Writer
When most people learn that they've won the lottery, the first person they celebrate with isn't a family member, friend, or loved one. Instead, it's usually the store clerk who scanned their ticket and informed them they were a winner.
While most of these clerks are happy for their customers and enjoy celebrating their good fortune, a few have been tempted to grab the winning tickets for themselves to collect jackpots that rightfully belonged to their customers.
These are the incredible true stories of unscrupulous clerks who were caught attempting to steal millions from lottery winners.
$5 million fraud
Officials at the New York State Lottery office were immediately suspicious of brothers Andy and Nayel Ashkar when they tried to cash in a scratch-off ticket for the game $500 Million Extravaganza that was worth $5 million.
For one, they had waited almost five years, the exact length of the ticket's expiration date, before they tried to redeem it. Andy said the long delay was because he “had a lot going on” and didn't have time to cash it. The brothers also said they'd be willing to take less money than the ticket was worth if they could avoid a news conference.
This odd behavior set off red flags for the lottery officials, and they told the brothers they'd have to complete a security check before they could pay out such a massive prize. Rather than letting the brothers avoid publicity, security officials made them famous by publishing a news story naming them winners. The story included information such as where and when the ticket was purchased and highlighted the long gap between when it was uncovered and when Andy finally redeemed it.
The story was published by several local papers and the Associated Press and had its intended effect. A man named Robert Miles read the story and stepped forward to claim he was the ticket's actual owner.
Miles frequently purchased lottery tickets at the Green Ale Market, a convenience store in Syracuse owned by the Ashkar family. He remembered buying the Extravaganza game and thinking he had won the $5 million grand prize. However, when he took the ticket back to the market and asked Andy to scan it for him, Andy told him the ticket was worth only $5,000. To add insult to injury, he told Miles there was a $1,000 fee to cash the ticket and paid him only $4,000.
The lottery investigated and determined that Miles's story was true. The Onondaga District Attorney charged both brothers with attempted grand larceny and conspiracy, and Andy was charged with an additional count of criminal possession of stolen property. Andy went to trial, was found guilty, and sentenced to between 8.5 and 25 years in state prison.
Stealing a lot from a Little
There are many things you don't want to do if you're part of a criminal conspiracy, but getting into an argument about how you intend to split the loot from your crime in front of state investigators has to be at the top of the list.
Unfortunately, Carly Nunes and Joseph Reddem must have never looked at the list because they went from future millionaires to criminal defendants after having a heated fight in the Massachusetts State Lottery offices.
Their troubles started when Paul Little, a diesel mechanic from Lakeville, MA, stopped at a Savas, a convenience store near his home. Little purchased a bag of chips and one Mega Millions ticket. Somehow, in the course of the transaction, he forgot the lottery ticket and left it at the store.
The store clerk Nunes held onto the ticket after she realized it was a winner worth $3 million. She offered to pay Reddem $200,000 for a ride to the Massachusetts State Lottery Headquarters so she could redeem the ticket and collect the money for herself.
However, once at the lottery offices, Reddem decided that he wasn't happy with his share of the payout and demanded a bigger cut of the money. Their argument made lottery officials suspicious, as did the ticket's damaged condition, and they decided to launch a more detailed investigation into the Nunes.
After reviewing surveillance footage from Savas, they determined that Little was the ticket's rightful owner. Lottery officials tracked him down and returned the ticket, and he was able to collect the $3 million prize.
Nunes faced several criminal charges but agreed to plead guilty to one count of attempting to file a false claim. She was sentenced to two years of probation and made to enroll in a substance abuse recovery program.
Reddem was due to stand trial in May of this year, but a warrant was issued for his arrest after he appeared to go on the run just days before his trial was supposed to begin.
For his part, Little said he would use the money to renovate his home and that he had no ill feelings towards Nunes for attempting to steal his fortune. “I wish her the best and pray good things come her way,” Little told reporters when collecting his money.
Gas and go
A man in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, was in a bit of a rush, so when he purchased two twenty-dollar Diamond and Gold lottery tickets from a Shell gas station, he didn't bother to uncover the entire ticket and check his numbers.
