Agent lied to customer about a winning ticket
A Sylva, North Carolina, woman pleaded guilty on Tuesday in Jackson County Superior Court in connection with lottery fraud.
Jodi Gibson, 23, was charged with one count of obtaining property by false pretenses and sentenced to a minimum of six months and a maximum of eight months in prison.
This is the first incident of its kind since the lottery's inception in March. Other attempts at fraud usually involved people trying to fool the system, not a retail employee deceiving a player.
The sentence was suspended and Gibson was placed on probation for three years. As part of her probation, she must spend 60 days under house arrest, pay a fine of $200, and pay $21,000 in restitution to the victim.
Gibson did not have a previous criminal record.
The crime stems from an Aug. 13 incident in which Gibson, a clerk at Mountain Breeze Mart in Sylva, lied to Cecil Green about having a winning Blackjack instant scratch off ticket.
Gibson held Green's ticket and said the computer system was down. An hour later, Gibson called Green and said he didn't have a winning ticket. Meanwhile she got her boyfriend, Shawn Adams, 32, of Sylva, to redeem the ticket, valued at $21,000, in Asheville.
After taxes the ticket is worth about $14,000.
This is just dispicable. I had heard they shut down a lot of the crystal meth labs out there in Sylva...guess she needed the income from the loss she took from the meth lab being closed.
LOL.............. cps10 that was a good one
I tell ya CCHS, I live in a strange state down here in NC! :)
Had she been forced to do the jail time, it would deter others from doing the same thing. She got off easy.
I think she got off easy too.
I wouldn't be a damned bit surprised if this starts happening more often in smaller rural towns now that the news is out...and there was hardly a punishment. Someone will start taking advantage of little old ladies.
If you think you may be a winner , sign the ticket first ... PROTECT YO'SELVES !!!!!!!
Good advice. Sign your ticket right after you buy it.
Second piece of advice, do not rely on the agent to tell you if you're a winner or not. Do it for yourself.
Third piece of advice, if you are unwilling to do the above, you shouldn't be playing the lottery in the first place.
Amen Rick!
Hey - did we stop the tracking of those numbers?
1. this is probably the first really interesting story about the NC Lottery.
2. "people trying to fool the system" is an "attempt at fraud"... are our systems (tracking numbers etc.) that we use attempts to fool the system and thus fraudulent?
In my store we go by MY RULES ...non winning tickets are given back to the customer,a printed receipt is given on winning tickets and any winning tickets over $50.00 can be redeemed ONLY by ME OR MY ASST. MGR.
Also all winning tickets must be signed and all other information has to be filled out ... and checked against their I.D. (yes some get pissed off but I'm going to cover my tush)
The idea you're going to get your money back from the crook is the real joke here. The state should make the prize good as their agent stole it and let the court collect the money from the crook if they can. BobP
I couldn't agree with Bob more...that money is long gone.
Good Advice. I agree to all of the above!!!