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Welcome to Swindled. This is a solicitation. Have you heard about the recent bonus episodes that are only available to valued listeners at valuedlistener.com? No? Well, allow me. There's one about the momfluencer that falsely accused a Latino couple of attempting to kidnap her children. There's one about this guy who crashed a very expensive car in the Galveston Bay
The audio of him catching someone breaking into his truck alone is worth the price of admission. Also, we just released one featuring three separate stories of people becoming trapped in industrial ovens. Valued listener Megan on Twitter says, quote, This swindled bonus episode, The Oven, is the first episode I've had to pause because my skin is crawling. Only six minutes in. Absolutely horrific. There you have it. Brave Reviews.
Oh, and there's a new lottery-related bonus episode dropping soon. Plus, we will be featuring some listener stories in future editions of the Valuable News for Valued Listeners update show. That's right, listener scams. Should be interesting. If you have a story to submit, we'll be sharing the contact info on social media soon. I'm not going to tell you here because I want you to have to work a little before wasting my time.
valuedlistener.com you can listen on apple podcast patreon or spotify it's only five bucks you know the deal at this point if you're not a valued listener honestly i just feel sorry for you we all do valuedlistener.com this episode of swindled may contain graphic descriptions or audio recordings of disturbing events which may not be suitable for all audiences listener discretion is advised
There's a fun new game from the Texas Lottery that's sweeping through the state. It's called Lotto Texas. Just select six numbers from one to fifty on a play slip. It only costs a dollar, but you could win millions.
This is the ballad of Billy Bob Harold Jr., a man who won a $31 million jackpot playing the Texas lottery. It was a stroke of luck that most people can only dream about, but not for Billy Bob. A few days before his death, he described winning the lottery as the worst thing that ever happened to him.
Billy Bob Harold Jr. was a former Pentecostal preacher living in Humboldt, Texas, just outside of Houston. He was 47 years old and entering his third year of restocking electrical supplies at Home Depot, not by choice. Billy Bob had lost his longtime job at a printing shop when it shut down in the early 90s. He hated his current profession.
Struggling to provide for his wife, Barbara Jean, and his three teenage children weighed heavy on Billy Bob Harrell's mind. His bank account was consistently overdrawn. His bills were constantly overdue. Man, it sure would be nice to win the lottery, Billy Bob Jr. fantasized.
"He thought about it all the time," his son Billy Bob III told the Houston Press. "More than anything else, he fantasized about quitting his job. He was having a hard time with his boss and wanted to do the 'take this job and shove it' routine." Billy Bob Harold Jr. played the Texas Lottery religiously every Wednesday and Saturday. He alternated between using the birth dates of his children as his lucky numbers and a random computer-generated combo. Realistically, he never thought it would work, but it did.
Billy Bob Harold Jr. returned home from work on Sunday, June 29th, 1997. He plopped into his well-worn recliner and opened the newspaper to compare his quick-pick numbers to the previous night's drawing. 3, 11, 16, 28, 40, 44. Wait a second. Let me read that again. 3, 11, 16, 28, 40, 44.
Unbelievable. Billy Bob was holding all six of the winning numbers in his hand. Billy Bob III, "Get in here," summoned his father. "Am I crazy or do these numbers match?" "They match alright," Billy III verified. At this point Barbara Jean heard the commotion and entered the living room to check the numbers for a third time. "They match," she agreed. The Harrell family sat there in stunned silence for the rest of the night.
The next day, still in disbelief, Billy Bob Jr. called the Texas Lottery headquarters, which confirmed that he held the only jackpot winning ticket for the June 28, 1997, Lotto Texas drawing. The grand prize was $31 million. Congratulations, sir.
Billy Bob III told the Houston Press that the family immediately stashed the winning ticket in a safe deposit box at the bank. Then he says his father contacted an AM radio financial talk show host named Steve Drake, who put them in touch with an attorney who agreed to accompany the Harrell family to Austin to cash the ticket. In almost every lottery, the winner is given the option of accepting a smaller lump sum up front or being paid the total grand prize amount in installments over time.
Billy Bob Harold Jr. chose the annuity, $1.24 million every year for 25 years. The Texas lottery paid him the first installment on the spot. Back home, everybody knew Billy Bob Harold Jr. was the winner. The
This was 20 years before the state of Texas began allowing lottery winners to remain anonymous. That's okay. Billy Bob kinda liked the attention, and he started spending. Billy Bob purchased a ranch, antique cars, and art. He bought at least six homes and new cars for his wife and kids. He took the entire family on a Hawaiian vacation.
