STUPID IS WHAT STUPID DOES! SEE WHAT BEING STUPID DOES! It gets you in jail STUPID!  How long did they think 850,000 after taxes was going to last anyway?

Mr Wilson's comment about Leroy Fick not being equipped to handle large sums of money is indeed , a vast understatement. This man is totally  irresponsible. He is actting like a two year old. Even with a fixed income , he should own a clock to get to court on time ! I use to hear older people say " A FOOL and his's MONEY are soon parted" . This man fit the statement.

It'd be funny if it wasn't so sad, so unnecessary and so predictable.

Surely his genius financial advisor son will take care of him now with his booming "Collector" business he runs out of a motel room.

LCML @ 1900 hrs. today.

go 49ers.

What's a Bridge Card?

michigan's version of food stamps.

Oh,ok.Thanks,haymaker.

could'nt this moron at least use some of the money to get his drivers lic. restored and see a doctor for a prescripion ?

instead of taking pills ment for someone else.

and fireworks,how much can you spend on em ?

I saw that idiot on tv awile back.Its hard to believe that there are people that stupid running around.Just proves my theory that some people should be sterilized at birth so that they can't reproduce.

They're called "Foodie Cards" in TN and all their users show up at all the grocery stores around the first week of the month.

You can tell when they're there by all the garbage thrown everywhere in the parking lots and the mess they make of everything inside the stores.

Human pigs.

It takes all kinds.Where would be if we didn't have these types of people to complain about?

For those that have never seen this episode of Lottery Changed My Life,it will be on this evening at 6p.m.central time on the TLC network.

yea, watching motel millionaire right now.

ridge, don't insult our little freinds that provide us w/ham and bacon by assoc. them w/ the foodie card crowd. LOL

You're right, haymaker, I love bacon and ham but the first thing that pops into my head is a herd of pigs when I see the ungodly mess they leave behind.

My apologies to swine everywhere, lol.

yea, heard of this happing in jersey ist week of every mo.

must be nationwide i'm sorry to say.

have not seen it i stay away.

Well, that was a train wreck already happening before the lottery win. The win just sped up the train. The son was in the engine driving.

We"re still feeding this idiot.

 It takes all kinds.Where would be if we didn't have these types of people to complain about?

Oh, I don't know, in a cleaner environment maybe? People who are given everything without having to work for it never appreciate anything or have any respect for anybody or anything. That's what breeds the mentality conducive to throwing garbage everywhere and not thinking anything of it. You can't go anywhere anymore without seeing all the garbage they throw all along the roadways and everywhere else they go and everywhere they live. You can't get away from the garbage they leave in their wake everywhere they go. Filthy pigs. They destroy a beautiful country and couldn't care less.

All I can say is WOW!!!!!! where is his cracked/meth out son??????? Ridge I made the mistake of going to the grocery store on the 10th one time in Oklahoma I was on my lunch break... so I asked the clerk why it was so busy she said food stamp day so I was like I htought it was just the 1st she said no Oklahoma gets it twice a month...needless to say I spent my whole lunch in line. You are right about the parking lots.....

"fick declined to comment when the judge afforded him an opportunity"

uhh.. yea' his lawyer told him to keep his mouth shut.

you know the old saying,

 "better to keep your mouth shut and be thought stupid, then open it and remove all doubt"

Great saying haymaker!

It boggles the mind how resilient the human body can be and how stupid the brain can be at the same time.  That amount of drugging and doping would kill most right out the gate.  We could coin a new phrase..................

"You Ficked that all up."

You're right as usual,Ridge.I live on a major highway and theres not a day that goes by that I don't pick up trash out of my yard.Why the cops don't even try to to catch them littering is beyond me.If there was a market for used 7-11 cups or McDonalds sacks I wouldn't need to play the lottery.~;)

ROTFLMAO, Everyone should know what a Ficke up is....

crackin up jarasan,now i won't be able to get that out of my mind.

next time i see a policecruiser in my rearveiw w/ the lights flashing.

i'm gonna say "oh fick" LOL

interception   go 9ers.

