by Dr031718 » Thu May 04, 2023 6:27 am
Lottery Lawyer In $102 Million Dollar Ripoff Of His Clients Seeks Probation
In a pre-sentencing filing that reads more like a cry for help from a crime victim than a plea for leniency by a defendant, disgraced Lottery lawyer Jason (Jay) Kurland says he has already suffered enough, and he doesn't deserve to go to jail.
Kurland was convicted at trial of five counts of wire fraud and related charges stemming from a $102 million rip-off in which Lottery winners were dunned out of much of their prize money by a diverse crew of schemers that included Kurland, a wiseguy, and a grandson of a Mafia boss.
In an astounding 120-page filing with Brooklyn Federal Court Judge Nicholas Garaufis, Kurland and his lawyers assert that his mob-connected codefendants are the real criminals in the case. They say the trio, including the pair who flipped and testified for the government, deceived him, and stole millions of dollars from his clients without his knowledge.
His attorneys wrote that the government's claim that Kurland is responsible for a $102 million loss and a prison term in the 20-year range, is "highly speculative and inaccurate."
They argue that he is responsible for just $626,000 "at most" of the money that winners lost, a figure derived from the illegal 1% in commissions that Kurland received for $62.6 million they invested in his companies and lost.
Lawyers Telemachus Kasulis and Dennis Dillon assert that sentencing guidelines of 37-to-46 months are more appropriate. But time behind bars for Kurland is not needed to "achieve the ends of justice," the attorneys assert, because of the severe financial and social consequences that their client has endured since August 18, 2020, "the day of his arrest."
The feds seized $447,690 Kurland had in two accounts. Worse, his prestigious Madison Avenue law firm fired him the same day he was arrested. Those injuries, compounded by his conviction last year, have had such a devastating impact on Kurland and his family that "probation with a term of home confinement would be sufficient but not greater than necessary to meet the needs of sentencing," the attorneys wrote.
Dennis Dillon"Jason's indictment and conviction already have had crushing direct and collateral consequences" on Kurland, 50, as well as his wife Lauren, and their three children, the attorneys wrote. "The financial fallout," the lawyers wrote, "forced the family to cancel religious celebrations and made them quit many of the sports and activities that formed such a central part of their lives."
The family has "cut spending where they could," the attorneys wrote, "but to fill the gap and attempt to minimize the effect of the charges on his children's day-to-day lives, Jason has spent almost all his retirement savings, and he and Lauren have given up their own health insurance."
Jason and his wife both work but they do not bring in anywhere near what Kurland earned as the "Lottery Lawyer," the attorneys wrote. Lauren, who had not worked since 2008, when their first two children were born, "recently found" a part-time job that "does not come close to matching" the salary that Jason makes now, which is "considerably less than half" of what he was earning for Rivkin Radler, the firm that fired him three years ago, Kasulis and Dillon wrote.
Kurland’s wife earned only $1,500 in March 2023, the lawyers report. Their client's "principal remaining asset is the family home, which the government seeks to forfeit," the lawyers wrote. "In short," they stated in their plea for leniency to Judge Garaufis, "Jason’s arrest and conviction have financially devastated his family, without prospect for meaningful recovery."
In Lauren's words, the lawyers wrote, their children have "lost so much of what brought them happiness" that she is "petrified of what else they could lose should their father be put in jail."
Even a non-custodial sentence will be a difficult and frightening hurdle for Kurland to overcome after all that's happened to him in less than three years, the lawyers assert.
"Jason has been a lawyer his entire adult life (and) building a new career after the age of 50 would be a daunting prospect even without the impediment of a federal criminal conviction," the attorneys wrote.
Jason Kurlan and Frank Smookle and the horse they bouht for one of Kurlantsr There were social consequences as well, the lawyers stated. "After his arrest, Jason quickly was ostracized, asked to step down from his charitable role at the Interfaith Nutrition Network," a Long Island charity that helps feed needy families. He was also "shunned by former colleagues and friends."