Billy Bob was charitable too. He gave 10% of that first lottery check to his church and he lent a hand to every member of the congregation in need. It felt good giving back, but then it got old because it never stopped. The Heralds had to change their phone number seven times because people kept calling and asking for financial help.
Other people would wait for them outside their houses and approach. There were endless handwritten letters begging for a gift. Their daughter was dying or their house had burned down. Little Timmy's spine was crooked. One woman even reportedly approached Barbara Jean Harrell at a Walmart and demanded she repay the $500 she had spent on losing tickets for the lottery that the Harrells had won. Barbara Jean couldn't take it anymore.
In February 1998, just eight months after winning the lottery, she filed for divorce. The fortune had disrupted their life irreparably. Billy Bob already had a young girlfriend that worked at the pharmacy. He even bought her a car and jewelry. Barbara Jean took half the jackpot and started a new life. Billy Bob continued to spend, and his half of the annual installment, about $600,000, was no longer enough to sustain his lifestyle.
So he cut a deal with a company out of Bethesda, Maryland called Stone Street Capital. Stone Street offered Billy Bob $2.25 million in cash in exchange for 10 years of his lottery annuity worth about $6 million. It was a horrible deal for Billy Bob no matter which way you looked at it. But, desperate for cash, he agreed to it even though it violated the Texas Lottery's rules.
Those rules were circumvented by signing over Billy's half of the trust to a company called Trust Corp America Inc. And then bonds would be purchased through a different company called H&H Worldwide to service the debt, or something like that. Billy Bob always described a different arrangement. It's not clear he even understood the agreement. But that was the least of Billy Bob's worries.
Less than a month and a half later, the $2.25 million he'd received from Stone Street Capital for his half of the trust had already been depleted. Billy Bob was depressed beyond belief. He'd lost 50 pounds. You could watch his face age if you stared at him long enough. Billy Bob Harold Jr. tried to reconcile with his ex-wife Barbara Jean, but she was not interested. The divorce was official.
However, Barbara Jean did relent a little and agreed to have dinner with Billy Bob and the children as a family at her house in Kingwood on Saturday, May 22, 1999. According to the Houston Press, that afternoon, Billy Bob stopped by his daughter's workplace to pick up keys to Barbara Jean's house so he could drop off some flowers before everyone else arrived, he said.
A few minutes later, Billy Bob was unlocking the front door to that house. It was empty. It smelled like a past life. Before the money, before the disillusion of his marriage, before the lottery had ruined everything. Billy Bob paused momentarily while walking up the stairs to look at the family photos that no longer included him. And then he made his way into the master bedroom. He closed and locked the door behind him.
Next, Billy Bob Harold Jr. stripped naked and loaded the shotgun he had brought with him. He pressed the butt of the gun against the floor. The barrel dug into his chest. Billy Bob stretched forward to poke the trigger and ended it all. One of Billy Bob's sons kicked down the door an hour and a half later. They found three handwritten notes near their dead father's body. The one addressed to Barbara Jean read, quote, I didn't want this. I just wanted you.
Billy Bob Harold Jr.'s official cause of death was suicide, according to the Harris County Medical Examiner's Office. But according to Billy Bob Jr.'s parents, there must have been foul play. Their son was a devoutly religious man who would never do such a thing. That would be almost hypocritical.
Billy Bob's parents were also concerned that Junior had promised to pay for the new house and motorhome they'd just purchased, and he hadn't bothered to file any paperwork to put them on the trust. A bitter family dispute arose when the grandchildren refused to honor their dead father's promise to his parents. There wasn't much left of his winnings anyway. In fact, after his state taxes, Billy Bob Junior's children would probably owe the government money. The curse of the lottery lives on.
There are a thousand stories like Billy Bob Harold Jr.'s or worse, about lottery winners losing control, about them getting robbed, getting poisoned, getting kidnapped, murdered, and buried under a concrete slab in some lady's backyard.
That doesn't mean you should stop playing. Please don't. Keep that dream alive because I need the content and lucky for you, these days there is a team of professionals standing by to assist your transition into one of the wealthiest people on the planet. Believe it or not, it's more complicated than it looks. Simply put, if you win the lottery, get help.
And most of the problems occur when somebody tries to do this on their own, right? They will give you the money whether you have a professional team or not. So I've seen people walk in the next day with their family, you know,
That's Jason Kurland, one of several lawyers in the United States that specialize in protecting lottery winners' privacy and investments from the threats of financial mismanagement and manipulation.