Thanks for your comments Dallas. I appreciate it coming from you because you know me.

There are a couple people here who start calling me a racist anytime I mention food stamps. All the people I see using food stamps are white. There are no blacks anywhere around me. I rarely ever see black people. These pigs I talk about throwing garbage everywhere are all white people. But I don't care what color they are, if they throw garbage everywhere I call them pigs. I don't like pigs of any color. And the people on food stamps that I see are usually acting like a herd of pigs.

just goes to show the lotto gods are heartless <snip>s.

$850k isnt a lot to live off the interest, or invest and not make ant dumb descisions. ficke had to make some wise choice from the start. and be frugal. and  smart and maybe never have to work hard gain in his life.

he didnt even start well.  the lotto gods sure made a smart call picking him as a winner, if comic amusement was their goal, they got it in spades.

could'nt agree more dude,all the things you mention point to one problem.

a lack of self-respect.

i suspect the ones you're talking about would tell you they have self-respect.

but i doubt they know the definition.

I am sure he thinks that we "owe him". I don't !

Ridge you know I got your back......... Ridge you are not a RACIST you just tell it like it is... some people are soooo sensitive and I hate when people play the RACE CARD... You know when I was in college I use to work at a grocery store where I was a manager.. I was accused of racism by a black woman she filed a complaint against me because I hired a white woman. The black woman worked in another deparmtnet and she applied for the position however she did not meet all the requirements.... It was so funny I will never forget the look of the HR Director when she saw what color I was....when HR came to do an investigation they were like your black & she is filing a complaint against you for racism.... I couldnt help but laugh.

So Ridge I know what it's like to be accused of something that you are not....keep being who you are... there are alot of us who enjoy you & your post on here.......

Today was the first time I viewed the "Most Eligible Millionaire."

I had a hard time watching this episode because of Mr. Fick's son.

My tolerance for stupidity is zero.

And the son is in a class by himself of morons.

Mr. Fick should've been on the annuity and had a professional handler.

Mr. Fick reminds me of Abraham Shakesphere.

Only difference is Mr. Fick didn't turn up dead.

Thank you Dallas.

I wonder what his son does know that his dad is broke if he still even cares about his dad or if he found someone else to live off of.  Would be interesting to find out.-weshar75

He'll be feeding off somebody or conning somebody. It's his nature.

But getting conned by that guy would have to be the ultimate insult.

I agree.To be conned by him you'd have to be beyond stupid.

Yup, that is what I thought when I saw that episode of him and his freeloading son blowing his money on that hobby he kept in a motel room...obviously not a genius since I am certain his so called business was not returning enough to cover the $80 per day room rental; so of course, he was burning through his pops money.

, PERDUE, with your comments regarding the jackpot winner, the senior Mr. Fick. 

Mr. Fick needed pacing and discipline not to spending his jackpot monies on people AND explosives.  Rather to invest three-fourths of it in fixed interest method that he could have lived off the principle of (e.g., tax lien or tax deed certificates for perhaps awaiting the payout 24 months later).

Just saw this episode, and I wanted to reach through the TV and smack that son! You'd think that HE won the money the way he was dragging his father around by a leash, buying everything in sight for his "business".

..and the look on the restaurant owner's face was priceless as he tried to teach them etiquette!

The son must have seen an episode of American Pickers. I have never seen anyone so dismally stupid in my life. I was rolling on the floor when I saw where the kid was storing his "inventory" of collectables.

A thrashy motel room with a jacuzzi in it? Oh yeah that looked secure. Pops was footing the bill for an 80 dollar a night room so his idiot son could lay around and plan how to milk the old man of even more cash. I  almost got sick watching this crap.

Frick would have been better off if he had run into that black widow type that latched onto Shakesphere, at least he would have been rid of his son and out of his misery.

