MegaMillions lottery ticket stolen
Sunday October 25th 2009If ever you needed a reason to buy lottery tickets online we have news that a Megamillions lottery ticket was stolen by a dishonest store clerk in Texas. The lucky winner, Willis Willis, aged 67 took his ticket to his local store and asked the assistant, Pankaj Joshi, to check to see if his MegaMillions ticket was really a winner.
Dishonest Mr.Joshi told Mr Willis that his ticket had not matched all six numbers for a $1 million lottery prize and promptly pocketed the winning Texas Lottery ticket! A few weeks later the cheeky assistant then stepped forward to claim the prize which netted him, after taxes, $750,000. He promptly vanished off the face of the earth buy police believe he has returned to his home country of Nepal.
A search was launched for this fraudster who is on the run and obviously living the good life on Mr. Willis’s winnings; in September Joshi was charged with claiming a lottery prize by fraud and if convicted he could face up to 20 tears in jail. The bond set by the judge in the case stood at $10 million on the warrant.
Already the police have managed to re-coop $365,000 from Joshi’s bank accounts but this dishonest store assistant is currently still at large.
The alarm was raised after Joshi quit his job at the convenience store then shortly afterwards stepped forward to make his claim. Staff at the store told the Texas lottery commission that Joshi had never purchased a lottery ticket.
So there you have it, all the more reason to buy lottery tickets online, they are registered to you and fraudulent claims cannot be made.