He's represented some of the biggest winners to date, and he's developed a tried and true plan to avoid the all too common pitfalls encountered by instantaneous multimillionaires. Jason Kurland would argue that he's the first person you should call when you hit the jackpot. Why? Because he can tell you precisely what to do to avoid disaster. And because you can't trust anybody. Well, you can't trust anybody but him, of course.
An attorney steals a fortune from the high-profile lottery winners he promised to protect on this episode of Swindled.
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Across America with Mega Jackpots, it's Mega Millions. What's up America? I'm John Crote. It's Tuesday, October 23rd, and tonight's Mega Millions Jackpot is a record-breaking $1.6 billion. To win that jackpot, you must match these five white balls plus that gold mega ball. Now, let's see if I can make you a billionaire tonight. Our first winning number tonight is 28, that's followed by 70. Up next we have 5, that's followed by...
Beth Smith couldn't believe her luck. Feelings of astonishment, disbelief, joy, and anxiety rushed over her all at once.
She was the only person in America to match all five numbers plus the Mega Ball in the October 23rd, 2018 Mega Millions lottery. She won the entire $1.5 billion jackpot. The chance of winning it big was slim, in the vicinity of 1 in 300 million. That means you're around 100 times more likely to be killed by a shark than strike it rich.
Beth Smith just became the largest single ticket lotto winner in US history. There had been a higher jackpot back in 2016, but that one was split three ways. This was a historic amount of money. Beth Smith retraced the steps in her mind that led her there. The decision to take the scenic route on her trip to Greenville, South Carolina, the day she bought the ticket. That trip led her past the sign for the jackpot in the window of KC Mart #7 in Simpsonville, which compelled her to stop.
Inside Beth's simple act of kindness to allow a fellow customer to get in line in front of her to buy their own computer-generated lottery ticket. Each little choice like that was the difference between a normal life with a cute little 401k and a savings account and becoming incomprehensibly wealthy. It was a lot to wrap her mind around all at once.
to help hammer home the reality. The next day, Beth Smith decided to drive by that convenience store in Simpsonville where a celebration was taking place. If no one was there, I would say, "Okay, well, this was a disaster. We made a mistake and I'd drive home and all would be good," Beth later said.
But as we went by the convenience store, there was helicopters, there was every piece of media, there was locals, you know, national. I so badly wanted to get out of there. I wanted to go under the seat. I became anxious. Welcome to Simpsonville, South Carolina. It is a big, beautiful day and a very lucky day for one ticket holder. We don't know at this point
whether it's one person or a group of person or anything about the identity of the player. But we do know where the winning ticket was sold. So if the winner is out there today listening to us, we would like to say to you, take a deep breath, put that ticket in a secure location, consult with a trusted advisor,
a legal advisor, a trusted financial advisor. Take a few days. Take that deep breath again. Call the lottery. We will tell you who to go to, how to do it, and take time. You have up to 180 days to cash the tickets. But again, we encourage you to play responsibly, but we also encourage you to win responsibly.
Beth Smith planned to win responsibly. The winner had not revealed herself, but the owner of KC Mart No. 7, Chirag Patel, was on hand for a speech. He was excited because his store would receive $50,000 for selling the winning ticket. Side note.
Chirag Patel would later be arrested and charged with five counts of tax evasion. Beth Smith didn't dare out herself at that ceremony. She felt like people were staring at her like they knew.
Beth's first priority was to secure her family's safety and anonymity, which the state of South Carolina permitted. Beth Smith and her husband Steve Smith stashed the winning ticket in a safe deposit box and brainstormed their next steps. There wasn't any reason to rush the process. South Carolina gives winners 180 days to claim their prizes, and the Smith family was not in dire need.
Beth and Steve were in their late 50s. They'd been married almost 36 years. Beth was an insurance underwriter. Steve was a lawyer. They were living well enough already, but $1.5 billion was a grotesque amount of money to manage. The Smiths took their time getting their affairs in order. Weeks passed.
Remember that massive jackpot somebody won in our state a couple of weeks ago or months ago now? Well, nobody has claimed the prize. And in case you forgot, it was a $1.5 billion Mega Millions jackpot ticket. This person has still not come forward. I'm getting nervous, Sarge. I think it's in the trash. Is it in the trash? This will be bananas.
The winner still had not come forward. Almost everyone in South Carolina had a theory about what happened. Some were sure the winner had dropped dead from a heart attack the moment they checked their ticket. One man said he actually knew the winner when they were on the run from the police and couldn't pass a background check. Of course, there were less sensational theories too, such as the ticket had been thrown away, destroyed in a washing machine, or forgotten in a car visor. Unbeknownst to everybody, the truth was even more boring.
