When a mechanic from Staten Island hit it big with a $245 Powerball jackpot, he didn’t have the financial know-how to invest his winnings, so he turned to the “Lottery Lawyer” to help him through the complicated decisions.
Then the FBI came calling.
Long Island lawyer Jason “Jay” Kurland, 48, befriended Lotto winner Nandlall Mangal over the course of his professional relationship with the newly minted mega-millionaire, but the lawyer betrayed that trust, convincing Mangal to invest in businesses he owned and got kickbacks from, federal prosecutors alleged Wednesday at the first day of Kurland’s trial.
“We had a large lump sum of money. We didn’t know what’s coming next,” Mangal testified about his 2018 fortune. “He made us feel very comfortable, very sure he could do this.”
Kurland, who was arrested in August of 2020, faces a three-week trial in Brooklyn federal court for conspiracy, wire fraud and money laundering charges.
He’s accused of steering winners’ money into his own merchant cash advance business, and of losing more than $80 million of his clients’ money in a Ponzi scheme and a murky deal to sell personal protective equipment to the state of California at the height of the COVID pandemic.
Kurland’s business partners included former securities broker Frank Smookler, Frankie…
