IOWA CITY, Iowa — A New York attorney who signed a winning Lottery ticket turned in minutes before the deadline says he'll be in Iowa this week to explain the mysterious circumstances behind the jackpot.
Crawford Shaw said he expected to arrive in Iowa on Monday night and spend a few days meeting with his lawyers and Iowa Lottery officials. He says he hopes to get "everything straightened out."
Shaw is representing a trust that turned in the winning Hot Lotto ticket on Dec. 29 less than two hours before the one-year deadline. After taxes, the jackpot is worth either a $7.53 million cash payment or $400,000 annual payments for 25 years.
Iowa Lottery officials say they won't pay the money until they are satisfied the ticket was legally possessed.
Sue!Sue!Sue! Suey!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I thought tickets were bearer instruments. This is BS. They know where the ticket was bought and the date and time, if they don't....... Iowa lottery has nary a chance to prove anything in court.
I imagine the winners are one of the following:
1. Muslim - don't want people to know played the lottery and won; nor want scrutiny of where some of those millions will go (can you say Hesbolah? Al Qaida?).
2. Released Convict, likely a sex offender - again don't want any media scrutiny.
3. Indian former convenience store owner found guilty of lottery fraud - need I say more, Mr. Patel?!
4. Former clerk at store where ticket was purchased - don't want scrutiny as to how possess ticket.
I know all that may sound prejudicial or even racist but it is not as though situations like the above have not happened in the past. Additionally, jackpot winners hailing from Iowa typically tend to not have a problem with participating in the media conference announcing who the big winner(s) are, so this does seem at odds with that and suspicious. Let me win, and you will see my face plastered all over the TV. Do I know a lot of people? Yes I do. Am I worried they will now (after the win) hit me up for loans and donations? No I am not because I know how to say, "NO" and I know how to buy myself a plane ticket and go places where no one who knows me can contact me. After awhile, people will get the hint and go about their lives. But the people who foolishly start off lending money or even giving monetary gifts to family and friends and don't know how to tell the charitable organizations flooding their mailbox and ringing their phone "NO" are the ones who have problems. Why everyone knows that Jim Carrey, Julia Roberts, Jay-Z, Beyonce, Michael Jordan, Tom Brady, John Paxson, Dave Capelle, Tom Cruise, Madonna, Warren Buffett, Bill Gates, Oprah Winfrey, Mitt Romney, Nancy Pelosi, and many other politicians, celebrities, sports stars, and businessmen/women are loaded and their net worth is publicized without major problems. It just goes back to the fact that you have to mature to a level of financial stewardship that the average person has not yet accomplished, so the end result is we read about or see on TLC "Curse of the Lottery" about people who lucked into millions and blew said millions in a short period of time. It has nothing to do with pedigree because I just read about an Irish billionaire who is now bankrupt and everyone knows that Jack Whitacker was a businessman when he hit the Powerball jackpot. So I say, come forth true winner, come forth.
I THINK it was a young person that could legally buy a lottery ticket in his home state and then discovered that you have to be 21 in Iowa to play the lottery.The lawyer set up a trust for him until he reaches the age of 21 and then he can have full access to the money.It's yet to be seen whether Iowa will allow the underage winner to keep any of the money because he broke the law when he bought the ticket.Just my opinion.
Well, hopefully, this lawyer will give us LotteryPost members a few ideas, pro bono, regarding how to set-up-oneself AND claim hefty lottery jackpot winnings successfully.
Dream on,HaveABall.When was the last time you heard of a lawyer doing ANYTHING for free?
That's interesting, how else would the individuals get the lottery ticket? I am following this story.
You have to be 21 to play the lottery in Iowa? that's some BULL. btw wouldn't the place that sold the ticket be more or less at fault there? and yeah, I think you might be right.
That is a possibility I was not aware of until I went to New York's lottery website and read where you just need to be at least 18 years of age in order to play. But I don't buy that as the reason no one from the winner's family will come forward. If the person has a father, trusted uncle or cousin, they could have come forward along with that particular person and had that person be the "front" man as having purchased the winning ticket. Yet the trust still could have been drawn up to the satisfaction of the "underage" winner. I mean, they had over 360 days to think this through and they chose the most suspicious option to claim the prize?!!! I guess not all people in New York are smart and saavy!
I'm confident that Iowa's own Inspector Clousseau will solve this caper!