We're still very excited here at the South Carolina Education Lottery. Because this is such an unprecedented sum of money, we recognize that it might take the winner a little bit longer than normal, but there's really not a normal when you're talking about a $1.5 billion jackpot. There's nothing to compare that to.
As the months passed, doubt that the ticket would ever be claimed became the prevailing sentiment in South Carolina. The state government even removed the $61 million in income taxes it would have collected from the prize from its proposed budget. It's a billion dollar mystery that could cost the state of South Carolina tens of millions. It was now March 2019. 120 days had passed since the drawing and still no winner. The clock was ticking.
Meanwhile, Beth and Steve Smith had everything under control. "We considered attorneys. We considered financial advisors. We considered accountants. We considered, you know, investment firms, that kind of thing," Beth said. They'd heard the horror stories. The family's main concern remained to stay anonymous when they sought out professional advice.
and they found it on morning television. An attorney who specialized in this exact situation. His name was Jason Kurland. He called himself the lottery lawyer.
Listen, anyone can take the winning ticket, go to lottery headquarters, do a press conference, and get the prize. However, there are a whole host of questions that arise from winning a jackpot. Do you want to limit your exposure in the media? What happens at the press conference? Do you want to create vehicles for your state? Do you invent something that happens? Do you need to worry about your safety? How do you invest your money? Do you want to turn a vehicle that's more than your tax credit? How do you protect against the police? How do you protect against the police?
How do you stress yourself above yourself? When we represent winners, we handle all of these issues for them, while at the same time making sure they are comfortable with every move that is made. Every winner is different and has different goals and needs. A good attorney will create a strategy around these goals and needs, while at the same time giving the client the protection and peace of mind to get through this awesome yet stressful time. If you are a winner, give us a call or visit our website and let us help you make this as amazing an experience as it should be.
There was so much to think about. Jason Kurland was on, you know, the morning shows and the like, Beth Smith recalled, and it looked like he certainly knew about lottery. He had a specialty in lottery winners. And, you know, we looked online, and he seemed very capable.
I am capable, Jason Kurland probably told the Smiths when they called him from a burner phone in December 2018. He agreed to meet in Las Vegas to discuss their next steps. The Smiths told him they wanted the lump sum of $877,784,124 before taxes, and they wanted to donate a hefty portion to charity.
for a $200,000 intermediary fee. Jason Kurland arranged a meeting between the winners in the South Carolina Education Lottery. According to the Lottery Post, when the Smiths finally arrived in Columbia to claim their prize on March 4th, 2019, 132 days after the drawing, they were picked up by a security team and escorted to an underground parking garage at the lottery headquarters. Security cameras were turned off and the windows were covered.
Through her attorney, Jason Kurland, Beth Smith released a statement to explain what took so long. Quote,
I do realize that such good fortune carries a tremendous social responsibility, and it gives me a unique opportunity to assist, support, and contribute to charities and causes that are close to my heart. I hired a team with experience handling large jackpot winners. I want to make sure I make all of the right decisions, which is why I have taken this amount of time to collect my prize.
True to the word, the Smiths donated millions to the Ronald McDonald House, the Red Cross Alabama Region's Tornado Relief Fund, the City of Simpsonville's Arts Center, a South Carolina Hurricane Florence Relief Fund, and a charity for women undergoing breast cancer.
They spent millions more on themselves, of course, but sensibly, mostly on real estate. The couple purchased a hotel for investment purposes, but they did splurge on a few other things. The Smiths asked Jason Kerlin to acquire tickets to the Masters Golf Tournament and the Kentucky Derby. They were gifts for family members, they said. And Steve Smith asked for an autographed photo of sports legend Daniel Rudiger, also known as Rudy, the little guy from Notre Dame.
The Smith family invested the rest of their fortune, which amounted to hundreds of millions of dollars. They told Jason Kurland that they wanted to invest it very conservatively. My husband and I believed this was, this blessing was going to be provided to my family and we would have it generationally. So we didn't need to take any risk in doing that.
No problem. Lottery lawyer Jason Kurland agreed to manage the Smiths' financial accounts for a mere $50,000 a month and to ensure the family's anonymity. All of their money was deposited into accounts opened under Jason Kurland's name. According to the Lottery Post, this was the agreed-upon plan. The Smiths' primary bank account would be opened at Bank Loomie in New York in Jason Kurland's name.