In jail for stealing a car or assault, maybe both, don't remember exactly beyond being in jail. Saw the story in the newspaper Friday and then looked it up online and here we are. Though the story I found online went into more depth than the little story that was on the front page of my paper since the guy lives in my area.

I saw their appearance on TLC's show months back but it didn't click with me that it was the same guy for some reason, I think I might have been lost in the stupidity and trashiness of it all. But yeah, this story and the money being basically gone was not at all a surprise, especially with all the worthless stupid crap his son was buying, I mean "collectables" that you'd never even get your money back from, never mind the crazy amount of money wasted for "storage", might as well have bought a house. Their segment is on Youtube apparently but I didn't watch it, didn't need another headache flike the one I had from the first time I saw it.

He should have had professional help in managing his money because while at his age 850k is a lot and enough to possibly live out the rest of ones life in comfort, not so much to live the "high life" for very long but as long you're not an ignoramus with leaches coming out to bleed you dry with stupidity.

Don't think it fair to lump in Abe, bit of a different situation. But this is stereotypical lottery winner just the same.

EDIT: Ahh, found the story again on his son, if Todd doesn't mind me posting. Yeah, he was sentenced to six months in jail for stealing a 90 year old man's car, no assault though.

http://www.mlive.com/news/bay-city/index.ssf/2011/10/son_of_auburn-area_lottery_win.html

CONCUR! Obviously must be a Pawn Stars fan also. The clerk at the pawn shop must had a good day when those 2 "suckers" showed up. Reminds me of David Lee Edwards the powerball winner from Kentucky who brought all types of junk with his windfall. I remember Mr. Edwards at his press conference saying that "He wanted to accept this money with humility and ensure that his money lasts for generations to come!"  Well you see how that movie turned out. The part that really cracked me up was his son showing were the "good stuff" was located and junior was playing with swords like he was some sort of Jeddhi Master. (LOL) He also talked about the "Fricks" like they were the Rockefellers or something! Then the old man takes his 2011 Camaro and runs it up on the curb. (The old man should have had the part edited out for the show)

At least the old man can sell the Camaro for some cash. I'm sure he can at least get about 20,000 for it!

Looking up the David Lee Edwards story, from a news item here at LP:

"The Edwards rocket was accelerating. David sought advice from lawyers in Ashland and hired James Gibbs, a 31-year-old Morgan Stanley broker, as his financial adviser. The first thing Gibbs did was arrange a $200,000 loan so David could celebrate in Las Vegas while awaiting the Powerball payment."

- Is that normal?  I mean, for the very first thing for a financial advisor to do, to set up a party with that much money, instead of devising a way to keep it safe, and then party? :/  It looks like David tried to do the right thing by seeking legal counsel and financial advice, but if these are the type of people giving you advice, and this is the type of advice authority figures are giving you............... it's not all on David.

When long-lost acquaintances turned up asking for money, David was generous.  His pals "went hog-wild," Gibbs says. "He actually had I don't know how many friends OD once he won the money, from him giving them money and them going and buying so much and doing so much drugs that they died. Then he would pay for their funerals. I would just sit there and cringe."

I call B.S.  The only reason why Gibbs was cringing was because he hadn't figured out a way to skim off that money for himself from an easy target/sucker.  His fake friends od'ing and then him paying for funerals only sounds retarded when one looks at it as socially unacceptable.  What he was doing was actually no different from when straight lottery winners do the exact same thing in socially conventionally ways.  No, Edwards should not have given his friends drugs in order to make them like him.... but with the type of advice he started out with, from authority figures, exactly how was he supposed to break away from them and break away from that life?

Stupid decisions are only really stupid when the decider knows better and makes a poor decision anyway.  If you don't know any better, it is less your fault that you didn't make the socially acceptable decision, especially if you have zero in the way of a support network and those who are supposed to be looking out for you ... don't.

I came into this thread hoping that the lottery would make financial advisement and counseling for the first year mandatory for new jackpot winners.  After reading about Edwards... I don't know.  There needs to be more oversight of the type of counseling and advice given before that's feasible.