"While he desperately sought and ultimately found work, his deep and cherished connection to professional communities in real estate, finance, and the law was irrevocably severed," they wrote.
"Despite intense disruption to his life and deterioration of his own physical and mental health," the attorneys wrote, Kurland "found a job and remained employed, and continued to be present and engaged with his children. He has scrupulously complied with his conditions of release (and) he has been a model supervisee."
Kurland's primary legal practice had been real estate law until a "friend of a friend" asked him for help after he won a lottery drawing. Thus began Kurland's emergence as the self-declared "Lottery Lawyer."
That practice, however, soon included investing client's winnings in firms that Kurland owned without telling them, and by stealing from them as well, according to the feds.
After his indictment, he was hired by Elizabeth Chen, a realtor, who wrote to tell Garaufis that she is saddened by the possibility that he could be sentenced to prison because then she will lose a "great employee, a great teacher, and a great friend."
"For the last 2 years, Jason has been a very helpful person to me," wrote Chen, a Chinese immigrant who met him in 2014 and "reached out to him" because as a "Chinese businesswoman whose English is poor" she "had many experience with bad lawyers and bad businessmen" and she knew that "Jason is not like that."
"He helped me a lot," she wrote. "He has been by my side as I went through tough moments of my business, and through tough moments in my life as a new immigrant" when she "was taken advantage of many times by those dishonest people. Jason is the gatekeeper and the shield for my business."
Chen wrote that she has "read the judgement and cannot believe what happened" at his trial. "That is not the Jason I know. The Jason I know would never intentionally hurt any of his clients. I knew all about his businesses, and was an investor myself. He was very proud of those companies," she continued. "He was very open and honest about his companies."
In an effort to drive home Chen's opinion of their client, attorneys Kasulis and Dillon acknowledged that while three lottery winners lost "significant sums" from investments that Kurland "brought to them," he had "invested his own money" in two of the companies. "There was no evidence at trial," they wrote, "that Jason did not firmly believe the related investments would be profitable for his clients."
And "the record at trial established that Jason was deceived" by the codefendants who testified against him, Francis (Frank) Smookler and Frangesco (Frankie Boy) Russo, and by Genovese mobster Christopher Chierchio, the lawyers argued.
Chierchio, who copped a guilty plea calling for five years, is slated to be sentenced later this month. Russo, who spent about 18 months behind bars before he flipped, and Smookler, who agreed to cooperate back in 2021, have testified they are hoping for "time served" sentences.
"Smookler and Russo frankly admitted at trial," they wrote, "that Jason had no idea that they (and a cohort) had stolen $4 million dollars off the top of one of the investments" and "Chierchio has pleaded guilty to stealing" about "$41.5 million that his clients invested in PPE-related transactions."
"We respectfully submit that (many cited) factors require leniency," they wrote. "While we do not request a sentence of probation with home confinement lightly, we believe that it would be a reasonable sentence under the circumstances and consistent with the law’s admonishment that sentence must not be greater than necessary to reach the ends of justice."
DA Says Octogenarian Mob Associate Is Still At It
He's 82, but Lawrence (Larry) Wecker is still doing what comes naturally, and what he did decades ago with wiseguys Anthony (Fat Tony) Salerno and Steven (Stevie Wonder) Crea, namely bid-rigging, bribery, money laundering, and sundry other labor racketeering scams, according to Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.
Wecker is the central figure among eight defendants and six companies charged with stealing millions of dollars from city and state agencies by fraudulently obtaining subsidies for numerous building contracts in a scam that began in 2015 and continued into last year.
The scheme included falsely claiming that workers on Wecker's building projects were employed by women-owned or minority-owned drywall companies, bribery, and insurance fraud.
