Rand Heckler, of Glen Cove, sentenced to 7½ years for $1M Ponzi scheme

A Glen Cove man who used a Ponzi scheme to cheat neighbors and friends out of more than $1 million of invested money to pay for his country club membership, dinners out and a Mercedes-Benz was sentenced to up to 7½ in prison on Wednesday.

Rand Heckler, 67, pleaded guilty in April to grand larceny in the second degree and a scheme to defraud in the first degree, for running a phony hedge fund that did little more than fund his lavish lifestyle.

Heckler, who is legally blind, started out soliciting a friend and a friend’s son to invest in his exclusive hedge fund in 2015, according to prosecutors. He claimed to be offering investment opportunities to only 15 to 20 people he knew.

Over the next five years, the investors poured $755,159 into his so-called fund. He fabricated statements and stock purchase receipts and produced dummy stock trade records to deceive his clients, prosecutors said.

The scheme came to a head in 2020 when a client’s son asked for $100,000 from his father's account, from which he had the authority to draw as part of a trust fund. Instead of taking the money from his account, Heckler had a neighbor, who thought she was joining the hedge fund, wire $100,000 from her dead husband’s life insurance payout to the son, the district attorney’s office said.

In all, Heckler stole $1,004,159 of his client’s money, prosecutors said. A civil action brought by Nassau District Attorney Anne Donnelly recouped $48,445.48.

“This defendant executed a classic Ponzi scheme, promising his friends and neighbors high-value investments, using money from new investors to pay earlier ones, and ultimately stealing a total of more than $1 million from several victims,” Donnelly said. “Heckler lived large off his victims’ funds, paying for a country club membership, the mortgage on his home, and his daily living expenses. Having a trusted financial adviser is essential to making safe and smart investments.”

Victim Jerry Kulas, who invested money for his parents' retirement and his children’s education fund, said in a letter read in court on Wednesday that Heckler’s theft had “completely derailed” their plans.

“We had put our trust into Rand Heckler to manage our investments responsibly and securely, but his negligence has caused irreparable harm,” he wrote. “The loss of our savings has made it difficult for us to provide the educational resources that our children need to succeed.”

In addition, Kulas said his parents have lost not only money for their future, but their trust in financial institutions. 

“They feel violated, vulnerable and betrayed,” he wrote in a letter read aloud in court by Betty Rodriguez, deputy chief of the financial crimes bureau of the Nassau District Attorney’s office.

Heckler, who was dressed in a fluorescent yellow hoodie with a construction company logo on it, wrote his own mea culpa, read by his lawyer, Michael Finkelstein.

“I have every intention to work the rest of my life to make the victims whole again or die trying,” he said.

He also asked Justice Terence Murphy to help him set up speaking engagements with high schools and colleges so he could warn young people about “American greed, the pitfalls of Wall Street and the promises of easy money.”

The judge, however, said that he was not inclined to help.

“There’s not much that I can say, Mr. Heckler. You were a salesman,” the judge said. "You sold people on your trust and expertise, but truly you were nothing more than a common pickpocket.”