David Edwards spent $12 million in his first year as a millionaire
A Powerball winner has died broke and all alone in hospice care, just 12 years after raking in $27 million cash from a lottery jackpot.
David Lee Edwards, a convicted felon from Ashland, Kentucky, bought a mansion in a gated community, dozens of expensive cars and even a LearJet with the share of a record $280 million jackpot he won in August 2001.
But drug addiction and his free-spending ways left Edwards and his wife Shawna broke and living in a squalid storage unit contaminated with human feces within five years. Shawna left him not long after and remarried.
In the end, Edwards' first ex-wife and her husband drove him from Florida back home to Ashland. He died in hospice care Saturday at age 58.
Edwards' friends and family say his tragic story can serve as a parable about the corrupting influence of money. By the end of his life he had lost every last penny of his $27 million fortune and died owing thousands of dollars to friends.
Both Edwards and Shawna contracted hepatitis from their needle drug use and both were arrested multiple times and had numerous run-ins with police for possession of crack cocaine, prescription pills and heroin, Lottery Post reported in 2007. (See Lottery winner goes from rags to riches to rags, Lottery Post, Aug. 22, 2007.)
Shawna bounced into and out of drug rehab for addition to OxyContin and other drugs.
Shortly after winning, Edwards bought a $1.6 million, 6,000-square-foot house in a private tennis and golf community in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida. He spend $600,000 on another home nearby.
He paid $1.9 million for a LearJet, bought three losing racehorses and acquired a fiber optics installation company and a limo business for $4.5 million.
He paid his ex-wife $500,000 to hand over custody of his teenage daughter Tiffani. She couldn't drive at the time, but he bought her a $35,000 Hummer golf cart to drive around the community.
He collected cars - he treated himself to a $200,000 Lamborghini Diablo super car and a $90,000 Dodge Viper.
At one point, he had $1 million in vehicles parked in front of his house - so many that his neighbors complained that the upscale home in the upscale community started to look like a car dealership.
He invited in an NBC News TV crew and bragged that he was wearing a $78,000 diamond-encrusted gold watch and a $159,000 ring. He showed off his $30,000 plasma screen TV.
Edwards also amassed a collection 200 swords, armor and antiques — all of it cheap reproductions.
In his first three months as a millionaire, he spent $3 million. One year after his win, he had spent $12 million, the New Times estimates.
He lost every bit of it by 2006.
Edwards intended to do right. On the day that he publicly claimed his winnings, he promised to use his money responsibly.
"You know, a lot of people, they're out of work. Doesn't have hardly anything," he told reporters.
"And so I didn't want to accept this money by saying I'm going to get mansions and I'm going to get cars, I'm going to do this and that. I would like to accept it with humility.
"I want this money to last, for me, for my future wife, for my daughter and future generations."
Shortly after his win, he hired a financial adviser and a lawyer to look after his assets.
"If he followed my advice, he'd be pulling in about $85,000 a month for the rest of his life," financial planner James Gibbs said in 2007.
Instead, Gibbs says, Edwards sold off the stocks and bonds that Gibbs invested on his behalf.
On Tuesday, his daughter, Tiffani Lee Edwards, said that her father had left her with nothing — not even a life insurance policy.
"There is NO MONEY anywhere!!!!" she wrote on Facebook.
Tiffani, whom Edwards enrolled in a private college prep academy in South Florida during his short brush with wealth, now works as a clerk at an amusement park in West Virginia.
Before he won the lottery, Edwards was unemployed and living with his then-girlfriend Shawna, who is 19 years his junior.
He had spent a third of his life in prison after he was arrested for armed robbery.
He borrowed money from a friend to pay his water bill. After he got his water turned on, he used the rest to buy a pizza and $7 worth of lotto tickets from Clark's Pump-N-Shop.
He picked the winning numbers himself and shared the $280 million jackpot with three other winners. His $41 million lump sum portion came out to $27 million after taxes.