It's at least the second trip to the Manhattan arraignment part for Wecker. In 2003, along with Luchese underboss Crea, Wecker pleaded guilty to state racketeering charges that had been lodged by then-DA Robert Morgenthau. He was sentenced to two years in prison for the charges.
This time around, the aging schemer stands accused of similar charges along with four cohorts, including Lisa Rossi, owner of LNR Construction, the bogus woman-owned company that got contracts but did no work, according to the 60-count racketeering indictment in the case.
In a court filing, Rossi, whose firm is located in East Harlem at 501 East 116th Street, was heard telling Wecker in one tape recorded call, "Stop telling people I'm an owner. I'm a pass through." Whatever her firm was called, it allegedly enabled Wecker's firm, JM3 Construction to "increase its government-subsidized affordable housing business" by using LNR to obtain contracts it couldn't get without her help, according to the charges.
During the investigation, Wecker was photographed paying a bribe to LaShawn Henry, who was allegedly used to get bogus minority owned business work for JM3. The hand off took place outside Rossi's East Harlem office, located a few blocks from where Wecker was photographed 40 years ago with Genovese acting boss Salerno in front of his headquarters at the Palma Boys Social Club.
On September 23, 2021, Wecker was heard discussing his arrangement with Henry with a JM3 foreman, according to a court filing:
"We have a good (thing) in there with this woman, LaShawn," Wecker said. "I take care, we use her, a black, she has a black woman's business thing . . . She works for them as a community organizer. She's always pushing us. They have a 400 unit job on Atlantic Avenue and it's supposedly our job and (we) don't want to blow it."
“The common factor in all of these alleged schemes is greed," Bragg stated at a news conference with Jocelyn Strauber, the head of the city's Department of Investigation, and Adolfo Carrión Jr., the commissioner of the city's Department of Housing Preservation and Development.
When the field is rigged, law-abiding companies and legitimate (minority and women-owned businesses) are cheated out of much-needed contracts," said Bragg.
"These defendants," said Strauber, "enriched themselves at the expense of a program intended to assist minority and women-owned businesses, by deceiving city and state government entities, part of a series of frauds that shortchanged workers and undermined fair competition."
Veteran newsman Tom Robbins, who wrote about the Crea and Wecker case for the Village Voice and the Daily News, asked Bragg whether Wecker, who had been identified as a Luchese associate in the 2000 case, had "resigned from organized crime" since he wasn't described as a mob associate in the current case, technically known as an Enterprise Corruption indictment.
Bragg punted, saying he could only talk about what was in the four corners of the indictment.
Robbins, who now does double duty as a journalism professor at CUNY graduate school and as a reporter for the online news organization, The City, pressed: "So there was no organized crime involvement in this big fraud case?" Bragg punted again, and without further adieu, walked off the stage and ended the news conference.
Wecker, as well as Rossi, 52, of Eastchester, three other JM3 officials, Michael Speier, 46, of Jackson, NJ, Joseph Guinta, 57, of Middletown, NJ, and Marcos Pinheiro, 65, of Kearny, NJ, face up to 25 years in prison if convicted of enterprise corruption.
Larry Wecker gives LaShawn Henry a cash bribeLaShawn Henry, 60, of Manhattan, faces up to 15 years if convicted of the top count against her, grand larceny, and her daughter, Brittany, 27, of Yonkers, faces up to four years for filing false documents in the case.
The Henrys, of Urban Strategies of New York, allegedly received $16,000 in payoffs from Wecker during one year of the scam in order to facilitate subsidzied contracts that JM3 fulfilled, according to court filings.
In addition to his allegedly corrupt dealings with Fat Tony and the Genoveses in the 1980s and Steve Crea and the Lucheses in the late 1990s, Wecker was also involved in labor racketeering activity with DeCavalcante family in the 1990s, according to the testimony of Sean Richard, a son-in-law of the late New Jersey Boss John Riggi.
