A man who won a nearly $315 million Powerball lottery -- the largest single jackpot in history -- was ordered into substance abuse treatment today after his second drunken driving arrest this year.
In an agreement with prosecutors, Jack Whittaker, 57, will check himself into rehab by Jan. 2, must surrender his license and may not drive until he provides written proof he's completed the 28-day residential program.
Whittaker was charged with drunken driving last week, violating his $150 bond for a similar arrest in January. He was released today after posting a $1,700 cash bond, and will remain free on his original bond in the earlier arrest.
Kanawha County sheriff's Chief Deputy Phil Morris said the agreement "tells me that he's trying to get his life straightened out."
Whittaker's attorney did not immediately return a call for comment.
Whittaker has been in the news several times since he won the lottery Christmas Day 2002. He received a $113 million lump sum, and spent $14 million to set up a nonprofit foundation to help residents find jobs, buy food or receive an education.
He is named in two lawsuits by female employees of a racetrack who allege Whittaker assaulted them last year; and his vehicle, business and home have been allegedly broken into a number of times.
In September, a man's body was found at his home, though the death was not a crime and Whittaker was out of town. Also, he faces charges for allegedly assaulting and threatening a bar manager in January.
Jack - You need to buy an island....I just saw where Mel Gibson was looking at one for a mere 14 million...go ahead create "Jack Island" or " Whitaker World"...It would be nice...
What a joke! This guy must have a 24 carat gold horseshoe inserted in his rectum. To be guilty of 2 DUI's in one year and only have to spend 28 days in a substance abuse program and be able to drive again after completing it? This is not even a slap on the wrist for him.
Honest to god. Here's a man who can go anywhere in the world and do anything he pleases, and he stays in the same place and just drinks, drives drunk, gropes women drunk, goes to strip clubs and horse tracks, and carries so much cash around he is begging to be robbed and frequently is. If I wanted to drink and go to strip clubs and grope women, I would go to a nice all inclusive resort on an island and have private shows, and have a driver to take me places should I want to leave.
It's hard to figure out what's going on in Jack's pea brain.
Here's a classic example of what I've been saying all along - there are rules and laws for rich people, and there are rules and laws for the rest of us. The two sets of rules very seldom coincide, but the powers that be would have you believe in equal justice under the law, for rich and poor alike. Justice is only equal if you can hire attorneys of the same caliber O.J. Simpson did. May God have mercy on your soul if, for economic reasons, you find yourself stuck with a public defender. These leeches don't care whether you win or lose; they get their $230.00 either way.
LosingJeff and I have had this conversation many times. My position is that the United States Constitution isn't worth the parchment it's written on. It's only there to give you something to believe in, like the Easter Bunny, leprechauns or Eskimos (my apologies to Homer Simpson). That document, as well as the Judicial and Legislative branches of government, were created and adopted by rich landowners and merchants, most of whom were also involved in the lucrative slave trade to some degree. These are the parts that were conveniently left out of your high school history books.
During those first years, and for every subsequent year since, the federal treasury was looted time and again by entrepreneurial merchants, shipping magnates and manufacturers, who were admired and emulated by the common constituency. These thieves were held in the highest regard as examples of how "ingenuity, thrift and hard work" could transform the common man into a well-respected millionaire. Again, they left out the part about bribing entire legislatures (and, in one instance, an entire congress) to obtain laws and charters favorable to their various schemes. John Jacob Astor singlehandedly wiped the buffalo off the face of the earth with his American Fur Company, in spite of specific laws which regulated the fur trade back then. Federal law prohibited trading whiskey to Native American tribes, as it clouded their judgment and usually resulted in brutal retaliation when they sobered up and realized they had been screwed. If another man was found trapping on what Astor considered to be his territory (which encompassed the entire known United States), he was murdered on the spot, his body prominently displayed as a warning to future encroachers.
