Claims she gave him $1 towards tickets
A handyman who won a $32 million jackpot lottery with his barber is being sued by his sister who says she is entitled to a third of the winnings.
Leila Nahas claims she paid her brother Samir Haddad $1 toward the $3 winning ticket and deserves $10.6 million, plus $500,000 in damages.
But Haddad said he doesn't owe her a dime, because 'they never had an agreement'.
Haddad and his longtime friend and barber Mike Dettorre hit the jackpot with a Lotto 6/49 ticket in June 2008 in Canada. (See Ottawa barber, client share $32M lottery win, Lottery Post, July 7, 2008.)
Dettorre had cut Haddad's hair for more than 30 years at the barber's Old Ottawa South shop.
Haddad, a self-employed floor installer and handyman, reckons he's bought 'thousands' of lottery tickets over the years.
The men split the winnings, and 35 of Haddad's family — including his sister — traveled to the Ontario Lottery and Gaming office in Toronto in a limousine to collect the money.
He split some of his winnings with his family and sister.
But now Nahas claims Haddad visited her store before the June 2008 Lotto draw to buy a ticket.
She said they'd agreed to split one and that she'd contribute to another ticket he planned to buy with Dettorre.
Nahas alleges he showed her an old ticket with numbers he'd played with the barber, she wrote them on a slip of paper and they settled up.
According to her statement of claim filed in January 2010, Nahas trusted her brother would tell her if he'd won with the shared ticket, but two months later, the paper fell from her wallet as she shopped and she 'realized that she was owed one-third of the proceeds from the winning ticket.'
She claims her brother admitted it was the ticket he'd bought with her, but said it was unfair for her to share the winnings because she'd only contributed $1 and he'd bought thousands of tickets for years, according to Ottawa Citizen.
However Haddad vigorously denies all of his sister's allegations, including that he told her she was 'dead to him'.
He said he went to the barber shop on the day of the draw, got the old ticket then went to the store around the corner to buy a new one with the same numbers.
He put it on Dettorre's mirror and learned from him two days later that they'd won.
The siblings haven't spoken in several years.
Dettorre is reportedly not part of the legal fight, but he could lose some of his winnings if the court upholds Nahas' claim.
The bitter battle will land in front of a judge and jury on Tuesday.
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Thanks to myturn for the tip.
Seems like the sister wants a bigger piece of the pie. I am sure if she actually contributed to the ticket she wouldn't have waited 5 years to file a case. Besides he gave her a portion of the money anyway after him and his buddy won the lotto!
Winning sure does bring out ones true colors....
I think the next family reunion may be a little awkward.
One word sums it all up: GREED!
Get your own tickets. Brother, Sister, Mother, Father, In-law, it doesn't matter they're related when there is lots of
money at stake. Some of them turn into people you don't know anyway.
Splitting tickets isn't worth the price of the headache and heartache.
I grew up with a guy who married a local girl, divorced her then later married her sister. I always figured their family reunions were a little awkward, too.
Oh, Samir Haddad, what have you done?
Why didnt he just deny the fact that she gave him any money at all??
If he and his barber had been buying tickets for years, his mistake was ever accepting a dollar from her at all if she didn't offer to pay on a regular basis. No matter when he won she would have thought her dollar made the difference.
People who don't play the lotteries regularly like to occasionally give a dollar or two to those who do, that way if they ever win, they can claim the dollar that gave was for the ticket that won and they are owed a share.
The sister would be more believable if she had made her claim the day she rode in the limo with her brother so that HE could claim the prize. And she also accepted money from him at that time. Waiting a year and a half before suddenly discovering she'd contributed a dollar to the winning ticket hurts her credibility.
A person has 1-90 days to dispute a charge on a credit card. A person has 30 days to reconcile their bank records. A Person has 10 days to pay a parking ticket.
A person has 45 minutes to pass a drivers test. A person has 30 days til their mortgage or rent monies are due. A Senate /House has 90 days to balance a budget ( hmmm...best not to use that example!).
Basically her clock ran out...snooze...lose
.
This is why if anyone in my immediate family does win the lottery, it needs to be ME. I would gladly do an even split regardless of if they chipped in or not. If it's anyone else, I'm afraid I'd end up with the short end of the stick.
The judge will hopefully throw out this lawsuit. Its a money grab at its finest.