At Crea's 2019 trial in White Plains Federal Court, Richard testified that Wecker paid ten percent of the total value of building projects he had in New Jersey, "mainly high-rises," so he would be insulated and his job sites not be harassed with picketing or other problems by mob-controlled unions, Richard testified.
The money was split three ways "between the DeCavalcante crime family, the Luchese crime family and the Genovese crime family," said Richard.
Lottery Lawyer Pleads His Case For Mercy
Lottery Lawyer Jason (Jay) Kurland wants the judge who will decide his sentence to know that he has been "through hell" since his arrest. He suffers "excruciating pain" in the "pit of his stomach" whenever he is awake. He is now "begging for mercy" — and a no-jail sentence — for his conviction for fleecing people who struck it rich with the lottery only to make the mistake of investing their winnings with Kurland.
That part was a mistake, Kurland told Brooklyn Federal Court Judge Nicholas Garaufis. He insists that he never intended for his clients to lose any money and stated he feels "sick" about "how much money" they lost because of his actions.
In a six-page letter, Kurland maintained that he "was shamefully misled" by his three codefendants in his dealings with them. He wrote that he hopes the judge was listening at the trial and on the wiretaps and heard "how they stole, lied to me and falsely reassured me, and how they talked about me when they thought nobody was listening."
Kurland, who is slated to be sentenced next month, admitted that he "should never have recommended they invest in companies in which I had an ownership interest." But he hoped, he wrote, that "you believe based on what you heard at trial that my intent was never for my clients to lose money. It was wrong, and I can add that to my list of regrets."
Kurland stated that he hoped his request for such a "large departure from the sentencing guidelines" did not give Garaufis the impression that he "was not taking this matter (and his actions) seriously." Kurland assured the judge "with all of my heart" that he did, and understands the error of his ways.
He also offered the judge several reasons why he believes he deserved a non-custodial sentence.
"If I am able to remain at home, although I will not be allowed to practice law again, I do have a job and will be able to earn an income so I can maintain support for my family, and hopefully chip away at the restitution."
He will also be able to "dedicate my time to making sure other lawyers, especially young ones, do not fall into the same mistakes I did," he wrote. "I know that my story will have an impact on the way they practice," he stated.
And while the "Court might be inclined" to sentence a convicted lawyer "more harshly than someone else," Kurland wrote that in his case, "the fact that I was a prominent lawyer has contributed to me and my family suffering public humiliation by the press that exceeds that of most defendants."
"In minutes," he wrote, "I went from being a respected member of the bar and community to a national disgrace. I've even been labeled as a member of organized crime, which could not be further from the truth," Kurland wrote.
"I had never even heard the phrase 'La Cosa Nostra' until I read about it in the detention memo" which recommended that Frangesco Russo, the grandson of then Colombo boss Andrew (Mush) Russo be detained as a danger to the community, he wrote.
"I will never be able to change what has been written about me," Kurland continued. "That is something that me and my family will live with forever. As I work now and try to make a living, I'm embarrassed every time I tell someone my name."
"As I write this letter," Kurlnad wrote, "I am begging you for mercy. I have been through hell, much of it understandably due to my decisions. For the rest of my life, I will be burdened with a restitution judgment that will financially cripple me. I have lost my profession. Instead of being admired by my children, family and friends, I am nothing but a cause of their embarrassment and suffering.
"Anyone with a phone or computer knows how disgraced I've become," he continued. "I have suffered so much because of the hurt I have caused, and will continue to suffer for the rest of my life. I pray with the Court' s mercy that I can keep my family together, and give my beloved children a father in their remaining years at home.
"I pray with the Court's mercy I can help keep others from making the same mistakes I have. And I pray with the Court's mercy that I can live my life going forward with respect for the law, respect for my profession, and respect for the community I was so fortunate to be a part of."
Prosecutors are likely to differ strongly in terms of a recommended sentence that Garaufis should mete out to Jason Kurland on his judgment day. They are slated to file their sentencing memo later this month.
