SYRACUSE, N.Y. — Two brothers kept quiet for six years about the $5 million winning lottery ticket they'd bought at their parents' store in Syracuse.
Andy N. Ashkar, 34, of Camillus, and his brother, Nayel N. Ashkar, 36, of Cicero, came forward March 1 of this year to claim the $5 million top prize in the $500,000,000 Extravaganza scratch-off game, lottery officials said.
That was 11 days before the prize would've expired.
"It's unusual, highly unusual," lottery spokeswoman Carolyn Hapeman said Tuesday of the six-year lapse on such a large prize.
Andy Ashkar bought the ticket at his parents' Green Ale Market at 2208 E. Fayette St. in Syracuse, in 2006, the lottery said.
Ashkar delayed redeeming it until March 1 of this year, at the lottery's customer service center in Schenectady. The prize would've expired March 12, Hapeman said.
The reason for the delay, according to the lottery's news release: Ashkar was concerned that the winning ticket "could negatively influence his life if he did not plan properly before being publicly introduced."
Ashkar said he did not want the winning ticket to influence his engagement and then marriage, according to the news release.
"The younger brother also said that during that time, he decided to share his winnings with his brother, Nayel, to show his appreciation for all that Nayel had done for him during his life," the news release said.
The lottery's announcement of the winning ticket was delayed for seven months partly because its security unit investigated for possible fraud, as it does whenever the winner is someone related to the owner of the store that sold the ticket, Hapeman said.
"It's part of our routine procedure to put that on retailer hold, where our investigators contact the folks who presented the winning ticket, and also the people from the store," Hapeman said.
After its investigation, which included taking sworn statements from the winners, the lottery determined the scratch-off ticket was bought legitimately, she said.
Sara Ashkar, the wife of Nayel Ashkar, answered the door Tuesday at their home in Cicero. She said news of her family's winnings was spreading fast. Holding both her landline house phone and cell phone, she said family and friends had been calling all afternoon to express their surprise and excitement.
"It's crazy," she said. "Hard to believe. It's still sinking in." She said she's known about the winning ticket for some time but didn't know the announcement would be Tuesday. Nayel Ashkar said he and his brother want to wait for the press conference to tell their story. He didn't know when the press conference would be.
The Ashkars declined to comment further. Andy Ashkar could not be reached for comment.
Andy Ashkar is the business manager at Romano Toyota in East Syracuse. Nayel Ashkar is finance manager at Honda of Ithaca.
Nayel and Sara Ashkar paid $236,000 for their house in Cicero in March 2008, according to The Post-Standard's archives. Andy Ashkar paid $290,000 for his house in Camillus in August 2011, according to the archives.
Lottery officials are aware of gimmicks that retailers have tried to use with scratch-off tickets, Hapeman said. One involves retailers or their associates checking the bar codes on the tickets to look for winners before scratching them off.
That can still be done, "but not without us knowing about it," Hapeman said. Ohio lottery officials last month announced that undercover investigators had caught a dozen clerks and store owners using barcode scanning to steal winnings. They would scan customers' tickets, see that they were winners, then lie to the customers that they weren't. The clerks or owners would then claim the winnings for themselves or their friends.
The New York Lottery regularly changes its security measures to detect fraud, Hapeman said. Lottery officials have uncovered cases of retailers who weren't entitled to the tickets they were claiming, and those people were denied the prize, she said.
"There are as many things to look out for as there are retailers and human beings and all their frailties," Hapeman said. "We just have to make sure our security unit does due diligence. They're trained in ways to protect all of our lottery players."
The lottery will launch an investigation any time it has information that a winning ticket went to the retailer himself, one of his employees, a relative or even a friend of his family, Hapeman said.
"Just in fairness to everyone," she said.
The Green Ale Market, where Andy Ashkar bought the winning ticket, is a rundown store in a tough neighborhood. It was closed and dark Tuesday afternoon. No hours or closed sign was posted. Several customers, including a young boy with a fistful of dollar bills, approached the store and were surprised to see it closed. A cooler with soft drinks and gallons of milk could be seen through the gated front door.
A pile of leaves and a discarded scratch-off ticket sat in the corner of the market's locked entryway.
The lottery had to rush the announcement about the Ashkars because of media inquiries, Hapeman said.
She noted that with all prizes of $1 million or more, the office requires players to attend a news conference to discuss the prize claim and participate in a check presentation.
But the lottery said it has not yet determined a date for the news conference. The brothers are willing to participate, Hapeman said. She didn't know where they kept the $5 million ticket for six years.
WTH ? tickets are good for 6 years in NY. ?
I find it interesting that it took them just 11 days short of the deadline to get their act together. What that money would have done for them 5+ years ago will never do for them today.
Congrats! to them,,, hope they spend the money wisely.
The ticket is good for 6-years? How could that be and why did this story leave that important information out?
I don't appreciate that the article releases where they live, work and how much they paid for their houses!
Doesn't that go beyond releasing enough information about the winners to keep the game fair?
I smell a rat.
pretty strange when did liljimys extended their deadline to cash in tickets ... weird
It's a scratch game.