Well, it's Mr. Fick's money to spend how he wants on what he wants.  He won it. It's free money.  Some folks want hookers and blow.  Some folks want to give it all to their favorite televangelist (ie that guy who 'saved' Oral Roberts from being 'called home to God' by giving his entire lottery win to him back in the 80s).  Some folks get more of a thrill from watching money grow than actually spending it or earning it.  And some folks like the simple things, like fireworks.

I think that the vast majority of people are Odysseus.  They need to be tied to the mast, since they're going to do what they want to do (listen to sirens) anyway.  Might as well have others around you who will help you do it in the least destructive way as possible.  A financial advisor who had an eye on actually helping Mr. Fick instead of skimming from him, could have assisted him in helping him help himself. 

I think his son is evil.  But it is his son.  Most parents are extremely forgiving towards their own children.  Maybe he thought he could buy his son's love.  Maybe he thought he could buy his son's respect.  Maybe he thought he could buy his son redemption.  Some people -- a lot of people -- get joy, get off from helping others, even if it's a co-dependent type of help, you know?  The only way the son couldn't burn through his father's money is if the father let the lawyers handle it.

That takes a lot of willpower and ability to 'step aside' from one's role as unconditionally loving parent.  Now, he's made his bed.  It's a very sad story.  But the fault likes with wanting to buy his son's love, not with the fireworks.

I originally mentioned Edwards in my post but then took it out because after thinking a bit more about it, the situation really isn't that similar. Edwards tried to at least seek assistance but failed from largely his own ignorance along with the crooks that took advantage of him and it was a much, much, much bigger fail. This guy just blew nearly a million bucks within a year and it was all he pretty much had... I wonder if he even paid the rest of his taxes...

Oh yeah, the fire works thing, he could get them from the Chippewas about 35 miles away in Mount Pleasant, which is where he's now in jail.

The first thing I'm going burn through when I win a large amount of money in the lottery game is through Dodge City.When people win large amounts of money in lotteries,people from everywhere come out of the woodwork asking for a handout.They'll have friends they didn't know they had.Remember,you can't save the world.   

While I agree that Mr. Edwards had a much bigger way to fall due to the amount of his jackpot, their situations are similar  because of the choices they made. No one is taken advantage of without their permission. Edwards ignored his financial adviser's advice and chose to go on wild and uncontrolled shopping sprees. The 200,000 dollar advance for his Vegas trip was supposed to be a one time thing for him to celebrate his good fortune and to get the shock of winning out of his system. Also like Mr. Fick's son he brought a lot of useless junk. If you google the arcticle David Lee Edwards Powerfall    it shows the rise and fall of a jackpot winner and the decisions he made leading up to the fall. So I don't feel like Mr. Edwards was taken advantage of....Instead of listening to his financial adviser and using good sense he CHOSE to blow through his fortune.

Thanks for the info DC81..................

Wow, its true . Only if you invest it it would last longer. My sister burned through 500k in 24 months. By  Christmas she was selling  her gold  jewelry for cash. Its hard for a lot of people to get that kind of money and know how to handle it.   And you read so often  they get tangled in criminal activity. 

Oh, sis is in for 2 mill when her in-laws are gone . geeesh

A fool and her money...........

Just goes to shoe a fool and his money soon part. Very sad

  I don't understand why people doesn't use there "common sense " when they win the lottery .

  Hire Lawyer , financial advisor and CPA , and knowledge , and the winner keep track of these

  3 officials , then your money can last .  Or just manage the money yourself .

     Live on a fixed income yearly ....instead of blowing the money . Short version in what , I really

    want to say ........

People are going to be people, and I don't think it matters if a person goes through Financial Management Courses or even have a personal financial advisor.  The fact remains that people possess free-wills and desires and an overseer (financial advisor) cannot be with a given person all the time. 

People are free to make wise or stupid decisions.  We could all sit up here and say what a person should or should not do when they come into a large sum of money.  But I am afraid that as long as the lottery exists, there will be many rags-to-riches-back-to-rags stories.  The fact a person wins a large sum of cash does not make that person wiser, smarter, or a better person.  It just changes the circumstances of that person's bank account.

