Jurors convicted a former Iowa lottery security official of two counts of fraud Monday for rigging a Hot Lotto drawing to win $14.3 million.
The jury's verdict came after three days of witness testimony last week in the case against Eddie Tipton, 52, who faces up to 10 years in prison. It's believed to be the first prosecution of a person accused of tampering with lottery equipment to manipulate a draw.
Tipton stared straight ahead with his hands folded as the verdict was read, showing no emotion. He will remain free on bond ahead of his sentencing hearing Sept. 9.
He left the courthouse without comment. But his lawyer, Dean Stowers, said the verdict was "not surprising," because the jurors were given speculative evidence.
Stowers said he's confident the appeals court ultimately will toss the jury's conviction.
Assistant Iowa Attorney General Rob Sand accused Tipton, formerly the information security director for the Multi-State Lottery Association, of installing a self-deleting computer program, called a rootkit, onto a Hot Lotto drawing computer to rig the outcome of a Dec. 29, 2010, drawing.
Tipton allegedly purchased the winning ticket six days earlier at a Des Moines QuickTrip.
Sand claims Tipton then helped filter the ticket through a Texas friend and a network of lawyers in an attempt to claim the cash. The two fraud charges required the state to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Tipton tampered with the lottery computer and then passed on the ticket as part of a conspiracy to redeem it.
In his closing argument Friday, Sand pointed toward several pieces of evidence that jurors could rely on to convict Tipton, including:
- Several of Tipton's friends and coworkers at the lottery association testified they believe Tipton was the purchaser, based on video of a hooded man buying the ticket. The witnesses said Tipton's voice matched that of the man on the video.
- Jason Maher, the lottery association's IT director, said Tipton once told him he had access to a rootkit, though he did not specify in court more details about the program's capabilities.
Iowa Lottery CEO Terry Rich in a statement Monday called the case "fascinating." But he said it has enabled the lottery to "to further enhance our layers of security to protect the integrity of lottery games, and that ultimately has been a positive."
The money from the jackpot, totaling nearly $10.8 million in cash, "was returned to the lotteries in the Hot Lotto game in proportion to the sales from each jurisdiction," Rich said. "The Iowa Lottery received about $1.4 million back, and gave the money away in a special summer promotion called 'Mystery Millionaire' back in 2012. Fifteen players ended up winning prizes in that promotion."
Rich said he is confident the games are fair.
"Our lottery has strong layers of security to protect lottery players, lottery games and lottery prizes," he said. "Those procedures enabled us to seek information about the winning ticket in this case and not pay the prize until basic questions could be answered — and they never were."
So CEO Rich; rather than just trying to improve layers of security to catch a crook, why not also just get rid of the RNG and move back to ball machines which are harder to manipulate than computers?
Why your at it,check all the states.
It should be very interesting to see how these computerized drawings fare now that this has come to light.
The article says "It's believed to be the first prosecution of a person accused of tampering with lottery equipment to manipulate a draw". However, this is not true. It happened twice in PA, back in 1980 with the famous "triple 6's" 3 digit draw and again in 1988 when a computer tech working for a lottery contractor programmed the a computer to print out a lottery ticket in a store where his friend worked for a $15.2 million lotto jackpot in the Super 7 drawing that was about to expire. The lottery was suspicious of his friend when he tried to claim the jackpot, but they made the first of the annuity payments while investigating. Then after the advertisement of TV and radio about the unclaimed jackpot and where the ticket was sold, the real owner of the "real" ticket who had forgotten about buying a ticket, found it and came forward to make the claim. Those 2 got prison time.
So this idiot got caught, how many out there have not?
Time to get rid of this easy to manipulate way of pulling the numbers.
l guess it all boiled downed down to whether the jury accepted the evidence presented by Assistant Iowa Attorney General Rob Sand & Terry Rich or that of Tipton's Attorney.lt appears they wanted to send a message & they spoke loud and clear.
Because they cant afford it!
Why would somebody who is authorized to manage a free tax, want to not skim? Do you know how much it costs to be honest? Do you know how much those fancy cameras cost? do you know how much Yolanda Vega gets paid?
Do you know how stupid our kids will get with real honest ball drawings?
Rich said he is confident the games are fair. But only after a former lottery security employee was found guilty of rigging $14.3 million drawing.
Can't believe he bought the ticket himself. He was so close to hatching the perfect plan. Now he might make the Darwin top ten.