Scratch games expire a year (or 6 months, or whatever the state's expiration period is) after the game ends. Obviously, that game was being sold for at least five years.
These days, most states end their scratch games after a shorter period, but I guess the NY Lottery kept that one open for a while -- probably because of the missing big winner, who ironically was holding on to the winning ticket purposely.
How much you paid for your house and it's adress is all public information here. All you have to do is go on the county GIS reality information program and you can even see if they paid their last tax bill and how much.
Having a scratch game go on for several years is not that unusual.
There are several Massachusetts $20 scratchers which began in 2007-2008, that are still being sold today.
States of this size sell upwards of 20 million+ tickets for some of the bigger games, and it takes time to sell them all.
Two of these games are the "Billion Dollar Blockbuster" and "Billion Dollar Bonanza". (Both $20 scratchers).
People do continue to buy tickets based on an outstanding big winner.........
I'm sure the state was very happy to sell all those unwanted tickets.
Are you sure it isn't some sweet pink swine?
It could just be a little fishy
I'm with you. Something smells fishy! Not saying the winners did anything but..... Who waits 6 years during an awful econ. like this to cash in on a huge lifeline like this? Why wait 11days before the end of the game? The ticket was purchased at the Parents store. How easy would it be for them to tell a customer the winning ticket was only worth $20 and pocket the ticket. Then wait to see if the customer realizes the mistake...and if they do just say sorry and hand the ticket back. After 6 years who is going to remember no video would still exist so they can come up with a story about waiting to get everything in order and cash the ticket. What some people won't do for a couple Million bucks........
Stop posting meme-type pictures. Last time I'm saying it.
Do you think there is some foul play with the brothers?
A good reason to forbid family members or employees buying tickets from their own place.
This doesn't come close to passing the smell test.
Well said petergrfn,
exacly what I was thinking.............
This is why I have a problem with employees buying at the store they work at. I seen this too many times in NYC stores. $20 rolls come in the next day they are finish and not many customer buy. I had employee them me they scratch 10 or more and how terrible the roll was. In one store they was selling the losers I assumes since the tickets numbers were out of order and roll was ripped up like they had #001-003 then you #015 was by itself and so forth. Many games was like that. I believe they when through the whole row and left the buds. Called NY to complain many time and they don't care. I only play at vending machines and place I know the tickets are not being tampered with.
That game was still around last year. Three weeks ago i watched a lady tell the clerk what tickets she wanted and had him scratch/scan to see if they were winners. She was gone before i got to talk to her. Also notified some other peeps that they were throwing away second chance tics. The vending machines are a good start, but they need to do a better job protecting players, especially the older ones.
nobody would wait 6 years to collect this kind of a win. combined with the fact that they "bought" the ticket from their own parents' store pretty much says to me they were waiting til the last minute so nobody would figure out the truth.
I think there's going to be more to this story.
I agree. I think it's very likely that they pulled a switch on the true winner but needed to wait to make sure the truth didn't come out. Looks like they are going to get away with it too. Any video tape is long since gone and I'm sure the real winner has forgotten redeeming a ticket six years ago and even if he/she did remember, there is no way to prove it now. I'm sure the Lottery realizes that the brothers are pulling a fast one but apparently after looking into their claim for months have found nothing to show that the claim is fradulent.
I wish there was a "like" button because you took the words right out of my mouth.
I agree w/ all who think there's something wrong w/ this,
if the lottery has to pay this cause there's no video, they'll need to make changes.
for example, videos will have to be kept longer, or expiration would change to 1 year from when tix. were sold,
if they scan a ticket they know when that ticket was sold.
I am going to say outright the lottery may have erred in paying the claim and that the Ashkars are more likely not the legitimate owners of the ticket, against my preffered tone which is: the lottery erred in paying the claim, and that the Ashakrs are not the legitimate owners of the ticket.
The time delay in presenting the ticket for claim, while legal, suggested absence of confidence in ownership, and clear fear of lottery and public challenge to any mounted claim.
The Ashkars said:
" The reason for the delay, according to the lottery's news release: Ashkar was concerned that the winning ticket "could negatively influence his life if he did not plan properly before being publicly introduced." "
" Ashkar said he did not want the winning ticket to influence his engagement and then marriage, according to the news release."
The statement is weak and poor, and does not add up with the very aim and motive behind a lottery ticket purchaser, which is, to win the grand prize in the very game that they had purchased a ticket for. So, it is severely unlikely that the Ashkars did not know, understand, what they were doing, and its implications.
The article said:
"The younger brother also said that during that time, he decided to share his winnings with his brother, Nayel, to show his appreciation for all that Nayel had done for him during his life,"
The above claim of Ashkar's younger brother is not only untrue but extremnly weak, and is a carefully calculated ploy designed to influence the un-informed and the naive with a hypocritical claim of a bleeding heart of charity, to reward his older brother with $2.5m for what he has done for him in life, while the heavier and greater priority for his parents, the very people that channelled the beginnings of his existence on earth and supported his early weaknesses and helplessness, remain discarded and relegated aside, as they continue to slave away dangerously in a run-down store that was unlikely to have brought in $50,000 in net profits after all expense, at the end fo each year during the past 6 years, in a though neiborhood.
