Search

Store owner guilty of stealing lottery ticket, claiming it as his ownNews Story
Faces up to 14 years for claiming $5.75 million prize A former convenience store owner pleaded guilty Thursday to fraudulently claiming a $5.75 million winning Canada Lotto 6/49 ticket as his own. Hafiz Malik, 62, validated the lottery ticket at his now-closed convenience store near Dufferin Street and Dupont Street in June 2004 but didn't tell his customer she had won the jackpot. Seven months later, he claimed the prize, according to an agreed statement of facts read out in court.
Dec 7, 2009, 8:54 am - Lottery News

Pa. clerk stole $48K in lottery ticketsNews Story
A woman faces a preliminary hearing on charges she stole $48,000 worth of instant-win Pennsylvania lottery tickets from the convenience store where she worked. Online court records do not list an attorney for 39-year-old Diane Justi, of Freedom. Police in Conway say Justi stole the tickets while working at the Conway Superette between April and September. Police say one of the store's owners alerted them to the thefts. Police say store surveillance tapes clearly showed Justi stealing th
Nov 17, 2009, 8:27 am - Lottery News

Police arrest four in Chicago lottery ticket scamNews Story
Police arrested two men and two women earlier this week who allegedly ran a lottery ticket scam that targeted elderly Hispanic victims. The four worked as a team and typically sought out elderly Hispanic victims at stores and on the street, according to a release from the Chicago Police. The suspects would approach a victim two at a time and explain they were illegal immigrants and had a winning lottery ticket of more than one million dollars. They would then offer to share the winnings if
Nov 8, 2009, 8:53 am - Lottery News

Victim of stolen Texas lottery ticket says he knows how to get money backNews Story
Willis Willis has an idea how he can get his money back from the store clerk who authorities say stole his $1 million winning lottery ticket. Just get me in a room with him for two minutes, says the 67-year-old Navy veteran. Willis was back home in Grand Prairie on Tuesday after a meeting with Texas Lottery Commission officials Monday in Austin in which his attorneys tried unsuccessfully to collect the winnings. It was a meeting that only seemed to add confusion and frustration to the
Nov 4, 2009, 8:20 am - Lottery News

Cheated winner wants Texas Lottery to pay upNews Story
A man cheated of his million-dollar jackpot wants the Texas Lottery to pay up. The case of Willis Willis drew widespread attention a week ago after a store clerk was indicted for allegedly keeping Willis' winning ticket and claiming the 67-year-old Grand Prairie man's prize in June. The clerk, identified as Pankaj Joshi, is considered a fugitive. And Willis is still waiting for his money. It's been amazing what's going on, Willis, who said he does maintenance work at apartment build
Oct 28, 2009, 8:46 am - Lottery News

Store clerk accused of stealing $1M lottery ticket from customerNews Story
Willis Willis may have had the winning lottery ticket, but it was the convenience store clerk who had his number. As authorities tell it, years of playing the Texas lottery finally paid off for the Grand Prairie man in May when he walked into the Lucky Food Store with a million-dollar ticket. But in a double twist of tortured fortune, an opportunistic clerk may have cheated him out of his ticket and his treasure. Now, while Willis waits to be a millionaire, police are searching for the
Oct 22, 2009, 5:58 am - Lottery News

Arkansas woman tries to cash in fake lottery ticket, arrestedNews Story
A woman is arrested inside the Arkansas Lottery Headquarters Monday afternoon, and the local media's cameras were there for the arrest. Police say Ruth Dennis, 56, tried to pass a fake winning ticket for the real thing at the claims center. Her friend, John Burch says he gave Dennis and her sister a ride from Camden with a $3,000 ticket. Lottery director Ernie Passailaigue says the ticket was clearly not real. He says she used the three times lucky scratch tickets and allegedly cut and pas
Oct 19, 2009, 7:56 pm - Lottery News

Convicted embezzler to forfeit Kansas Lottery prizeNews Story
Paul W. Lyle learned that he won the grand prize in a Kansas Lottery second-chance drawing at his preliminary hearing 11 days ago. Trouble was: The former radio executive was facing a charge of felony theft for embezzling a reported $87,750 from his employer, American Media Investments, which owns three radio stations in Pittsburg, five in Joplin, Mo., and five more in Texas. The supreme irony: Lyle, 63, the company's chief operating officer until the theft was discovered in May, confessed th
Oct 3, 2009, 11:36 am - Lottery News

Lottery winner picks up check, then gets arrestedNews Story
$4.4M lotto winner goes straight to jail It was a good news, bad news day for Barry Shell. The good news: he won more than $4 million. The bad news: he ended up in jail. Shell, from Brampton, Ontario, picked up a check for $4,377,298, the top prize in the July 18 draw for the Lotto 6/49. I went to the store and checked my ticket on the self-serve ticket checker, Shell was quoted as saying in a news release from the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation. As soon as I saw how muc
Jul 22, 2009, 8:57 pm - Lottery News

$25M lottery scam aimed at elderly bustedNews Story
The feds on Tuesday dismantled an Israeli boiler-room operation that conned elderly U.S. victims out of $25 million by telling them they'd won a sweepstakes lottery. A dozen members of the international telemarketing ring were named in a three-count fraud indictment handed up yesterday in Manhattan Federal Court. Prosecutors say ring members bought more than 185,000 names from U.S.-based brokers to find victims to dupe into turning over hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash to claim the
Jul 22, 2009, 6:51 pm - Lottery News