RIVIERA BEACH — In September 2001, a very lucky ex-con named David Lee Edwards arrived in Palm Beach County with $27 million and a history of drug abuse.
The $27 million was his take, after taxes, from Kentucky's Powerball lottery. Edwards, 46, had been laid off shortly before he bought the winning ticket at Clark's Pump N Shop in Ashland, Ky., a blue-collar town on the Ohio River where he grew up.
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He became a convict in the early 1980s after a gas station hold-up, followed by parole violations and arrests for drug possession. He was in and out of prison, and finally out for good in 1997.
With his sudden wealth, Edwards bought a $1.2 million home in Palm Beach Gardens' Ballen Isles community, a $240,000 Bentley and a $250,000 Lamborghini.
In December 2001, he married his fiancee, Shawna Renae Maddux, in Hawaii, and bought her a $250,000 electric blue Ferrari.
And then Edwards' troubled past apparently began to catch up with him.
In November 2005, the couple were arrested and charged with possession of cocaine and heroin. Shawna Edwards pleaded to a lesser charge. David Edwards' next scheduled court date is July 24, according to the State Attorney's Office.
In July 2006, that $1.2 million home was auctioned for $400,000.
And on Saturday, much of the home's contents will go on the block in the same industrial warehouse off Garden Road where Edwards spent his final days in Palm Beach County.
"It's a no-reserve auction," said Doug Holladay, the Jupiter auctioneer who will open the bidding at 11 a.m. "If the highest bid is $1, it sells for $1. Everything goes on Saturday."