So all of the step by step advice for lottery winners is nice to know but not really helpful in preventing people from making stupid mistakes.  The only way one can achieve that would be to establish a trust for the money and put in place spending protocol, just like many corporations and associations have (i.e. two person signatories for checks, etc).  But who would really want to cramp their lifestyle if we are talking about individual grown men and women? 

It is a shame to witness this, but after all, we are all human.

If a screenwriter actually wrote that hotel episode, the script would have been thrown in the trash and the screenwriter would have been fired for writing such a non realistic script. Truth is stranger than fiction.

Spoken like a true wise man.People are funny in the way they handle a windfall.Some people become philantropic while others think it will last forever and end up pi$$ing it away.Others get paranoid and hide away from society.Nobody really knows how they will react if & when they win a huge amount of money.We can tell others what we will do if we win,but until we win,we really don't know.

CONCUR!  Until a person actually wins no one knows what they would do. Because money changes people....some for the better and some for the worse. It actually reveals your true character!

The irony in your statement is that "COMMON SENSE" cannot be bought til after a mistake is made. Its the price many pay to even have such a sense.

I GET IT that this guy couldnt hold a dime in his hand...some folks are pound foolish. I am seriously MORE IRRATE that this is the same guy that did win...ranted about how he got to keep his food card ...and now he gets more benefits from being broke! Sometimes I think folks are better ahead when they have nuffin...other then the ability to mooch off the taxpayers....Now he gets three meals a day in jail...some education and probably will come out being "Redeemed" and Finding a Faith.

Sadly Faith was his cell mate *wink**wink* *nudge* Nudge*

I've actually read that before, I've read other stories, one or two that even had several verified comments from his daughter, the thing is that while the basics are similar they're are not all that different from nearly EVERY "lottery winner goes broke" story. However, when you dig deeper into Edward's story you'll find there's a bit more to it that make it a fair bit different.. I actually called Edwards a combination of Fick and his son due to Dave's buying a bunch of tacky crap that he thought was "classy" because Edwards for whatever reason seemed to be trying to impress others but again I ended up editing it out after further thinking about it because there's a big difference there.

One example, Fick might have a painkiller addiction but I doubt that contributed to him losing his money. We KNOW Edwards had a severe drug problem with an addiction to heroin and cocaine which was also fueled by those around him and that without a doubt contributed to how he ended up. Not to mention the horrendous effects it clearly had on his daughter being in that environment and messed up home life,  she had her own problems with drugs during and after the whole lottery business and was arrested a year ago to the day (well, not quite since it's after midnight now) for trafficking heroin..

That IMO alone is a HUGE difference as the only person really affected by Fick is Fick.  Also I dunno if you can exactly trust that guy who was his "adviser" seeing as Edwards has this idea that he was making A LOT more per day from interest than what he actually was.

I agree.  I just watched this episode again on YouTube and if the "entrepreneurally-minded" son was so focused on business, he 1) would not have gone into the local pawn shop and paid retail market value prices of things he intended to resell for a profit; 2) would have stored his inventory in a lower cost local storage unit (I know you can rent one of those for less than $150 per month vice the $2,400 he...correction, his father was dropping on that budget hotel room serving as a storage unit); 3) would have asked his father to pay for him to get his teeth fixed before appearing on TLCML (I mean, I can't take anyone seriously if they are talking big talk through missing front teeth...and I can only imagine how bad his breath must have smelled, so kudos to that guy at the restaurant for enduring that spectacle.  I bet he is LHAO now!).  Loser son!

well entrepenuer would have a market already set up, a store to sell, or a stall, or a  shop to let with a regular crowd interested int he kind of crap he wanted to sell, before he bought $1, of useless crap.

maybe renting  shelf space in a   hard done by store, or renting out his own.  but <snip>ed if you buy stock without a place to sell it!