Instead, he only scratched off the game's bar code and asked the clerk, twenty-three-year-old Meet Patel, to scan the cards and check if they were winners. Patel told him it was his lucky day because one of the tickets was worth $40, but the other was a loser.
Patel paid the man his money and threw away the losing ticket. Then, after the man left, the store's security cameras showed he had done something unusual. He reached into the trash, pulled out the “losing” ticket, uncovered the rest of the game, and started celebrating.
Rather than being a worthless loser, the ticket that Patel had thrown away was actually worth one million dollars.
He decided it was time to cash in a few days later, so he went to the Tennessee State Lottery Commission to claim his prize. However, the commission officials weren't satisfied with his answers to their questions and decided that a more extensive investigation was warranted.
They reviewed the tape from the store and watched the entire scam play out in front of them. Patel was immediately arrested and booked into the Rutherford County Jail, and lottery officials were able to identify the man who rightfully owned the ticket.
Lt. Detective Steve Craig of the Rutherford Sherrif's office called the man, who wished to remain anonymous, and convinced him that he had won another million in addition to his $40.
Craig said:
The feel-good side of this story is the (man ) never knew he was the winner until we made contact with him. That is absolutely life-changing money.
The perfect crime…almost
While most clerks who try to cash stolen lottery tickets are busted almost instantly, the Chung family nearly got away with stealing millions from their customers.
Jun-Chul Chung ran the Variety Plus convenience store in Burlington, Ontario, with his daughter Kathleen and son Kenneth.
In 2003, a man named Daniel Campbell purchased a Lotto Super Seven ticket from Variety Plus and won five free plays. Jun-Chul checked the tickets and realized that one was a jackpot winner worth $12.5 million. However, he told Campbell that all of the tickets were losers.
Once Campbell left, Jun-Chul gave Kathleen the winning ticket and told her to cash it in and collect the money. On February 5, 2004, Kathleen presented the ticket at the Toronto Lottery office and attempted to collect the money.
However, when lottery officials interviewed her, she gave conflicting answers to their questions. She claimed she didn't remember where she bought the ticket but thought it may have been in the St. Catherine area. A check of her cell phone records showed that she had never been to St. Catherine. She also denied being related to Kenneth before bursting into tears and admitting he was her brother.
Despite all of these red flags, the lottery commission gave her a check for the full amount of the jackpot. Jun-Chul took control of the money and placed it in a trust controlled by a relative who lived in South Korea. The family then used the money to buy themselves two mansions and several luxury cars.
They likely would have gotten away with the entire crime if not for a report released by the Ontario Lottery's ombudsman a few years later. The report called out lottery officials for being too friendly with lottery retailers and failing to investigate several instances where they had cashed in winning tickets that may have belonged to someone else.
As a direct result of this report, investigations were launched into several retailers, including the Chung family, who were arrested and tried in 2018, fifteen years after their initial crime.
Jun-Chul was sentenced to seven years in prison, Kathleen received a four-year sentence, and Kenneth received a 10-month prison sentence. They were also ordered to repay the entire $12.5 million stolen jackpot.
The Ontario Lottery tracked down Daniel Campbell, who received his total payout plus two million dollars more in interest payments. Campbell then split the jackpot with six other people who were part of the lottery pool that purchased the original tickets.
Campbell told reporters after finally receiving his payout:
It's a big deal for myself and my family and I can maybe help them out and take care of them. I'm a little overwhelmed; a lot overwhelmed.
Protect yourself
So, if you win the lottery, how can you be sure that an unscrupulous clerk won't try to take the money that rightfully belongs to you?
First, always sign the back of your ticket. It's not easy to redeem a ticket with someone else's name on it. Second, always double-check the ticket yourself. While scanners do make things faster and easier, keep the ticket and give it a second look when you have free time just to be sure.
The temptation of instant millions is too much for some people to overcome, and lottery clerks are in a better position than most people to steal fortunes that belong to others. So if someone tells you that your ticket is a loser, it might be a good idea to verify it yourself before letting them toss it in the trash…or their back pocket.
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