That account would distribute $100 million each to two other accounts in Jason Kerlin's name and $50 million each to two other accounts in Jason Kerlin's name. Of course, all of it would be invested and supervised in-house by those banks. Meanwhile, the Smiths and their extended family would live off of the interest generated by a $30 million investment in two companies named Cheddar Capital and J.B.M.M.L.,
Jason Kurland pitched the idea and guaranteed a 9% return. Every month, the returns would be distributed to 10 members of the Smith family. Kurland estimated that it would be about $12,500 each, more than enough to cover the average person's monthly budget.
Unfortunately, that amount did not remain consistent. Within months, the checks delivered to the Smiths, usually late, would sometimes be much lower than expected. They were not the amount of monies that we were, you know, guaranteed in these documents. And it was very concerning. Terribly concerning, Beth said. The Smiths became even more concerned when the FBI came calling. They were told that some of their lottery winnings had been invested in a Ponzi scheme that they had been investigating.
The Smiths immediately confronted their attorney Jason Kurland. He told them it was nothing to worry about. Bad investments happen sometimes. Everything was under control. Nothing could be further from the truth. Support for Swindled comes from Rocket Money.
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The lottery lawyer gimmick just kind of fell into Jason Kurland's lap. He was in his late 30s in 2011, working as a commercial real estate lawyer on Long Island.
when a friend of his introduced him to a trio of hedge fund managers from Connecticut who, fresh off the heels of Occupy Wall Street, just won a $254 million Powerball jackpot and were looking for legal advice. Jason Kurland agreed to represent the group.
And after a bizarre press conference, in which he did all the talking, rumors swirled that the hedge fund managers themselves were a cover for the true winner, a claim that everyone involved denied.
How many tickets were actually bought just for one? One dollar. In a mysterious press conference yesterday, their spokesperson said they'd formed a trust and would give most of the winnings away. But now in an unusual twist, first reported by the Daily Mail overnight, Tom Gladstone, a longtime family friend of one of the trio, says this was all an elaborate ruse. The resulting publicity from the non-scandal helped Jason Kurland reinvent his professional identity.
A month later, he was contacted by Louise White, an 81-year-old woman from Rhode Island who had just won a $336 million Powerball jackpot. Let me say that Louise has been magnificent to work with. She is as vibrant, as sharp, as vivacious as any octogenarian you're ever going to meet.
You're not going to find an 81-year-old who has been able to accept this with the poise and the wherewithal the way she has. From day one, she did the right thing. You know, it's very difficult for a lottery winner of this size to suppress the urge to run in the next day and claim their prize and get the money, and she did the right thing.
And just like that, Jason Kurland became America's most recognizable lottery lawyer. He started using the handle @LotteryLawyer on social media, where he offered free advice to overwhelmed winners. And he had his own website, thelotterylawyer.com, where he detailed his step-by-step plan to save lottery-winning families' wealth and health. Kurland was often invited to detail his plan on national news programs when a large jackpot was imminent.
Here's what you should do if you ever win. Step 1: Double check the numbers on your ticket. Make sure it's a winner and then sign the back of your ticket. It sounds ridiculous but I've received a number of calls from people who either got one number wrong or were looking at the wrong day. I mean how bad luck is that? Just make sure you have the winning ticket. Step 2: Photocopy the front and back of the ticket and store the original in a safe deposit box.
You should only work with a copy from now on. Do not touch the original until you are ready to make the claim. Now the most crucial step. Step 3: Shut your mouth. "Stay quiet. Be quiet. Be quiet. Be quiet. Be quiet. Alright, tell your immediate family, best friends, the people you really need, everybody else, mum's the word. You're not one of the wealthiest people in the world, so start acting like it." "You will need this time to let this new reality sink in," Jason Kurland wrote on his website.
Obviously, you should share this amazing news with those immediate family members and close friends that you need to support you through this exciting yet stressful process. Nobody else.
The time period between the day you win and the day you claim the ticket and introduce yourself to the world is the last chance you will have to live a normal life, he warns. Next, assemble a team of professionals.
Having an experienced team of professionals with you during this overwhelming event will not only give you the peace of mind you require, but it will let you focus on the important things, says the lottery lawyer. And make plans to leave town, he adds, at least for a few days. The world will want to meet its latest multimillionaire, whether it is for mere curiosity, news stories, charity, or other solicitations. They will find out where you live, where you work, and who your friends are.
The good news is that this curiosity will go away quickly. Make sure your attorney or spokesperson can handle all inquiries while you are gone. Go right from the press conference to the airport. I'll get you a car, just go. And when you come back, things usually die down. At least you have maybe a couple of weeks to get your head straight. Here's some more free tips from Jason Kurland, the lottery lawyer. Take the Lapsam.