[size=150]Lottery Lawyer In $102 Million Dollar Ripoff Of His Clients Seeks Probation[/size]
In a pre-sentencing filing that reads more like a cry for help from a crime victim than a plea for leniency by a defendant, disgraced Lottery lawyer Jason (Jay) Kurland says he has already suffered enough, and he doesn't deserve to go to jail.
Kurland was convicted at trial of five counts of wire fraud and related charges stemming from a $102 million rip-off in which Lottery winners were dunned out of much of their prize money by a diverse crew of schemers that included Kurland, a wiseguy, and a grandson of a Mafia boss.
In an astounding 120-page filing with Brooklyn Federal Court Judge Nicholas Garaufis, Kurland and his lawyers assert that his mob-connected codefendants are the real criminals in the case. They say the trio, including the pair who flipped and testified for the government, deceived him, and stole millions of dollars from his clients without his knowledge.
His attorneys wrote that the government's claim that Kurland is responsible for a $102 million loss and a prison term in the 20-year range, is "highly speculative and inaccurate."
They argue that he is responsible for just $626,000 "at most" of the money that winners lost, a figure derived from the illegal 1% in commissions that Kurland received for $62.6 million they invested in his companies and lost.
Lawyers Telemachus Kasulis and Dennis Dillon assert that sentencing guidelines of 37-to-46 months are more appropriate. But time behind bars for Kurland is not needed to "achieve the ends of justice," the attorneys assert, because of the severe financial and social consequences that their client has endured since August 18, 2020, "the day of his arrest."
The feds seized $447,690 Kurland had in two accounts. Worse, his prestigious Madison Avenue law firm fired him the same day he was arrested. Those injuries, compounded by his conviction last year, have had such a devastating impact on Kurland and his family that "probation with a term of home confinement would be sufficient but not greater than necessary to meet the needs of sentencing," the attorneys wrote.
Dennis Dillon"Jason's indictment and conviction already have had crushing direct and collateral consequences" on Kurland, 50, as well as his wife Lauren, and their three children, the attorneys wrote. "The financial fallout," the lawyers wrote, "forced the family to cancel religious celebrations and made them quit many of the sports and activities that formed such a central part of their lives."
The family has "cut spending where they could," the attorneys wrote, "but to fill the gap and attempt to minimize the effect of the charges on his children's day-to-day lives, Jason has spent almost all his retirement savings, and he and Lauren have given up their own health insurance."
Jason and his wife both work but they do not bring in anywhere near what Kurland earned as the "Lottery Lawyer," the attorneys wrote. Lauren, who had not worked since 2008, when their first two children were born, "recently found" a part-time job that "does not come close to matching" the salary that Jason makes now, which is "considerably less than half" of what he was earning for Rivkin Radler, the firm that fired him three years ago, Kasulis and Dillon wrote.
Kurland’s wife earned only $1,500 in March 2023, the lawyers report. Their client's "principal remaining asset is the family home, which the government seeks to forfeit," the lawyers wrote. "In short," they stated in their plea for leniency to Judge Garaufis, "Jason’s arrest and conviction have financially devastated his family, without prospect for meaningful recovery."
In Lauren's words, the lawyers wrote, their children have "lost so much of what brought them happiness" that she is "petrified of what else they could lose should their father be put in jail."
Even a non-custodial sentence will be a difficult and frightening hurdle for Kurland to overcome after all that's happened to him in less than three years, the lawyers assert.
"Jason has been a lawyer his entire adult life (and) building a new career after the age of 50 would be a daunting prospect even without the impediment of a federal criminal conviction," the attorneys wrote.
Jason Kurlan and Frank Smookle and the horse they bouht for one of Kurlantsr There were social consequences as well, the lawyers stated. "After his arrest, Jason quickly was ostracized, asked to step down from his charitable role at the Interfaith Nutrition Network," a Long Island charity that helps feed needy families. He was also "shunned by former colleagues and friends."