Phelps-Dodge Corporation, which is still in business today, was sued in 1872 by the U. S. Customs Office, after it was discovered that they were importing millions of tons of pewter, tin and copper shaped into crude statues. There was a high import tariff on these metals at the time, but works of art were exempted. Customs dventually settled for about six cents on the dollar, but could only collect on shortages from 1871. The records from previous years could not be found, and were "assumed destroyed." Sound familiar? It should. This is the same dodge used by WorldCom and Enron.
More recent illustrations include Ted Kennedy, who caused the death of a young girl while driving drunk (Chappaquiddick); he was exonerated of any wrongdoing. Michael Milkin was sent to federal prison for a few months over his junk bond scheme, but was allowed to keep the $500M he made in one year. John DeLorean was set up by the FBI in a sting operation when the company he founded threatened to cut into the market shares of the Big 3 automakers. He had actually committed no crime, so one was invented for his benefit. The list goes on and on. If you're not rich, you can join the police force and still enjoy exemption from the laws you're charged with enforcing. If you're a cop, you and your buddies can shoot an unarmed man FORTY-SEVEN TIMES, and walk away with medals instead of prison time. Cops can do things like this because, first, they're better people and, second, because they're hired to enforce the law, not to obey it.
Enough already with the history lesson. I only wanted to point out that the more things change, the more they stay the same. All things being equal, if there is a crime which should not be a crime in this country, it's theft. This entire nation was founded and built on theft in one form or another. We stole the land we build our homes on, and then complain that our shores should be closed to immigrants, because they take "our" jobs, even though you and I wouldn't do that type of work for so little compensation. The United States and Soviet Russia pilfered their respective jet and rocket technologies from Nazi Germany. We actually kidnapped some of their scientists and brought them back here to work for us. "Heavy water," an essential element in the manufacture of atomic weapons, was discovered and developed by Nazi scientists, even before Americans knew of the concept. An atomic bomb was one of Hitler's pet projects, and he devoted more resources to the program than he probably should have, and then we stole it and claimed it as our own. That's not mentioned our in history books either, for obvious reasons.
We have all been trained to believe in the illusion that hard work and thrift will ensure success. Squint your eyes a bit, and you'll discover that hard work gets you nothing more than an early grave in this country. Your heirs, more often than not, will toil in the same factory or corporation to which you dedicated your life in return for a meager pension and a gold (plated) watch. Having taught them well, you can die happy in the knowledge that, even though you didn't make it, you've instilled a solid work ethic in your offspring, thereby increasing their chances of becoming successful. In reality, though, what you've done is to provide a model for your children's graves.
I realize that many of you will be offended by the above revelations, and many more will simply refuse to believe or to even consider the truth. Well, that's what you're supposed to do; believe in the illusion, and reality will pretend not to intrude on your lives. Work hard, and you'll get rich (by lining your boss's pockets). Believe in the system, and it will work for you (provided you're never actually arrested for some imagined crime against property, in which case you'll have to prove you didn't do it). Put your faith in the old adage, "Money isn't everything," while you're unemployed and staring at a pile of unpaid bills.
Tg636 has hit it on the head; Mr. Whittaker can behave in any manner he chooses, without danger of significant consequence, because he's rich and you're not. His station in life is far above that of the common man, so he cannot be held to the same rigid standard as those who languish beneath him. He was a millionaire even before he won the largest PowerBall jackpot in history, but you didn't read about his antics back then because he didn't have the celebrity he now... uh... "enjoys." Whenever he's robbed, or his home burgled, he's not scolded for carrying obscene amounts of cash; the law says it's every American's right to walk around, unmolested, with hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash, if he want to. If someone tries to steal it from him, the law states that the thief must go to jail, even if he's a millionaire himself. We'll have to wait and see if this holds up, because, so far, only poor people have tried to relieve Jack of part of his burden.
It's all done with smoke and mirrors, folks. Be a good little working-poor person; don't make waves, believe what you're told to believe, and you'll get along just fine, until you die, at which time your son or daughter will be hired to fill the vacancy, and life goes on, because the boss's pockets are still flush with cash so, see? everybody wins.