In almost every case, the lump sum is better because you can invest it now and earn more, while these static payouts from the lottery commission will lose value over time courtesy of inflation.
Even extremely conservative investments will earn more in the long run. It's the time value of money. Also, Jason Kurland recommends avoiding office polls where co-workers lump their money together to buy multiple lottery tickets. History has shown that when one of these polls wins,
things can get ugly and litigious unless everything is documented clearly as to who owns the rights to what. And knowing your coworkers, you have a better chance at winning the lottery than them being that organized.
Finally, if you win the lottery and the option is available, remain anonymous. Currently, there are 21 states where lottery winners do not have to reveal their identity. Even if that brief moment of attention is alluring, avoid it. Lottery lawyer Jason Kurland says that nothing good will come of it, and he would know. Having been a lawyer for over 20 years, 46-year-old Jason Kurland had undoubtedly seen it all.
By the time South Carolina jackpot winner Beth Smith contacted him in 2018, Curlin had settled comfortably into his niche, representing dozens of lottery winners who had collected a combined nearly billion dollars.
I bet he has some funny stories. You know, a few weeks ago, a client won in, I think, $245 million in Staten Island. And, you know, he didn't even know. He bought the ticket, put it on his kitchen table, went on vacation for a week. Well, New York's newest millionaire has finally been named. He's a construction worker from Staten Island, and he just stepped forward claiming his $245 million jackpot. Let that sink in. Any advice that you have for lottery players watching you right now?
Yeah, keep playing. If it could happen to me, it could happen to anyone. Just keep playing the lotto. And if you win, call Jason Curlin. On August 11, 2018, Nandulal Mangal won the $245 million Powerball jackpot.
On the advice of his new lawyer, Mr. Mongal opted for the one-time post-tax lump sum payment of $99,321,975. He gave the traditional oversized check to Jason Kurland as a souvenir to keep in his office.
According to Bloomberg, within a week of his win, Jason Kurland pitched Nandlal Mangal on the can't-miss prospect of investing in Cheddar Capital and JPMML, the same businesses Kurland would later introduce to the Smiths. Nandlal invested $5 million.
Cheddar Capital and J.B.M.M.L., or what you call Merchant Cash Advance Companies, predatory instruments targeted at small business owners in desperate need of liquidity. Almost like a payday loan, except it's not a loan. Merchant Cash Advance Companies trade a lump sum of cash for a portion of a business's future sales. They typically collect their cut daily. It's not illegal.
The industry was born during the 2008 financial crisis and has thrived ever since. Jason Kurland would enlighten his lottery clients without disclosing that he was a part owner in both of the companies he recommended. Not only would he share in the returns of his clients' investments without their knowledge, but Kurland also received a 1% binder's fee on all the funds he brought in.
Jason Kurland was roped into the industry by a neighbor, Frank Smukler, a 45-year-old former stockbroker, and his associate, 38-year-old Frankie Russo, the grandson of the Colombo crime family boss, Andy "Mush" Russo. Smukler and Russo managed Cheddar Capital and J.B. MML's investments and were always on the lookout for deals too good to be true.
and they found one with a man named Gregory Altieri, a jeweler who explained to Smukler and Russo that he had the hookup on Clarence Price jewelry that he could flip for up to 70% profit like clockwork. It was a foolproof money-making opportunity, he told them. Cheddar Capital agreed, investing tens of millions of dollars of its lottery winner's prize money.
Frank Smukler and Frankie Russo also loaned $250,000 to Gregory Altieri, who promised to repay them $400,000. But by fall 2019, that repayment had not been received. When collection efforts failed, Frank Smukler and Frankie Russo got violent. "I have a few tactical shotguns with lasers," Russo warned Altieri over the phone.
Russo likened himself to the mob boss in that Adam Sandler movie Uncut Gems, in which a jeweler who owes money winds up with a bullet in his head. "They're gonna pop your head off in front of your fucking kids," Russo threatened.
You watch my man. Frank Smookler took over for his partner like it was a pro wrestling promo. You fucked me. Now watch what I'm going to do to you. I'm coming, brother. Full fucking steam ahead. You're going to get fucking tortured. The village is burned. It's game over. You've ruined my life.