"While he desperately sought and ultimately found work, his deep and cherished connection to professional communities in real estate, finance, and the law was irrevocably severed," they wrote.
"Despite intense disruption to his life and deterioration of his own physical and mental health," the attorneys wrote, Kurland "found a job and remained employed, and continued to be present and engaged with his children. He has scrupulously complied with his conditions of release (and) he has been a model supervisee."
Kurland's primary legal practice had been real estate law until a "friend of a friend" asked him for help after he won a lottery drawing. Thus began Kurland's emergence as the self-declared "Lottery Lawyer."
That practice, however, soon included investing client's winnings in firms that Kurland owned without telling them, and by stealing from them as well, according to the feds.
After his indictment, he was hired by Elizabeth Chen, a realtor, who wrote to tell Garaufis that she is saddened by the possibility that he could be sentenced to prison because then she will lose a "great employee, a great teacher, and a great friend."
"For the last 2 years, Jason has been a very helpful person to me," wrote Chen, a Chinese immigrant who met him in 2014 and "reached out to him" because as a "Chinese businesswoman whose English is poor" she "had many experience with bad lawyers and bad businessmen" and she knew that "Jason is not like that."
"He helped me a lot," she wrote. "He has been by my side as I went through tough moments of my business, and through tough moments in my life as a new immigrant" when she "was taken advantage of many times by those dishonest people. Jason is the gatekeeper and the shield for my business."
Chen wrote that she has "read the judgement and cannot believe what happened" at his trial. "That is not the Jason I know. The Jason I know would never intentionally hurt any of his clients. I knew all about his businesses, and was an investor myself. He was very proud of those companies," she continued. "He was very open and honest about his companies."
In an effort to drive home Chen's opinion of their client, attorneys Kasulis and Dillon acknowledged that while three lottery winners lost "significant sums" from investments that Kurland "brought to them," he had "invested his own money" in two of the companies. "There was no evidence at trial," they wrote, "that Jason did not firmly believe the related investments would be profitable for his clients."
And "the record at trial established that Jason was deceived" by the codefendants who testified against him, Francis (Frank) Smookler and Frangesco (Frankie Boy) Russo, and by Genovese mobster Christopher Chierchio, the lawyers argued.
Chierchio, who copped a guilty plea calling for five years, is slated to be sentenced later this month. Russo, who spent about 18 months behind bars before he flipped, and Smookler, who agreed to cooperate back in 2021, have testified they are hoping for "time served" sentences.
"Smookler and Russo frankly admitted at trial," they wrote, "that Jason had no idea that they (and a cohort) had stolen $4 million dollars off the top of one of the investments" and "Chierchio has pleaded guilty to stealing" about "$41.5 million that his clients invested in PPE-related transactions."
"We respectfully submit that (many cited) factors require leniency," they wrote. "While we do not request a sentence of probation with home confinement lightly, we believe that it would be a reasonable sentence under the circumstances and consistent with the law’s admonishment that sentence must not be greater than necessary to reach the ends of justice."
[size=150]DA Says Octogenarian Mob Associate Is Still At It[/size]
He's 82, but Lawrence (Larry) Wecker is still doing what comes naturally, and what he did decades ago with wiseguys Anthony (Fat Tony) Salerno and Steven (Stevie Wonder) Crea, namely bid-rigging, bribery, money laundering, and sundry other labor racketeering scams, according to Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.
Wecker is the central figure among eight defendants and six companies charged with stealing millions of dollars from city and state agencies by fraudulently obtaining subsidies for numerous building contracts in a scam that began in 2015 and continued into last year.
The scheme included falsely claiming that workers on Wecker's building projects were employed by women-owned or minority-owned drywall companies, bribery, and insurance fraud.
It's at least the second trip to the Manhattan arraignment part for Wecker. In 2003, along with Luchese underboss Crea, Wecker pleaded guilty to state racketeering charges that had been lodged by then-DA Robert Morgenthau. He was sentenced to two years in prison for the charges.
