The woman who wanted to prove to her husband that lottery was a waste of money - and won (News in a minute)
Stefan Mandel, the man who "cracked" the lottery, has returned to Israel after 20 years of fleeing the law, Walla learned Thursday. Mandel fled the country following an indictment followed by a prison sentence for violating the Securities Law, and has since lived in one of the islands of Vanuatu near Australia. Now, he intends to file a motion for a retrial.
Mandel, an 83-year-old Holocaust survivor, is considered the man with the most wins in the world, finishing first 14 times. In his youth in Romania, Mandel came up with a method of securing the win: organizing groups and jointly sending forms covering all possible combinations in the lottery. At first he did so in order to save enough money to immigrate to Israel with his wife and children, but later leveraged the system to win more in Australia and the United States.
Following his winnings, laws were passed to plug the holes he found in the lottery system. For example, Australia increased the number of balls in the lottery from 40 to 45 to increase the number of possible combinations and banned forms covering all options. The United States eliminated self-printing, a loophole that facilitated mass labeling that sometimes required millions of different forms.
Stefan Mandel (Photo: screenshot, News 13)
Attorney Alon Eisenberg (Photo: official website, uncredited)
The entanglement with the law came only later, for other reasons. After he settled in Israel, the Israel Securities Authority opened an investigation against him in the early 2000s on suspicion of illegally selling land in Vanuatu to Israelis. During the interrogation, he decided to flee Israel to the island nation. In 2004, he was sentenced to ten months in prison and a NIS 100,<> fine for fraudulent offenses while abroad.
After living there for many years, Mandel filed a motion for a retrial with the Supreme Court. About three years ago, Judge Hanan Meltzer ruled that a retrial could not be allowed while he was fleeing justice, but decided that he would not be arrested upon his return to Israel in order to be able to resubmit a request for a retrial. In his ruling, he added criticism of Mandel's sentencing in absentia.
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THAT'S HOW STEPHEN MANDEL WON THE LOTTERY 14 TIMES (SCREENSHOT, THE HUSTLE)
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"I come back with evidence to prove things to reopen my trial," Mandel told Walla. "Following Judge Meltzer's decision in my request for a retrial, in which he revoked the sentence against me and the international arrest warrant against me, I returned to Israel to reopen my trial and do justice. I look forward to presenting clear evidence of how they stitched up a case for me at the Securities and Exchange Commission."
Attorney Alon Eisenberg, who represents Mandel, said that "it is impossible to say about a person who won the lottery 14 times that he plays with luck, he has startling evidence of how the Israel Securities Authority sewed a case for him."
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