We're going to find your wife today. That's happening, Smookler warned before Russo jumped back in with a promise to Gregory Altieri that they were, quote, going to make you watch as they rip your son's teeth out of his mouth. Watch. They're going to do worse things to your wife. And then Smookler said he hoped Altieri's lawyer would die in a car accident. The FBI was listening and had been for months. Altieri was cutting a deal with the government for the same reason he could not pay back the street loan.
because he had been running a multi-year, multi-million dollar Ponzi scheme that finally broke. Initially, Gregory Altieri was purchasing the jewelry and reselling it as he had promised. But then he found it easier just to raise funds from new investors and pay off the old ones. No need to sell a bunch of garbage when you can just move money around. Over two years, Altieri raised more than $69 million from at least 80 different investors, the majority of them current and retired police officers and firefighters.
including the promised returns. Gregory Altieri's Ponzi scheme defrauded his clients out of $200 million. He was eventually charged and pleaded guilty. As a result of his actions, stated FBI Assistant Director in Charge William Sweeney, the FBI has provided him with stainless steel jewelry for his wrists today and a guarantee of working to hold him and others who commit similar frauds accountable for their behavior. Who writes this shit?
Anyway, the money that Cheddar Capital and J.B. MML had invested into Gregory Altieri's Ponzi scheme was gone, including $80 million in lottery winnings. The FBI was still listening in June 2019 after informing those lottery winners that some of their money was involved in a fraud. "'My Staten Island clients are very concerned,' Jason Kerlin told his buddies. "'You know, the visits combined with the lack of payments.'"
Do you think that's going to explode into some big thing? Frank Smookler asked. No, Kerland replied. At the end of the day, we've got bad business moves, but it was nothing criminal. About a week later, according to Bloomberg, Frank Smookler, feeling uneasy about the whole thing, called Frankie Russo. We coerced these people into investing with us, Smookler reminded him. Russo tried to calm him down. Maybe we conducted immorally. Fine.
"All I know is that a lawyer was giving me $5, $10, $20 million. It was Jason Kurland," Russo told Smugler, who got greedy. "Not them. They have nothing to worry about. The lottery lawyer would take the fall." A few months later, it appeared as if no one would take the fall. The Cheddar Capital Trio was handed a gift in the form of a global pandemic in a woefully unprepared country. There was a massive opportunity to make up their losses.
It was almost like winning the lottery. One of the central business storylines of the coronavirus crisis has been the shortage of so-called N95 respirator face masks. The filtration systems keep out at least 95% of particles. Now, America's largest supplier of those masks has gone into overdrive to meet demand.
As cases of COVID-19 surged in March 2020, production and supply chain disruptions threatened to make it worse. There was a nationwide shortage of personal protective equipment such as face masks for healthcare workers. Many states, including California, had been sold out for weeks.
In a desperate attempt to replenish its supply, the state of California signed a nearly $800 million non-competitive contract for 400 million three-ply surgical masks and 200 million face shields with Bear Mountain Development, a company owned by former Alabama Attorney General Troy King.
A man named Christopher Chirchio, who was just acquitted by a jury in a plumbing-related bid-rigging case, became a subcontractor for Bear Mountain and had the opportunity to buy and sell the masks and shields
But in order to fully capitalize on the pandemic, Chirchio needed to raise funds to purchase inventory. According to Bloomberg, a business associate of Chirchio's in Miami introduced him to a trio of desperate men in Long Island who had just lost their ass in a Ponzi scheme. They might want in. Frank Smukler, Frankie Russo, and Jason Kurland jumped at the chance. The lottery lawyer convinced Beth Smith, the big winner from South Carolina, to invest $19.5 million dollars.
Beth had always wanted to use the money for good deeds. Saving lives by supplying masks seems like a philanthropic move, and she insisted that Curlin donate to charity the $300,000 a month in profit that he guaranteed. Christopher Chirchio motivated Jason Curlin to find even more money. This is your chance to make all of your losses back. Go deep with me here, Chirchio urged.
So, Jason Kurland returned to Beth Smith's bank account, which was in his name after all, and took another $19.5 million without asking. The worse it is, the better, Kurland told Smugler, in reference to the pandemic. However, the four men did not invest all of that money.
Unbeknownst to each other, Smukler, Russo, Kurland, and Chirchio were all skimming off the top for their personal use. They bought yachts and sports cars, flew private, and paid country club dues. "Like looking at my bank statement today, not gonna lie," Kurland texted Smukler. Those were better times, but by May 2020, those days were over.
Unfortunately for everyone involved in the $800 million mask deal with California, the state canceled the agreement over Bear Mountain's inability to fulfill its part of the deal. According to the Los Angeles Times, by then, according to the contract, 60 million face shields and 120 million surgical masks should have been delivered. In reality, California had received less than half a million shields and less than 10 million masks. It was unacceptable.
