme.
Although attorneys for Jason Kurland, 49, called him the “least culpable defendant in this matter by any stretch of the imagination” and requested probation with home confinement, U.S. District Judge Nicholas G. Garaufis, sitting in the Eastern District of New York, sentenced him to 13 years behind bars for wire fraud, money laundering, and conspiracy to commit both of those offenses. The judge tacked on three years of supervised release and ordered the Dix Hills lawyer to pay $64,600,000 in forfeiture.
Jason Kurland (YouTube/screengrab)‘Lottery Lawyer’ Jason Kurland sent to prison for 13 years
“The trial of Jason Kurland proved that Kurland violated his solemn duties as a lawyer and as an officer of the Court by stealing and misappropriating more than $100 million from his clients, who were some of the largest lottery winners in U.S. history. Just before trial, Christopher Chierchio pled guilty to assisting Kurland in this fraud, while personally pocketing more than $25 million of the lottery winners’ money,” said U.S. Attorney Damian Williams. “Now, the sentences imposed by Judge Garaufis show that for these defendants who made the lottery winners their victims, their luck has run out, and this Office will prosecute anyone who chooses to engage in fraud – no matter their title or degree.”
The case was filed in the Eastern District of New York but because the U.S. Attorney’s Office there recused itself, the case was prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney’s Office of the Southern District of New York.
