Million-dollar dreams ripped up when "crudely" fashioned ticket doesn't pass the test

By Kate Northrop

A Florida couple was arrested after they attempted to cash in a scratch-off lottery ticket that they had "crudely" taped together to look like it had won a $1 million prize.

A Florida couple was arrested and now faces multiple felony charges after presenting a torn-up and retaped lottery ticket made to look like a $1 million winner to the Florida Lottery.

Kira Enders, 36, and her boyfriend, Dakota Jones, 32, were both arrested last week and charged with forgery/alteration of a lottery ticket with intent to defraud, passing a forged/altered state lottery ticket, and larceny-grand theft of $100,000 or more in early March, according to the Escambia County Jail booking database.

The ticket was from the $50 "500X The Cash" instant game, which offers a second-tier prize of $1 million and a top prize of $25 million. Enders was attempting to claim a $1 million prize, of which there were at least 135 remaining in the game.

Before turning it in, Enders had to fill out claimant information on the back of the scratch-off ticket. The fine print on the back states that there would be legal consequences should any of the provided information be incorrect.

When Enders had presented the "crudely" fashioned scratch-off ticket to Lottery officials at their offices in Pensacola on March 1, they determined it to be a "non-winner."

"They had an individual that thought that they could crudely take two tickets and put them together and pretend as if they were a million-dollar winner," Escambia Sheriff Chip Simmons told CBS News Miami.

Enders reached out to Special Agent Richard Pisanti for an update on March 7. He asked her to visit the Florida Lottery office on March 11. Enders and Jones, who drove her to the office, showed up. Law enforcement detained the couple and separated them for questioning upon their arrival.

When Pisanti confronted Enders with the finding that the lottery ticket was fraudulently joined together, Enders was surprised. She explained that she did not remember where she purchased it, but she recalled the ticket getting wet in the rain and, as a result, ripping it when she tried scratching it.

Her story changed not too long after. She later recalled buying it at a Winn-Dixie, and that the ticket had ripped when it fell out of her car.

She was still confused about how the two pieces of the ticket did not match even though they were pieced together, an arrest affidavit from Escambia County Sheriff's Office obtained by FOX reads.

"Wait, they don't go together?" the affidavit shows her saying. She added that "it is insane" and "blows her mind."

Meanwhile, deputies were speaking to Jones separately, and he revealed that he had told his girlfriend not to tape the pieces together or present it to Lottery officials because the ticket "looks 'jank.'" He relayed to law enforcement that "they are honest people, and they aren't into fraud," he said, according to the affidavit.

However, his story about how the couple came into possession of the ticket is completely different from what Enders told investigators.

According to Jones in the affidavit, they couple had come across the two separate pieces already ripped while they were walking down the street, contradicting Enders' claim that she had bought the ticket and ripped it herself, adding that Jones may not have known about her purchase at the time.

The affidavit states that Jones was positive they had legitimately won a $1 million prize on the pieced-together lottery ticket.

"Jones advised that he didn't know it was a crime to bring it to the Lottery office, but it was not their intention to get over on the lottery," the affidavit reads.

Enders thought that, by taping the lottery ticket together, she was saving it, not altering it, according to the affidavit. Jones independently told deputies that his girlfriend did not know that the numbers on the top and bottom of the ticket did not match.

Had she been entitled to the prize, Enders was expecting to share the winnings with her boyfriend and open a salon.

The special agent said that the way the lottery ticket was taped together "usually indicates an attempt to commit fraud," the affidavit reads.

Simmons said in his interview with CBS News Miami that he did not think there was anything special or shocking about this ordeal, rather it came off as a cut-and-dry case to investigators.

"I don't think this is gonna be a made-for-TV movie type of situation because it was clear to the Lottery officials, and obviously clear to us, that she had taken two tickets with different, you know, one side had one serial number, the other side had the other serial number on it," Simmons told CBS News Miami. "Especially whenever you pretend like you've won a million dollars, they're gonna take a look at this ticket."

Jones and Enders were arrested on warrants, with Jones taken into custody on Tuesday Enders on Thursday. They were held in the Escambia County Jail on $17,500 and $20,000 bond, respectively, and were released on Friday. Both are due in court on May 10, according to the Escambia County Jail database.

(Click to display full-size in gallery)Kira Enders, 36, and her boyfriend, Dakota Jones, 32, were both arrested last week and charged with forgery/alteration of a lottery ticket with intent to defraud, passing a forged/altered state lottery ticket, and larceny-grand theft of $100,000 or more in early March.