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Thanks to w794728 for the tip.
If you fail to plan you are planning to fail. RIP Mr Edwards.
May he RIP.
well put maringoman
but I'll always have a hard time having sympathy for him
by the same token thats the reason some of us will never win , if only cause the few of us have a game plan
Yes. Its like the decider of who wins the lottery has a great sense of humor. Some guy in SC decides to play PB for the first time and hit a $400M jp on 09/18/13. Then another guys wins a crazy jp and let their ticket expire. And then we the dillidgent ones cannot even win $1,000. Its crazy.
Blessed with money, cursed with addiction. He LIVED, the way he knew how. At least he had some fun. RIP
This article is missing some key pieces. I don't believe everything that I read. Something is not right about this article. He had cars, a lear jet and a house. What happenend to the those items? It is hard for me to believe that this man lost everything that he had. It is hard to read credible news articles these days.
I recall watching a documentary called the "curse of the Lottery" and it featured this guy, knew it was only a matter of time till his demise. RIP
You never purchase a Lear Jet!
You purchase hours on a FlexJet Card and only pay for the time that you use the jet!
Your other purchases must be made on the scale of the money that is won and any return on investments!
he lost the NICE mansion maybe due to taxes
He also owed the HOA a ton of money.
You right. Showing folk that you can afford a jet on a $27 mil win is ludicrous. Trying to maintain that bird is not cheap, its not like he bought a horse and could dump a bale of hay in front of it and say " Okay- eat through that one, there's plenty of that stuff!"
Millionaires living beyond their means. I sure would have hoped that he left his daughter at least a mil to start her life...but alas nothing.
I'll never understand big money and new found drug addictions
....of all the things there are to do in this world why would someone with that kind of money even do drugs to begin with?
No sympathy here either, I mean the guy knew he had a drug problem,
could'nt he have even made a trust fund for his daughter ?
I like cars and would surely buy more than a few, but I would buy a storage facility 1st.
But the worst thing this guy did is give his friends $ for drugs and then eventually pay for their funeral when they overdosed, whats up w/ that,
could have spent money to get them in rehab and helped other ways.
R.I.P. D.L.E.
seems like he was no stranger to Drugs and trouble long b4 he got that lucky
I think he was a druggie before he won !
He got 27 MILS. from a 280 MILS. JP and yet I don't recall ever hearing anything about the other winners.
ahhh..ok...well at the least why not get the best rehab in town?...I just dunno
Jammboogie,
Yeah, I think the article is missing a few things too. One of the first things he did was fly a bunch of friends to Vegas.
He also said, "You can't fix stupid".
He lost the house in Florida because he didn't pay the association fees.
I don't find it hard to believe he lost everything but there's certainly a message here.
Agree I pay every year then they hit us with a fence assessment
Are we supposed to feel sorry for him
His first expenditure should have been, to check into the best drug rehab that money can buy for him and his friends. He can afford it. Too late now. What happened to all the stuff that he purchased? Hope they were paid in full, just wishing.
He had lots of fun while he lived after winning. That's for sure!
Only he is one that took that winning to "health extremes". But, when you win it, it could be a terrible thing to accelerate habits. To each his own. Don't knock the guy down. He played, he hit big, and enjoyed the life he chose.
Many would love to have that opportunity. Many would do different and many will do the same.
Let the opportunity come first, then decide for yourself. Do what you want to after the fact.
Only "that" time will tell for all of us.
Maybe its because the " other winners" did not dabble with drugs or contraband. They kept their noses clean and invested well.
Sorry,but everyone in those photos from the wife,daughter and friend look to be on method or some other narcotic.
Wow- on face value is this not a case of the Kettle calling the Pot black?
Lord have Mercy..
I remember watching hiim on How Lottery changed my life what happeend was he owed taxes and so the IRS took it all to pay for back taxes and that's what happens when you live in a gated community no taxes no toys.
Sad though very sad.
