Add The New York Post on Google A green-job grifter recruited dozens of standout college students for summer work at his start-up, then stiffed them to the tune of nearly $1 million, according to a federal class-action suit.
Mathata “Moe” Mpela — the Brooklyn-based founder of Nalane Green Solutions — hired more than 20 college and graduate students to help run his “Green Apprentice Program,” promising them between $22 and $40 an hour to mentor kids at Transit Tech high school East New York on green tech.
But while the student workers from CUNY and Howard University bought into his idealistic mission “to empower communities, reduce environmental impact, and drive economic growth,” they claim the only thing they ever got from Mpela was a harsh lesson on the art of the con.
“Some [students] relocated across the country, others turned down paying jobs and research positions to do the work,” according to court papers filed in Brooklyn Federal Court.
“None of them have ever been paid a single dollar.”
Mpela collectively owes the group around $950,000 in unpaid wages, according to their lawyer.
Geovanni Luti, a 4.0 student from Howard, said he turned down a lucrative offer at Collins Aerospace to work for Mpela and moved from Texas to a rat infested Bronx apartment for the job.
“I genuinely thought I’d be making a change, and I genuinely thought he was a man of vision who wanted to make an impact on the community by taking people from our community to do that,” Luti told the Post.
Turns out, Luti said, he actually worked on grant proposals to fund Mpela’s not-so-bright idea to “manufacture EV chargers” in the basement of Transit Tech High School.
“I found [that] to be extremely dangerous and unethical, especially since he wanted the Transit Tech students — because they’re at a technical school — to work on manufacturing them and then sell it to the market,” Luti said.
“This is infrastructure that can kill people, and I had nobody supervising me.”
Mpela, when asked about the allegedly owed money, reputedly blamed delays on a New York state grant.
The plaintiffs’ lawyers called the excuse a blatant lie, claiming that grant couldn’t have even gone toward owed wages.
Mpela gave The Post similar excuses over the alleged missing wages — while insisting he only owes $53,000 to the students.
“The mistake I made was to hire the 2026 team without getting a confirmation from one of the potential fiscal sponsors,” Mpela said in an email.
Mpela said he apologized and stopped the most recent work in July, months after signing contracts with the students.
He is being sued over the past two summers’ worth of supposed projects.
“It certainly makes me feel deceived,” said CUNY graduate student Julie Liu, 26, who was promised $27 an hour as a supervisor last summer and helped lead the class-action suit.
“It makes me feel like my interest in serving others was just weaponized for someone else’s gain.”
Most of the students learned about Mpela’s company Nalane through their school’s career offices, with Liu telling The Post that the first round of interviews took place in the engineering school’s dean’s office.
“We trusted this start-up company, even though we’ve never heard of it before, because we trusted our administrators at City College,” she said in an interview, adding that the 32 students from the engineering school were each owed thousands in unpaid wages.
The plaintiffs’ lawyer, Chaya Gourarie, partner at the Bell law Group, told The Post, “We intend to hold Moe fully accountable.
“These students deserve to be heard. Their case sends a clear message: every worker who is wrongfully denied their wages has a voice.”
CUNY, which is not accused of any wrongdoing in the suit, said it is working to support its impacted students but declined to comment further.
But the school did investigate the claims against Mpela when students raised their wage issue — and banned Nalane from the CUNY recruiting systems.
“We cannot support the unethical behavior and illegal behavior of this employer,” Career Director Katie Nailler wrote in an email filed in federal court.
Even after the CUNY students jilted in 2025 first sued in April, Mpela proceeded to recruit for his second rip-off summer — this time from Howard University, court documents allege.
Neither Mpela nor city officials responded to questions about the alleged EV proposal at Transit Tech.
Another Howard student from this past summer, Alana Marcial, 20, said she never got paid for any of the 636 hours she worked for Mpela, turning down two other job offers after buying into his message of serving the community.
“Honestly, I feel exploited,” Marcial said. “For us to be presented with the initiative to do good in our community… it’s gut‑wrenching.”
In a video of a meeting shared with The Post, Mpela, when confronted by pissed-off student workers, admitted that he hired this summer’s students despite knowing he had no money to pay them.
City records show Nalane Green Solutions received a $25,000 contract through the city’s education department last year but has only spent $1,700 so far this July. The DOE did not respond to a Post request for comment.
“This ends now,” Marcial said. “You’re not gonna live in delusion anymore…. Now you’re not gonna hurt any other students anymore.”