This time around, the aging schemer stands accused of similar charges along with four cohorts, including Lisa Rossi, owner of LNR Construction, the bogus woman-owned company that got contracts but did no work, according to the 60-count racketeering indictment in the case.
In a court filing, Rossi, whose firm is located in East Harlem at 501 East 116th Street, was heard telling Wecker in one tape recorded call, "Stop telling people I'm an owner. I'm a pass through." Whatever her firm was called, it allegedly enabled Wecker's firm, JM3 Construction to "increase its government-subsidized affordable housing business" by using LNR to obtain contracts it couldn't get without her help, according to the charges.
During the investigation, Wecker was photographed paying a bribe to LaShawn Henry, who was allegedly used to get bogus minority owned business work for JM3. The hand off took place outside Rossi's East Harlem office, located a few blocks from where Wecker was photographed 40 years ago with Genovese acting boss Salerno in front of his headquarters at the Palma Boys Social Club.
On September 23, 2021, Wecker was heard discussing his arrangement with Henry with a JM3 foreman, according to a court filing:
"We have a good (thing) in there with this woman, LaShawn," Wecker said. "I take care, we use her, a black, she has a black woman's business thing . . . She works for them as a community organizer. She's always pushing us. They have a 400 unit job on Atlantic Avenue and it's supposedly our job and (we) don't want to blow it."
“The common factor in all of these alleged schemes is greed," Bragg stated at a news conference with Jocelyn Strauber, the head of the city's Department of Investigation, and Adolfo Carrión Jr., the commissioner of the city's Department of Housing Preservation and Development.
When the field is rigged, law-abiding companies and legitimate (minority and women-owned businesses) are cheated out of much-needed contracts," said Bragg.
"These defendants," said Strauber, "enriched themselves at the expense of a program intended to assist minority and women-owned businesses, by deceiving city and state government entities, part of a series of frauds that shortchanged workers and undermined fair competition."
Veteran newsman Tom Robbins, who wrote about the Crea and Wecker case for the Village Voice and the Daily News, asked Bragg whether Wecker, who had been identified as a Luchese associate in the 2000 case, had "resigned from organized crime" since he wasn't described as a mob associate in the current case, technically known as an Enterprise Corruption indictment.
Bragg punted, saying he could only talk about what was in the four corners of the indictment.
Robbins, who now does double duty as a journalism professor at CUNY graduate school and as a reporter for the online news organization, The City, pressed: "So there was no organized crime involvement in this big fraud case?" Bragg punted again, and without further adieu, walked off the stage and ended the news conference.
Wecker, as well as Rossi, 52, of Eastchester, three other JM3 officials, Michael Speier, 46, of Jackson, NJ, Joseph Guinta, 57, of Middletown, NJ, and Marcos Pinheiro, 65, of Kearny, NJ, face up to 25 years in prison if convicted of enterprise corruption.
Larry Wecker gives LaShawn Henry a cash bribeLaShawn Henry, 60, of Manhattan, faces up to 15 years if convicted of the top count against her, grand larceny, and her daughter, Brittany, 27, of Yonkers, faces up to four years for filing false documents in the case.
The Henrys, of Urban Strategies of New York, allegedly received $16,000 in payoffs from Wecker during one year of the scam in order to facilitate subsidzied contracts that JM3 fulfilled, according to court filings.
In addition to his allegedly corrupt dealings with Fat Tony and the Genoveses in the 1980s and Steve Crea and the Lucheses in the late 1990s, Wecker was also involved in labor racketeering activity with DeCavalcante family in the 1990s, according to the testimony of Sean Richard, a son-in-law of the late New Jersey Boss John Riggi.