In the movie WallStreet, Michael Douglas as Gordon Gecko told Charlie Sheen as Bud Fox "A fool and his money are lucky to get together in the first place". Clearly this wasn't one of those cases. A certain amount of people are not emotionally mature to handle winning or being given a large amount of money. Rich people maintain their wealth, because they know how to invest it and are mature enough not to flunder their wealth.
Yep, and the guy in SC is doing just fine......
it makes me sick. when he won, i was hoping to win enough to keep my family alive after they were poisoned by an illegall toxic waste dump. i paid every penny i had and then some to keep them alive with hospital care. i just couldn't swing the million dollars for transplants and they died screaming in agony. wonder why scum bags get the breaks?
A million bucks worth of luxary cars parked curbside at his $1.6 million mansion. What a clown.
Ya know, $27 million is alot of money, but, especially if that's a pre-tax figure, isn't ALOT OF MONEY, if you catch my drift.
And he didn't have the wherewithal to set up a trust for his daughter. That's unconscionable.
Between this story and the ones of unclaimed million-dollar jackpots, it's enough to scream to the Lotto gods..."Let me win, I'd do this right!"
what a loser
why do druggy convicted felons get to win? really.. they need to do a full background check before handing over that kind of money..
If I won a million I would make a budget of 25k a year.. (I'm living off 16.8k right now).. that would spread out for at LEAST 40 years!
dumb people with no brains
All the money in the world won't usually change who you are. Money is just a tool that let's you do a better job of being who you already are.
I just spent some time looking at his daughter's Facebook page; I really shouldn't comment on what type of person she seems to be by her posts and shares, but from what I saw, it looks like the apple didn't fall far from the tree. Her baby is due on the 11th of this month, I believe.
im no christian im an athiest. but i see it as hes his own destiny, made from the past, but the only one to guide his future. his past makes who he is now. but he can change it. he didnt have the strnghth of character to change and the money destroyed him. maybe he didnt have any friends stong enough tt vll him an idiot. and say thats stupid. you're an idiot. maybe all his friends had their hands out.
its a shame, a shame for him, his family. and that we dont have pity. lets hope we all have the strngth to call out our loved ones, or friends if they ever win if they go down this path.or that if we do , we have someone close who cares enough about us to save us from ourselves.
HOAs can be a blessing or a curse.
You move into a gated community like he was in mostly to get away from low class people (like him, sadly).
You're there because you don't want to deal with the hassle of dealing with all the usual traits of low class people, like blasting music and garbage strewn everywhere and curbside engine overhauls and brake jobs and stoop sitting and all night parties and vehicles parked all over the place and attitudes and all the rest. The HOA can prevent or get rid of problems like that for you.
The downside is if you get a few libs on the board, and as libs, they naturally feel it's their job to create new rules and regulations at every board meeting to meet their intrinsic passion to have control over other people. That's when HOAs are a curse.
Second that prayer, May he RIP. ( We are not to judge lest we be judged.)
Wonder if he ever spent any of his windfall on recovery? Only the Good Lord knows.
Hi Coin Toss,
I agree with you because it is definitely a message in his story. He did a combination of things with his money. I like that he did help some of his friends but he went far too too far with some of his purchases. Too extragavant. And the drug problem didn't help either. When he first won, and they did a story on him I thought he was a balanced indivdual. He purchased a Lear Jet and many cars. What happenend to those items?
I believe that's correct, assuming 3 other winners that's a 75% success rate.
It's incredibly difficult for me not to feel sorry for how it all ended for this guy. I don't subscribe to the notion that he was stupid and therefore this was unexpected. These things happen. Guilt. Pressure. Society. Unable to Cope. Past Demons. Being Overwhelmed. Overconfidence. These just a few of the things that winners face. Some are better able to cope than others. Some are fine and relatively grounded, but then family and friends steer them off track. Some are messed up but then family and friends steer them on the right path. This could EASILY happen to any of us. RIP man.