If anyone cares to discover how things really work in America, I recommend you read A History of the Great American Fortunes, by Gustavus Meyers (1936). It's currently out-of-print, but you can buy a decent used copy in good condition from Border's for about twenty bucks. I'm reading this book for the third time, and I don't mind telling you it has really opened my eyes. You can get an idea of what this book reveals by performing the following exercise: Take a blank sheet of paper and draw a line down the middle. Now, on the left side of the line, write, "The Way Things Are," and then on the right, "The Way Things Should Be." The line is what's important, because it separates reality (The Way Things Are) from illusion (The Way Things Should Be). Examples of what you'd list on the right include the myth of equal justice under the law, your perceived, supposedly inalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, your perceived right to privacy (which by the way, is not guaranteed to you by any document of law), and the old stand-by, "innocent until proven guilty" (sorry; that one gets me every time). The reality, The Way Things Are, includes the fact that equal justice under the law exists only if you have the money to hire a top-gun attorney, that you only think you have a right to privacy because that's what you've been led to believe and, finally, that you're guilty until you prove your innocence, or post a surety bond, at which time the handcuffs will be removed and your liberty restored pending arraignment. That's the way things are; that's reality.
Jack Whittaker notwithstanding, you can't win the game (not without hitting a jackpot, anyway) unless you're playing by the same rules and laws as those who wrote them to benefit their own kind. I'm not saying they're not out there, but when was the last time you heard of an elected official who wasn't a millionaire? As I've pointed out in other posts, the bankruptcy laws were initially written to give rich people a way to keep their property when they went belly-up. When the middle and lower classes discovered that they could also discharge their debts, legislation was introduced to make it more difficult for these people to take advantage of the bankruptcy laws. It's okay for rich people to have their obligations dissolved, but when the poor and middle-class do it, that takes money out of the pockets of the magnates. They don't like that, because it levels the playing field a little too much, so they've taken steps to change the laws.
Sorry for the lengthy post. I've been itching for a chance to address this issue, and Jack Whittaker provided the perfect opportunity with his latest shenanigans. If Whittaker's behavior doesn't convince you that my take on this matter is a sound one, then please, do yourself a favor, and read the book referenced above.
If he can't seem do understand what a blessing hand he has been dealt. Let me talk to him. I'll show him how he can seem to get rid of that burden that money has been giving him. He has so much money he will not spend it in his lifetime. At the rate he's going, that lifetime will be over shortly. I think he forgot I was his long lost relative though. (lol - smile)
>Mr. Whittaker can behave in any manner he chooses, without danger of significant consequence, because he's rich and you're not. His station in life is far above that of the common man, so he cannot be held to the same rigid standard as those who languish beneath him.
Financially, someone like Jack is not and cannot be financially punished the way you or I would be for the same offenses. If I had done the same things as Jack - car totalled, drunk driving arrest, lawyer fees, insurance premiums jacked as high as can be, 24 days house arrest - I would be bankrupt, unemployed and my 401k and savings that took me years to build would be emptied from the expense. So even if I were treated with the same "kid gloves" I would be punished far more just because the expenses I had are a much higher percentage of my net worth than a rich person's.
So the main factor for Jack is the hassle involved in all this. It's just strange that he chooses to drink and see strippers in ways that open him up to such hassles when he could afford to do the same things in ways that don't open him to arrest, car crashes, robbery etc.
Quote:Originally posted by jim695 on December 9, 2004
....My position is that the United States Constitution isn't worth the parchment it's written on. It's only there to give you something to believe in, like the Easter Bunny, leprechauns or Eskimos (my apologies to Homer Simpson)....
I couldn't disagree stronger. Your statement is a slap in the face of some very courageous men who framed one of the greatest documents ever. It established a basic set of rules that formed the greatest country the world has ever known.
Don't say that you weren't talking badly about the men themselves, or some other justification, because you went on to criticize those men for a number of different things.
Only God is perfect, so yes, those men had their failings. But the fact that they were fallible is not the point. The point is that this country, and in fact the world, has not been witness to more courageous, more righteous people than those who founded this country.
I believe your personal issues and/or dissatisfaction with your station in life should not be the basis to launch an attack on this great country's founding fathers and framing documents.