The names Nayel and Ashkar are Parsi, from Iran, and from all indications the family background of the store owners and the presumed winners are Iranian origins.
The vast majority of party stores in tough US neighborhoods in the east coast and midwest are owned, run and operated by immigrants from the middle east and South Asia.
A significant population of immigrants to the USA carry, and gladly extend the benefits of their earnings in the USA with family, and extended family, and communities of origins, wherever there are on the this planet.
Many lottery winners, regardless of national origins have often cited members of their families as the priority for the distribution of their newly found wealth. It is just highly un-likely that Nayel Ashkar would dump half his winnings into his older brother, just like that, even after 6 years of mental exercises, and planning on how to write the script and tale, of how he came into possession of a scrtach-off ticket worth $5.0m that Syracuse NYwill buy.
I beleive that New York Lottery players need more explanations from their lottery commision, board or authority about the lottery's payment of $5m 6years after the ticket was purchased, and based on such instruments as sworn affidavits, which are legal but are consistently used by lawyers to swaive the course of justice and to defeat the application and realization of justice, whereever there are needed.
The whole claim is a negation of the successes of the Iowa lottery with the attempted claim of a winning $14M or so Hot Lotto ticket, by a New York attorney across America in Des Moins.
If the Ashkars are not the legitimate owners of the ticket, then let Karma bring to bear upon them, far more appropriate penalties than the state could ever imagine or able to do, by law
If the Ashkars are the legitimate owners of the ticket, then let Karma allow them to enjoy the benefits of the ticket.
Whoever is the true owner of this tciket, let the payments made by the lottery come back to them, from who ever has the funds, now.
Tickets are not scanned when they are sold and a lot of tickets come from vending machines. What the states could easily do is program the terminals to make a different and distinct sound anytime larger prize tickets are checked by the clerk.
In a casino its imposable to win over a couple hundred bucks without everyone in sight knowing because of the sound. The terminals already make noise, but make no distinction between $5. and $5 million winners.
I agree.
And I think that the Ashkars, and the lottery should now be legitimate targets for public investigation, by both the FBI and the US Department of Justice.
Surly the lottery tracks the location of such large tickets and knows where they were sold......
Store owners should be required to publicly post notice of the sale of all large winning tickets.
I agree.
And the Ashkars, the New York Lottery should both be investigated by the US Department of Justice and the FBI for possible breach of public trust in making payments on an instrument that is marred and laced with all-around signes and signposts, that something serious is wrong with ticket ownership claims, history, and tendered oral affidavits.
Something is very very strange here. No reasonable/normal person waits 6 years. I wonder if perhaps an elderly relative might have won and they waited for him/her to die...the only scenario I can come up with...lol
Or someone brought in a ticket and said "Will you check this please" and the clerk replied, "You won $20."
I agree.
Everything about this story, or more precisely about the payment made by Syracuse, calls for more serious defenses than the complicit bureua has allowed to be shared with a thinking worl, as the non-frivolous explanation for possibly allowing, and authorizing a fraud.
The trend is now set, for now. Any store clerk can keep a winning ticket and just copy the Ashkars story line plot, and apply it to themselves two week before expiration.
If they did steal the ticket I have to wonder if they felt sorry for the person every time they came back into the store or they laughed at him for being so stupid that he didn't know a winning ticket when he saw one?
But wait 6 years??? The wait time alone guarantees a lot of people will be raising questions. So maybe the winner was elderly/sick and died. Just call me Nancy Drew. Book One.."The Mystery of the Six Year Old Lottery Ticket." I just need to pack my suitcase with 3 crisp linen dresses, call my football player boyfriend Ned and hop in my convertible and drive to the "winning" store to investigate.
I would guess that its a regular customer who would suspect them and make a claim.
Right..they waited for the person to die. Bet he/she was elderly.
I agree with all that you have said and I join your comments:
The New York Lottery board's credibility as a genuine custodian of the public trust should be suspended, until Syracuse, NY tells the world the true story of why it paid $5m money to the Ashkars with a decrepitude claim and a defective law.
I feel that an independent body in NY should organize, conduct research, collect petittions and sworn affidavits and challenge the lottery, with the same types of intruments that they had relied upon to pay $5m to a questionable holder.
The credibity and reliability of the Ashkars' claim is missing, bad faid abounds, and complicity is the replacementt name for the NY lottery.
Yeah, or at least wait til they stop coming into the store. Thats one customer they were happy to lose. lol.
The lottery investigated, found no wrong doing and awarded the prize. Case closed my friend.....
This would make a good short story for a book! I think the more likely answer is they brothers may have done some investigating into the Law and found the Statute of Limitiations for Theft in NY is probably 5-6 years. So even if somehow there was any evidence of their wrongdoing no charges can be brought against them......
May they live happily ever after, without the interference of envious conspiracy theorists.