Gosh he should have know that finding 16 winning scratch offs was some sort of fluke. I thought the retailer is supposed to turn the cashed winning scratch offs into the lottery. There's got to be more to this story. If he found them in the trash and tried to cash them in the agent usually says that they have been paid already. And that's the end of the story. This guy must have demanded that they be paid again in order to try and collect. If that's the case then he deserved to be arrested.

I have seen articles on lottery related stories where people have found winning scratchers in the trash and cashed them in. Some players do not fully read or understand the winning combinations on a ticket and throw them away.
I pull second chance drawing scratchers out of the trash that are losers and send them in to the lottery for the second chance drawing at $100,000.00 top prize plus a chance at lower tier prizes. These tickets go for $10.00 each and it cost me only the postage for them. They want to throw them away I will send them in.

    What a sad way to try hard luck.