And one more thing. I don't like it one bit when someone has a problem with a rich person winning the lottery. Anyone who enters has an equal chance of winning, and that's the way it should be. It smacks of socialism to say that a lottery prize should be distributed to someone based on need.
And if that person wants to be a fool, then we can all criticize him and laugh at him, but it's his choice whether he wants to be a fool or not.
The lottery is entertainment, so if you're that poor that you NEED to win, then you shouldn't be playing. Save your money.
Jack - You need to buy an island....I just saw where Mel Gibson was looking at one for a mere 14 million...go ahead create "Jack Island" or " Whitaker World"...It would be nice...
Hey all what is the over/under on the number of days it will take Jack to be caught for driving after suspension????? I will say 16.
Now that he can't drive maybe Jack will walk around with $100,000+ in his pockets instead of stashed away in his Hummer somewhere.
What a joke! This guy must have a 24 carat gold horseshoe inserted in his rectum. To be guilty of 2 DUI's in one year and only have to spend 28 days in a substance abuse program and be able to drive again after completing it? This is not even a slap on the wrist for him.
And they say money can't buy everything....
Honest to god. Here's a man who can go anywhere in the world and do anything he pleases, and he stays in the same place and just drinks, drives drunk, gropes women drunk, goes to strip clubs and horse tracks, and carries so much cash around he is begging to be robbed and frequently is. If I wanted to drink and go to strip clubs and grope women, I would go to a nice all inclusive resort on an island and have private shows, and have a driver to take me places should I want to leave.
It's hard to figure out what's going on in Jack's pea brain.
perhaps he thinks that he does not deserve all that $$$
he is showing classing signs of self sabatoge and destructive behavior...the man needs help not 28 days in a bed/breakfast!!
What a goofball!!!
"Very Interesting"
Here's a classic example of what I've been saying all along - there are rules and laws for rich people, and there are rules and laws for the rest of us. The two sets of rules very seldom coincide, but the powers that be would have you believe in equal justice under the law, for rich and poor alike. Justice is only equal if you can hire attorneys of the same caliber O.J. Simpson did. May God have mercy on your soul if, for economic reasons, you find yourself stuck with a public defender. These leeches don't care whether you win or lose; they get their $230.00 either way.
LosingJeff and I have had this conversation many times. My position is that the United States Constitution isn't worth the parchment it's written on. It's only there to give you something to believe in, like the Easter Bunny, leprechauns or Eskimos (my apologies to Homer Simpson). That document, as well as the Judicial and Legislative branches of government, were created and adopted by rich landowners and merchants, most of whom were also involved in the lucrative slave trade to some degree. These are the parts that were conveniently left out of your high school history books.
During those first years, and for every subsequent year since, the federal treasury was looted time and again by entrepreneurial merchants, shipping magnates and manufacturers, who were admired and emulated by the common constituency. These thieves were held in the highest regard as examples of how "ingenuity, thrift and hard work" could transform the common man into a well-respected millionaire. Again, they left out the part about bribing entire legislatures (and, in one instance, an entire congress) to obtain laws and charters favorable to their various schemes. John Jacob Astor singlehandedly wiped the buffalo off the face of the earth with his American Fur Company, in spite of specific laws which regulated the fur trade back then. Federal law prohibited trading whiskey to Native American tribes, as it clouded their judgment and usually resulted in brutal retaliation when they sobered up and realized they had been screwed. If another man was found trapping on what Astor considered to be his territory (which encompassed the entire known United States), he was murdered on the spot, his body prominently displayed as a warning to future encroachers.
Phelps-Dodge Corporation, which is still in business today, was sued in 1872 by the U. S. Customs Office, after it was discovered that they were importing millions of tons of pewter, tin and copper shaped into crude statues. There was a high import tariff on these metals at the time, but works of art were exempted. Customs dventually settled for about six cents on the dollar, but could only collect on shortages from 1871. The records from previous years could not be found, and were "assumed destroyed." Sound familiar? It should. This is the same dodge used by WorldCom and Enron.