According to Bloomberg, Christopher Chiercho had only received about $7 million from the state of California. He kept most of it for himself, just like the second $19.5 million that Jason Kurland literally stole from the Smiths' bank account. Chiercho reportedly kept $15.5 million of that for himself.
When the deal collapsed, Jason Kurland started panicking. "Every fucking dollar we make should go back to paying our debt before anybody gets a dollar," he told Russo in a recorded phone call. "I had no idea that we took... you paid yourselves, you bought cars, you used money for stuff. I'm not a stockbroker. I'm not. This is not what I'm supposed to be doing."
Jason Kerlin knew the walls were closing in. He scrambled to devise an idea that would make the FBI call the dogs off. Maybe if they just returned the money to the lottery winner's accounts or somehow made the transfers look like legitimate business transactions, but no luck. So bring the FBI. Who cares? Christopher Girocho said in a phone call seemingly unbothered. It doesn't matter. I laugh at them. Okay? I laugh at them.
A New York attorney known as the lottery lawyer is now charged with extorting lottery winners in a $107 million scheme. Today, New York federal prosecutors indicted Jason Kurland, seen here in one of our reports from 2018, and three alleged accomplices. Prosecutors say one of those accomplices is a member of the Genovese crime family. The suspects are accused of threatening to torture and kill the families of lottery winners.
The indictment says one of the victims won the $1.5 billion Mega Millions jackpot. Jason Kurland, Frank Smukler, Frankie Russo, and Christopher Chircho were indicted on August 13, 2020. The indictment alleges that Kurland invested $107 million for three lottery winners, more than $80 million of which was lost or stolen. All four men were charged with 21 counts, including wire fraud and money laundering.
Kerlin was also charged with honest services fraud. The defendants callously thought they could line their pockets with lottery winnings without consequence. But today, their luck ran out, said the acting United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York. Not to be outdone, FBI Assistant Director in Charge William Sweeney chimed in with this quote. Rather than try their luck at the lottery, these men resorted to defrauding the victims to get rich. But their gamble didn't pay off.
Everyone pleaded guilty except Jason Kurland. His attorney argued that the lottery lawyer was the actual victim. "Kurland was not in a conspiracy with these guys. They were in a conspiracy against him." According to his defense, Jason Kurland had been taken advantage of by some mobsters. He thought he was making responsible investments into legitimate businesses in the best interests of everyone involved. His greatest weakness was that he trusted too much.
Frank Smookler and Frankie Russo testified against Jason Kurland at his trial in July 2022. So did Beth Smith, using the fake name Beth Smith. She told the court about the panic she felt after her lawyer, Jason Kurland, was arrested. They feared that he would clear them out and flee once he realized he was in trouble. She talked about how difficult it was to recover the accounts since they were entirely in his name.
In total, Jason Kerlin defrauded the Smiths out of $83 million. Collectively, the other lottery winners, including Nan-Lol Mangal, lost about $25 million. "We had a large lump sum of money," Mangal testified. "We didn't know what's coming next. He made us feel very comfortable, very sure he could do this."
A surprise witness at Jason Kurland's trial was his internet-famous brother-in-law, Dr. Scott Blyer, aka Dr. B. Fixen. He's a cosmetic surgeon in Long Island, best known for the $5,000 Brazilian butt lift operations that he advertised and shared in graphic detail on social media.
Dr. Blyer allegedly handed Curlin hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash to quote "invest" in a separate tax evasion scheme. In exchange for his testimony, Dr. B. Fixen was never charged.
On July 26, 2022, a jury in Brooklyn unanimously convicted Jason Kurland of five counts of wire fraud, honest services wire fraud, and money laundering. He was sentenced on June 15, 2023 to 13 years in prison and ordered to forfeit $64,600,000 and pay a yet-to-be-determined amount of restitution. Jason Kurland told the judge he was ashamed and embarrassed and acknowledged that what he did was stupid and misguided.
Kerland broke down in tears. "I've failed so many, Your Honor, my clients, my family." Through his lawyer, Jason Kerland has vowed to appeal. Christopher Chircho was sentenced to five years in prison and ordered to pay $26,550,000 in forfeiture and $30,550,000 in restitution. Frank Smukler and Frankie Russo are still awaiting sentencing.
Swindled is written, researched, produced, and hosted by me, a concerned citizen, with original music by Trevor Howard, a.k.a. The Former, a.k.a. Cheddar Capital. For more information about Swindled, you can visit swindledpodcast.com and follow us on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and TikTok at swindledpodcast. Or you can send us a postcard at PO Box 6044, Austin, Texas 78762. But please, no packages. We do not trust you.
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