At Crea's 2019 trial in White Plains Federal Court, Richard testified that Wecker paid ten percent of the total value of building projects he had in New Jersey, "mainly high-rises," so he would be insulated and his job sites not be harassed with picketing or other problems by mob-controlled unions, Richard testified.
The money was split three ways "between the DeCavalcante crime family, the Luchese crime family and the Genovese crime family," said Richard.
[size=150]Lottery Lawyer Pleads His Case For Mercy[/size]
Lottery Lawyer Jason (Jay) Kurland wants the judge who will decide his sentence to know that he has been "through hell" since his arrest. He suffers "excruciating pain" in the "pit of his stomach" whenever he is awake. He is now "begging for mercy" — and a no-jail sentence — for his conviction for fleecing people who struck it rich with the lottery only to make the mistake of investing their winnings with Kurland.
That part was a mistake, Kurland told Brooklyn Federal Court Judge Nicholas Garaufis. He insists that he never intended for his clients to lose any money and stated he feels "sick" about "how much money" they lost because of his actions.
In a six-page letter, Kurland maintained that he "was shamefully misled" by his three codefendants in his dealings with them. He wrote that he hopes the judge was listening at the trial and on the wiretaps and heard "how they stole, lied to me and falsely reassured me, and how they talked about me when they thought nobody was listening."
Kurland, who is slated to be sentenced next month, admitted that he "should never have recommended they invest in companies in which I had an ownership interest." But he hoped, he wrote, that "you believe based on what you heard at trial that my intent was never for my clients to lose money. It was wrong, and I can add that to my list of regrets."
Kurland stated that he hoped his request for such a "large departure from the sentencing guidelines" did not give Garaufis the impression that he "was not taking this matter (and his actions) seriously." Kurland assured the judge "with all of my heart" that he did, and understands the error of his ways.
He also offered the judge several reasons why he believes he deserved a non-custodial sentence.
"If I am able to remain at home, although I will not be allowed to practice law again, I do have a job and will be able to earn an income so I can maintain support for my family, and hopefully chip away at the restitution."
He will also be able to "dedicate my time to making sure other lawyers, especially young ones, do not fall into the same mistakes I did," he wrote. "I know that my story will have an impact on the way they practice," he stated.
And while the "Court might be inclined" to sentence a convicted lawyer "more harshly than someone else," Kurland wrote that in his case, "the fact that I was a prominent lawyer has contributed to me and my family suffering public humiliation by the press that exceeds that of most defendants."
"In minutes," he wrote, "I went from being a respected member of the bar and community to a national disgrace. I've even been labeled as a member of organized crime, which could not be further from the truth," Kurland wrote.
"I had never even heard the phrase 'La Cosa Nostra' until I read about it in the detention memo" which recommended that Frangesco Russo, the grandson of then Colombo boss Andrew (Mush) Russo be detained as a danger to the community, he wrote.
"I will never be able to change what has been written about me," Kurland continued. "That is something that me and my family will live with forever. As I work now and try to make a living, I'm embarrassed every time I tell someone my name."
"As I write this letter," Kurlnad wrote, "I am begging you for mercy. I have been through hell, much of it understandably due to my decisions. For the rest of my life, I will be burdened with a restitution judgment that will financially cripple me. I have lost my profession. Instead of being admired by my children, family and friends, I am nothing but a cause of their embarrassment and suffering.
"Anyone with a phone or computer knows how disgraced I've become," he continued. "I have suffered so much because of the hurt I have caused, and will continue to suffer for the rest of my life. I pray with the Court' s mercy that I can keep my family together, and give my beloved children a father in their remaining years at home.
"I pray with the Court's mercy I can help keep others from making the same mistakes I have. And I pray with the Court's mercy that I can live my life going forward with respect for the law, respect for my profession, and respect for the community I was so fortunate to be a part of."
Prosecutors are likely to differ strongly in terms of a recommended sentence that Garaufis should mete out to Jason Kurland on his judgment day. They are slated to file their sentencing memo later this month.