I don't know if any other states have the "you must be 21 or older" rule or not.Iowa still treats all 18,19 & 20 year olds as "half-adults".They can't buy lottery tickets or legally drink but they can vote and go marching off to war.Insanity is my opinion of the law.
My state prints the age requirement on the playslip.
That's for winning tickets, though. No state is going to find out you bought a losing ticket while under age and give your dollar back.
Several times on this site I have read claims that lottery tickets are bearer instruments. Guess what? They are not!
I have never read on any lottery corporation website or advertising claiming that lottery tickets are bearer instruments.
The theft of lottery tickets is relatively easy and it has occured several times. When a large prize is claimed, one of the first objectives of the lottery corporation is to determine if the ticket has been stolen.
Gee that's funny. I went right to my NH lottery Commission website and under FAQ'S for the question "what happens if I lose my ticket?" it specifically say's that all tickets are "bearer instruments" and warns players to sign immediately to protect themselves.
After that I looked at the fine print of all my losing Poweball, MegaMillions, Hot Lotto, Megabucks Plus, and Weekly Grand tickets and they all say
"THIS TICKET SHALL BE A "BEARER INSTRUMENT" UNTIL SUCH TIME AS A SIGNATURE IS PLACED IN THE DESIGNATED AREA AND PAYMENT OF ANY PRIZE SHALL BE MADE AS DIRECTED BY THE PERSON(S) WHOSE SIGNATURE(S) APPEAR ON THE BACK OF THE TICKET".
Now I'm not going to bother checking all 49 other states, but I think it might be safe to assume that all US lottery tickets are "bearer instruments"
LOL, Cletu$2, ... ho, ho, ho!!!
Maybe the lawyer from NY was monitoring LP and picked up on the Jackpot Winners Protection Program idea!
I have a feeling this guy is going to get grilled
Medium well........ or burned???
Yes, Coin Toss, that would be nifty ... maybe the jackpot winner's lawyer is psyched ... will be able to charge their client a lot more justifiably now, anyhow!
Sorry, but it says they are bearer instruments on the tickets themselves and the state lottery sites. There have even been cases already where the state flat out said someone gets the money because they turned in the ticket.
https://www.lotterypost.com/news/123795
That article has a man pulling a lottery ticket out of the trash and having full rights to the money, even after the person who bought the ticket challenged ownership.
http://blog.chron.com/newswatch/2011/05/man-sues-texas-lottery-commission-after-being-cheated-out-of-ticket/
That's an article about the popular Willis Willis guy which includes this tidbit: "lottery officials are not responsible for lost or stolen tickets."
Anyways, I think this whole situation is just wasteful of money. Only the conspiracy theorists are out there thinking that the lottery officials are scamming everyone and trying to hide that fact. The only result of this, other than useless spending, will be that these people get their winnings a little later than they would have (though since they already waited a ridiculous amount of time it doesn't seem they are bothered by that).
Even if it didn't say anything on the back lottery tickets would be bearer instruments until they were somehow registered to the owner, which can be done by signing the back. Despite the rampant misunderstanding of what it means, a bearer instrument is simply a financial instrument that the owner doesn't have to register. That's in contrast to registered instruments, where the owner is registered as the owner. cash is also a bearer instrument, but most people understand that their cash doesn't belong to somebody else simply because that person manages to get possession of it.
In the first case somebody claimed they were the rightful owner of the ticket and filed a lawsuit before the lottery paid the prize. That person died before it was resolved and his heirs settled with the finder. The lottery only paid the money after the case was settled.
In the Willis case the lottery had already paid the money to the person who stole the ticket before the rightful owner surfaced. The lottery had no obligation to reimburse him because they paid the ticket in good faith, and no longer had the money he was entitled to. It was no different than if the thief had stolen his wallet and bought something with the money that was in it. The seller wouldn't have to return the money. It would still be the thief who is responsible for reimbursing him.
Yeah they are. They are bearer instruments. What I think happens is this: as the prize gets larger, the lotterys' agency own rules become less relevant to the lottery and it becomes more of a STATIST tax revenue collection agency organization. Think about it.....................what if there was no lottery???????????????? Where would those billions of dollars come from????????????????? It has been called the low income people tax authority. They have no problem paying the little ones under $600 but when it gets over that watch out biachies.