More recent illustrations include Ted Kennedy, who caused the death of a young girl while driving drunk (Chappaquiddick); he was exonerated of any wrongdoing. Michael Milkin was sent to federal prison for a few months over his junk bond scheme, but was allowed to keep the $500M he made in one year. John DeLorean was set up by the FBI in a sting operation when the company he founded threatened to cut into the market shares of the Big 3 automakers. He had actually committed no crime, so one was invented for his benefit. The list goes on and on. If you're not rich, you can join the police force and still enjoy exemption from the laws you're charged with enforcing. If you're a cop, you and your buddies can shoot an unarmed man FORTY-SEVEN TIMES, and walk away with medals instead of prison time. Cops can do things like this because, first, they're better people and, second, because they're hired to enforce the law, not to obey it.
Enough already with the history lesson. I only wanted to point out that the more things change, the more they stay the same. All things being equal, if there is a crime which should not be a crime in this country, it's theft. This entire nation was founded and built on theft in one form or another. We stole the land we build our homes on, and then complain that our shores should be closed to immigrants, because they take "our" jobs, even though you and I wouldn't do that type of work for so little compensation. The United States and Soviet Russia pilfered their respective jet and rocket technologies from Nazi Germany. We actually kidnapped some of their scientists and brought them back here to work for us. "Heavy water," an essential element in the manufacture of atomic weapons, was discovered and developed by Nazi scientists, even before Americans knew of the concept. An atomic bomb was one of Hitler's pet projects, and he devoted more resources to the program than he probably should have, and then we stole it and claimed it as our own. That's not mentioned our in history books either, for obvious reasons.
We have all been trained to believe in the illusion that hard work and thrift will ensure success. Squint your eyes a bit, and you'll discover that hard work gets you nothing more than an early grave in this country. Your heirs, more often than not, will toil in the same factory or corporation to which you dedicated your life in return for a meager pension and a gold (plated) watch. Having taught them well, you can die happy in the knowledge that, even though you didn't make it, you've instilled a solid work ethic in your offspring, thereby increasing their chances of becoming successful. In reality, though, what you've done is to provide a model for your children's graves.
I realize that many of you will be offended by the above revelations, and many more will simply refuse to believe or to even consider the truth. Well, that's what you're supposed to do; believe in the illusion, and reality will pretend not to intrude on your lives. Work hard, and you'll get rich (by lining your boss's pockets). Believe in the system, and it will work for you (provided you're never actually arrested for some imagined crime against property, in which case you'll have to prove you didn't do it). Put your faith in the old adage, "Money isn't everything," while you're unemployed and staring at a pile of unpaid bills.
Tg636 has hit it on the head; Mr. Whittaker can behave in any manner he chooses, without danger of significant consequence, because he's rich and you're not. His station in life is far above that of the common man, so he cannot be held to the same rigid standard as those who languish beneath him. He was a millionaire even before he won the largest PowerBall jackpot in history, but you didn't read about his antics back then because he didn't have the celebrity he now... uh... "enjoys." Whenever he's robbed, or his home burgled, he's not scolded for carrying obscene amounts of cash; the law says it's every American's right to walk around, unmolested, with hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash, if he want to. If someone tries to steal it from him, the law states that the thief must go to jail, even if he's a millionaire himself. We'll have to wait and see if this holds up, because, so far, only poor people have tried to relieve Jack of part of his burden.
It's all done with smoke and mirrors, folks. Be a good little working-poor person; don't make waves, believe what you're told to believe, and you'll get along just fine, until you die, at which time your son or daughter will be hired to fill the vacancy, and life goes on, because the boss's pockets are still flush with cash so, see? everybody wins.
