One wild ride for jackpot winner
By Gregg Zoroya, USA TODAY
WINFIELD, W.Va. - The gossip about Jack Whittaker, America's richest lottery winner, is as juicy as the meatloaf at Jan's Restaurant across from the courthouse here.

Jack Whittaker has been generous with his lottery winnings, but he also says, "I can tell everyone to kiss off."
By Bob Bird, AP

Whittaker, 56, of nearby Scott Depot, won the biggest single lottery payoff in the USA on Christmas Day 2002 - $314.9 million. He accepted the money wearing a black cowboy hat and a big smile, and he pledged to give 10% of it to three preachers.

Since then, Whittaker has been pulled between Christian charity and trouble. He is building two churches, feeding and clothing poor children and building senior citizen housing.

He also has been charged with assault and drunken driving. And he has had a total of more than $600,000 in cash taken from his car, once while he was in a strip club giving "generous tips" to young women, a court file says.

"If you sit on his lap, he'll give you how much? $10,000?" jokes Leota Young, 71, as her two lunch mates at Jan's laugh.

"That's all right," Parthenia King, 64, says later during lunch. "When it comes down to the Judgment Day, he won't buy himself out of that, will he?"

'Can tell everyone to kiss off'

Winning the lottery is a dream for many Americans. But the tale of contractor Andrew "Jack" Whittaker Jr., who was already a millionaire before he won the lottery, has some wondering whether a winner rules his money or the money rules him.

"He just reminds me of a kid in a candy store," says Gerald Abreu, former minister of the Tabernacle of Praise Church of God in nearby Hurricane, where Whittaker sometimes attends services. "He's taking everything and anything because he can afford it."

Through his lawyer, Whittaker declined to comment for this article. But he has said that the shock of winning, coupled with tens of thousands of people pleading for money, have taken a toll on his wife, Jewel, their grown daughter, Ginger McMahan, and their granddaughter, Brandi Bragg. "She's the most bitter 16-year-old I know," he told the Associated Press in December.

Whittaker told a TV station last month after he was charged with drunken driving, "It doesn't bother me because I can tell everyone to kiss off."

The reality, some of his friends say, is a little different.

"I think Jack believes in God and trusts in God. I just think that some of these things have overwhelmed him, and I think he's struggling right now," says Michael Osborne, who works for Whittaker at Diversified Enterprises Construction as a project manager.

"The more you have, the more difficult it is to resist temptation," Osborne says.

Whittaker lives in Putnam County, population 56,000, a fast-growing bedroom community 12 miles west of Charleston. His post-lottery troubles began in the wee hours of Aug. 5, 2003, in Cross Lanes, 9 miles from here.

Whittaker had $545,000 in cash and cashier's checks stolen from his Lincoln Navigator while he was inside the Pink Pony strip club.

Two employees of the club were later arrested and accused of trying to drug Whittaker's cocktail and take his cash. The money was recovered, and the case is pending in court.

On Jan. 4, Whittaker was thrown out of Billy Sunday's Bar and Grill, near St. Albans. Witnesses and a video indicate that Whittaker took a swing at the manager and then threatened to kill him and his family, according to court records. Whittaker was charged with misdemeanor assault and could face up to six months in jail and a $100 fine if convicted.

On Jan. 17, someone broke into Whittaker's Navigator and grabbed a bank bag containing $100,000. Police are still investigating.

Eight days later, West Virginia state police arrested Whittaker on charges of drunken driving. Officers said they found him asleep in his Cadillac Escalade with the engine running as it was parked along Interstate 64. Whittaker said he pulled off the road because of snowy weather. Released on $150 bond, he could face up to six months in jail and a $500 fine if convicted.

The Powerball jackpot arrived on Christmas Day, 2002, thanks to a $1 ticket bought at the C&L Super Serve outside Hurricane, 5 miles from Whittaker's home. He stopped there every morning for biscuits stuffed with bacon and tomatoes served by the deli manager, Brenda Higginbotham.

Whittaker went to bed that night thinking his lottery numbers did not match. But the next morning, when he heard the winning ticket came from the store where he bought his ticket, he checked again.

He was a winner.

Instead of taking the $314.9 million jackpot as an annuity, Whittaker opted for a single payment of $170 million. After taxes, he got $113.9 million.

Whittaker established a foundation to help the poor - in addition to his tithe to the church. And he began to spread the wealth.

He's been generous

Higginbotham at the Super Serve got a Jeep Grand Cherokee and a house. Another car and a house went to the woman who sold him the winning ticket. He gave a $334,000 gift to his former pastor, Abreu, now a minister in Torrance, Calif., and $100,000 for a church-oriented foundation in Torrance.

The Tabernacle of Praise Church in Hurricane, where Whittaker is called "Brother Jack," received $1.5 million in cash. That little red brick church is already being replaced with a 29,000-square-foot building. Construction should be finished early next year. The new church will seat more than 300 people - attendance on the first Sunday of the month was 53 - and will cost Whittaker more than $4 million.

Says the Rev. C.T. Mathews, pastor of the church, "I think sometimes you kind of pinch yourself to see if you're awake."

In Summers County, where Whittaker was born in Jumping Branch, he is building a $2 million Church of God in the county seat of Hinton.

Last Christmas, Whittaker spent $100,000 on clothing vouchers for poor children in Putnam and Summers counties. In January, his foundation, along with Feed the Children, Wal-Mart and county officials, began providing $64,000 each month in food and clothing for poor children in the two counties.

Two other counties will receive the same assistance until the foundation has helped all 55 counties in West Virginia.

A senior citizens home is being built here in Winfield. Whittaker has given money for student scholarships and athletic programs in Summers County. And he bought and renovated a stock car raceway near Summers County to boost local tourism.

"People are embarrassed from some of his exploits," says Cris Meadows, Hinton's city manager.

"But the good outweighs the bad with Jack in most people's minds."