Police find jackpot winner wasted in Walmart parking lot

By Kate Northrop

GEORGETOWN, Ky. — The Kentucky lottery winner of a $167 million Powerball jackpot continues to stack up those arrests, this time for public intoxication in a Walmart parking lot.

This is the fifth time the infamous $167 million Powerball lottery winner has been arrested since his win in 2025.

Shannon James Farthing, 51, is racking up a streak, not for wins, but for arrests. On Sunday, he was arrested after being found passed out in his white Ford Mustang in a Georgetown Walmart parking lot.

Just before three in the morning on Sept. 20, deputies received a call from a concerned citizen, who reported that a sports car with a temporary tag was stopped in the middle of the intersection of Cherry Blossom Way and Connector Road in Georgetown.

The caller explained that they observed the Ford Mustang driving into the Walmart parking lot and parking near an electric vehicle charging station.

Arrest documents report that police approached the car, which was still running, to find Farthing fast asleep in the passenger seat.

The arresting officers said they knocked on the window for several minutes and that he appeared intoxicated when he finally woke up, noting the smell of alcohol and marijuana, bloodshot and watery eyes, slurred speech, and trouble maintaining balance.

Farthing told deputies that he was there because a woman had driven him to the spot and left him. When authorities reviewed surveillance footage of the area, however, video recordings showed the Mustang pulling into the parking lot but no one exiting the car before the police arrived.

He was determined to be "manifestly under the influence of alcohol," the citation reads, and was suspected of posing a risk to others since he was likely operating the vehicle while under the influence. He was arrested just after 4:00 a.m., charged with alcohol intoxication in a public place, and booked at Scott County Detention Center.

Farthing was last arrested in July on charges related to strangulating a woman. He was handed a $15,000 bond, ordered to have no contact with the victim, and instructed to wear an ankle monitor.

Prior to that, Farthing was arrested on hit-and-run charges for crashing his Corvette and fleeing the scene on foot, charges for battery on a law enforcement officer after punching a bar patron and kicking an officer in the face, and burglary charges for breaking into his ex-girlfriend's home, although those charges were dropped.