If anyone cares to discover how things really work in America, I recommend you read A History of the Great American Fortunes, by Gustavus Meyers (1936). It's currently out-of-print, but you can buy a decent used copy in good condition from Border's for about twenty bucks. I'm reading this book for the third time, and I don't mind telling you it has really opened my eyes. You can get an idea of what this book reveals by performing the following exercise: Take a blank sheet of paper and draw a line down the middle. Now, on the left side of the line, write, "The Way Things Are," and then on the right, "The Way Things Should Be." The line is what's important, because it separates reality (The Way Things Are) from illusion (The Way Things Should Be). Examples of what you'd list on the right include the myth of equal justice under the law, your perceived, supposedly inalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, your perceived right to privacy (which by the way, is not guaranteed to you by any document of law), and the old stand-by, "innocent until proven guilty" (sorry; that one gets me every time). The reality, The Way Things Are, includes the fact that equal justice under the law exists only if you have the money to hire a top-gun attorney, that you only think you have a right to privacy because that's what you've been led to believe and, finally, that you're guilty until you prove your innocence, or post a surety bond, at which time the handcuffs will be removed and your liberty restored pending arraignment. That's the way things are; that's reality.
Jack Whittaker notwithstanding, you can't win the game (not without hitting a jackpot, anyway) unless you're playing by the same rules and laws as those who wrote them to benefit their own kind. I'm not saying they're not out there, but when was the last time you heard of an elected official who wasn't a millionaire? As I've pointed out in other posts, the bankruptcy laws were initially written to give rich people a way to keep their property when they went belly-up. When the middle and lower classes discovered that they could also discharge their debts, legislation was introduced to make it more difficult for these people to take advantage of the bankruptcy laws. It's okay for rich people to have their obligations dissolved, but when the poor and middle-class do it, that takes money out of the pockets of the magnates. They don't like that, because it levels the playing field a little too much, so they've taken steps to change the laws.
Sorry for the lengthy post. I've been itching for a chance to address this issue, and Jack Whittaker provided the perfect opportunity with his latest shenanigans. If Whittaker's behavior doesn't convince you that my take on this matter is a sound one, then please, do yourself a favor, and read the book referenced above.
Your post was a nice read... reminds me of the movie "A Bronx Tale", where a mobster teaches a kid that the "working man" is a sucker.
If he can't seem do understand what a blessing hand he has been dealt. Let me talk to him. I'll show him how he can seem to get rid of that burden that money has been giving him. He has so much money he will not spend it in his lifetime. At the rate he's going, that lifetime will be over shortly. I think he forgot I was his long lost relative though. (lol - smile)
Good post Jim 695, I agree with it.
>Mr. Whittaker can behave in any manner he chooses, without danger of significant consequence, because he's rich and you're not. His station in life is far above that of the common man, so he cannot be held to the same rigid standard as those who languish beneath him.
Financially, someone like Jack is not and cannot be financially punished the way you or I would be for the same offenses. If I had done the same things as Jack - car totalled, drunk driving arrest, lawyer fees, insurance premiums jacked as high as can be, 24 days house arrest - I would be bankrupt, unemployed and my 401k and savings that took me years to build would be emptied from the expense. So even if I were treated with the same "kid gloves" I would be punished far more just because the expenses I had are a much higher percentage of my net worth than a rich person's.
So the main factor for Jack is the hassle involved in all this. It's just strange that he chooses to drink and see strippers in ways that open him up to such hassles when he could afford to do the same things in ways that don't open him to arrest, car crashes, robbery etc.
I couldn't disagree stronger. Your statement is a slap in the face of some very courageous men who framed one of the greatest documents ever. It established a basic set of rules that formed the greatest country the world has ever known.
Don't say that you weren't talking badly about the men themselves, or some other justification, because you went on to criticize those men for a number of different things.
Only God is perfect, so yes, those men had their failings. But the fact that they were fallible is not the point. The point is that this country, and in fact the world, has not been witness to more courageous, more righteous people than those who founded this country.
I believe your personal issues and/or dissatisfaction with your station in life should not be the basis to launch an attack on this great country's founding fathers and framing documents.
And one more thing. I don't like it one bit when someone has a problem with a rich person winning the lottery. Anyone who enters has an equal chance of winning, and that's the way it should be. It smacks of socialism to say that a lottery prize should be distributed to someone based on need.
And if that person wants to be a fool, then we can all criticize him and laugh at him, but it's his choice whether he wants to be a fool or not.
The lottery is entertainment, so if you're that poor that you NEED to win, then you shouldn't be playing. Save your money.