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Judge won't give bakery workers partial lottery prizeNews Story
A Cook County, Illinois, judge on Thursday refused to award a partial payout of a $118 million Mega Millions prize won by employees of a Chicago Heights-based bakery. Twelve employees of the Pita Pan Bakery, 401 E. Joe Orr Road in Chicago Heights, who have taken to calling themselves the Dirty Dozen, have possession of the winning ticket from a May 4 drawing that won them the record-high prize. But another seven employees of the bakery have filed assorted lawsuits in Cook County Circuit Co
Mar 1, 2013, 6:08 pm - Lottery News

Autopsy reveals little about Illinois lottery winner deathNews Story
An autopsy on the exhumed body of an Indian-born lottery winner in the U.S. who was poisoned with cyanide yielded no significant new clues about his death, a medical examiner said Friday. No cyanide was found in Urooj Khan's body tissue but that was most likely because cyanide breaks down quickly, Cook County medical examiner Stephen Cina said. He said nothing significant was found in Khan's stomach. Cina says Khan's death is still considered a homicide because tests on fluids drawn from h
Mar 1, 2013, 2:06 pm - Lottery News

Lottery winner's body reburied after autopsyNews Story
The body of a West Rogers Park, Illinois, man who died of cyanide poisoning last summer after winning a million-dollar lottery was laid to rest again Monday, three days after his remains were exhumed for an autopsy as part of a homicide investigation. The scene at Rosehill Cemetery on Monday afternoon was in sharp contrast to Friday morning, when a throng of reporters and TV cameramen had massed outside an entrance gate as numerous Chicago police, Cook County medical examiner officials and ce
Jan 22, 2013, 9:33 am - Lottery News

Millions in lottery winnings go unclaimed each yearNews Story
It is hard for some to believe, but even as some Americans dream of hitting it big in the Lotto, Powerball, and Mega Millions jackpots, for some it might have happened and whizzed by unnoticed. Happens all the time, says Illinois Lottery chief Michael Jones. People misinterpret whether they won or lost. People misplace tickets all the time. Jones said the lottery estimates about one percent of all lottery prizes go unclaimed. And, considering the Illinois games raked in about $3 billion
Jan 15, 2013, 8:47 am - Lottery News

Poisoned lottery winner's family reportedly didn't share his last mealNews Story
As relatives of a $1 million lottery winner who was killed with cyanide battle over his estate, sources say it appears the man's family did not share what could have been his fatal last meal. A police source tells MyFoxChicago.com that the night Urooj Khan died he was home with his wife, Shabbana Ansari, 17-year-old daughter, and father-in-law Fareedun Ansari. The source says Ansari prepared a traditional Indian meal for dinner, which Khan ate. Neither Ansari or Khan's daughter ate the mea
Jan 11, 2013, 7:48 am - Lottery News

Wife questioned in lottery winner deathNews Story
The widow of a West Rogers Park, Illinois, man who died of cyanide poisoning weeks after winning a $1 million lottery jackpot was questioned extensively by Chicago police last month after the medical examiner's office reclassified the death as a homicide, her attorney said on Tuesday. Authorities investigating the death of Urooj Khan also executed a search warrant at the home he had shared with his wife, Shabana Ansari, according to Steven Kozicki, her attorney. Ansari later was interviewed b
Jan 9, 2013, 12:30 pm - Lottery News

Lottery winner's death was blamed on natural causes — until a relative raised questionsNews Story
Urooj Khan had sworn off playing the lottery after he took an Islamic pilgrimage to the Middle East in 2010, but as he stood in a 7-Eleven near his home on Chicago's Far North Side this summer, he lost his will for a moment, handing over $60 to buy two instant-game tickets. After scratching off the second ticket, he leaped in the air, shouting over and over again, I hit a million! When Khan, 46, accepted an oversized check from Illinois Lottery representatives days later at the same store
Jan 7, 2013, 9:38 am - Lottery News

Retired chaplain cleans desk, finds $1 million winning lottery ticketNews Story
A retired hospice chaplain from Glen Ellyn, Illinois, was sitting on a $1 million winning lottery ticket for two months until two weeks ago when he decided to clean up his desk. About 12 tickets had accumulated on my desk, and I decided to tidy up to make room for my new computer. I checked the winning numbers on the Illinois Lottery website and just about screamed when I saw that I won, said Ron Yurcus in a release from the Illinois Lottery issued the week. Yurcus matched the first five
Nov 17, 2012, 11:00 pm - Lottery News

Trial begins for man linked to double-murder by lottery ticketsNews Story
A Chicago man accused of fatally shooting a cashier and customer inside a Southwest Side convenience store in 2005 almost got away with it, but a trail that started with lottery tickets he'd purchased moments before the killings ultimately led police to him, prosecutors said Tuesday as the man's double-murder trial got underway. Timothy Fountain, 42, is charged with first-degree murder and armed robbery in the August 2005 shooting deaths of clerk Graciela Rodriguez, 37, and Nicholas Guerrero,
Oct 24, 2012, 7:35 am - Lottery News

Illinois Lottery superintendent at odds with private manager of lotteryNews Story
Illinois Lottery superintendent Michael Jones and the Northstar Lottery Group are at odds. Northstar is the private management consortium named in the fall of 2010 to run the Illinois Lottery. The source of the disagreement is a preliminary draft of a ruling this week from a mediator assigned to determine whether Northstar should have to pay a penalty for failing to meet stipulated profit goals in its private management agreement with the state. By its own accounting Northstar, comprised o
Sep 14, 2012, 8:09 am - Lottery News