True. He should have gotten a person not associated with the Iowa Lotto to buy the tickets on his behalf. Once that person wins, they establish a Trust and split the money. When it comes to these scheme's, never get involved directly.
I knew they were going to lay the smack down on him, just to send a loud and clear message, to anybody else contemplating on getting involved, in such nefarious activities. Guilty or not, I have my doubts.
So what is the plan with RNG computer draw states?
The problem I have with all of these people who are caught cheating is that the State/Corporation gets the money and not the people who were playing the game at the time. It's worse on Scratch-offs because if a jackpot is taken out of the game due to someone cheating the jackpot should be reinserted somewhere into the game which the players should have a shot at.
What I find fascinating about this is, Iowa Lottery CEO. Terry Rich said "he is confident the games are fair." They have enhance their layer's of security. As long as the program for the rootkit's exist it is being improved and enhance as well. There are kit's/ programs that already exist right now. that are capabilities that can do this again or more, within a 50 mile range. I think Iowa new best friend, such be live draws.
It makes no sense that Tipton bought the ticket taking a chance of he would be caught on camera, but the jury thought he did. Even Nick Perry had enough sense not to buy any tickets.
It sounds like he may have thought he disguised himself well enough to be unrecognizable. IIRC at least one of the witnesses didn't recognize him until he spoke. I wonder if he didn't realize that his voice was being recorded too? Most c-stores here only take video not audio.
If I were going to try to pull something like this off, I'd definitely do the whole thing myself including buying the ticket. The more people that know, the more likely it is someone will blab.
I watch a lot of true crime, and the people who hire hit men to kill someone and are caught, are usually caught because the hit man tells. You'd think that since the hit man is the one who will get the most prison time, he'd keep his mouth shut but that doesn't seem to be a deterrent. Human nature is strange.
Don't even think about giving someone half the jackpot if they just buy the ticket for ya. Chances are, they will suddenly grow a conscience, or get drunk, or get mad because you had a falling out, or fritter their half away and get spiteful when you refuse to give them more. Then they'll tell.
Tipton could have LITERALLY saved his hide by coming into the convenience store and purchasing his ticket dressed like either of these guys ..
Like your disguises but it is illegal here to enter a place of business with your face covered! Have to use stage makeup and wigs, oversized hats etc....
I agree. Working at the lottery, on the inside, he KNEW all the security procedures the lottery goes through to validate tickets etc. You would have to be pretty dumb to buy the ticket knowing that lottery officials would check the store's video cameras. At the very least, he could have been creative and hired someone to buy and claim the ticket, then paid them a significant portion of the winnings. If in fact he pulled this off, it sounds like he didn't think it through very clearly, which is ironic considering the difficulty of actually rigging the draw.
Tipton had to know the rules required the identity of person purchasing the ticket and he was ineligible. I read a story about a guy who worked for the Nevada gaming commission that had access to the RNG Keno programs used by Vegas casinos and he used it to win a large jackpot in Atlantic City. His partner panicked when cashing the ticket and he spent 2 years in prison.
I think we will hear another story like this someday, glad he going to get punished.
There's going to be an appeal Sully. Lets see how that turns out...
Yes Sully they are all crooked,remember it's not for us,it's for the kids...Ive lost enough in Tennessee to college 10 kids..
How very interesting. I always wondered about how connected those lottery terminals are. They could rig it to where a certain set of numbers for a certain area, and it keeps rolling until the number matches for that area.
Then he could have used the line --- "I am not the purchaser you are looking for' (while doing the Jedi armwave) -
Oh Yeah...
Ya know what would have been REALLY funny - if when he was at the counter buying the ticket and his phone rang and he had a REALLY unique ringtone that NO ONE uses and the video picked it up!
Maybe if he had a ringtone that said "Phone call for MUSL employee Eddie Tipton", but other than that it would just be one more piece of evidence that doesn't really prove anything. OTOH, the prosecution claimed that his cell phone records showed that he wasn't in Texas, as he claimed. If he'd gotten a phone call anytime close to when the purchase was made they'd presumably have a record showing a connection to a cell tower close to the store. Of course even that still leaves room for reasonable doubt.
Of course we haven't heard as much as the jury, but based on what we have heard there's plenty of reasonable doubt, starting with zero evidence that the drawing was actually tampered with.
Yes you are!!! So said the jury.