Claims she gave him $1 towards tickets
A handyman who won a $32 million jackpot lottery with his barber is being sued by his sister who says she is entitled to a third of the winnings.
Leila Nahas claims she paid her brother Samir Haddad $1 toward the $3 winning ticket and deserves $10.6 million, plus $500,000 in damages.
But Haddad said he doesn't owe her a dime, because 'they never had an agreement'.
Haddad and his longtime friend and barber Mike Dettorre hit the jackpot with a Lotto 6/49 ticket in June 2008 in Canada. (See Ottawa barber, client share $32M lottery win, Lottery Post, July 7, 2008.)
Dettorre had cut Haddad's hair for more than 30 years at the barber's Old Ottawa South shop.
Haddad, a self-employed floor installer and handyman, reckons he's bought 'thousands' of lottery tickets over the years.
The men split the winnings, and 35 of Haddad's family — including his sister — traveled to the Ontario Lottery and Gaming office in Toronto in a limousine to collect the money.
He split some of his winnings with his family and sister.
But now Nahas claims Haddad visited her store before the June 2008 Lotto draw to buy a ticket.
She said they'd agreed to split one and that she'd contribute to another ticket he planned to buy with Dettorre.
Nahas alleges he showed her an old ticket with numbers he'd played with the barber, she wrote them on a slip of paper and they settled up.
According to her statement of claim filed in January 2010, Nahas trusted her brother would tell her if he'd won with the shared ticket, but two months later, the paper fell from her wallet as she shopped and she 'realized that she was owed one-third of the proceeds from the winning ticket.'
She claims her brother admitted it was the ticket he'd bought with her, but said it was unfair for her to share the winnings because she'd only contributed $1 and he'd bought thousands of tickets for years, according to Ottawa Citizen.
However Haddad vigorously denies all of his sister's allegations, including that he told her she was 'dead to him'.
He said he went to the barber shop on the day of the draw, got the old ticket then went to the store around the corner to buy a new one with the same numbers.
He put it on Dettorre's mirror and learned from him two days later that they'd won.
The siblings haven't spoken in several years.
Dettorre is reportedly not part of the legal fight, but he could lose some of his winnings if the court upholds Nahas' claim.
The bitter battle will land in front of a judge and jury on Tuesday.
(Click to display full-size in gallery)
Thanks to myturn for the tip.
Seems like the sister wants a bigger piece of the pie. I am sure if she actually contributed to the ticket she wouldn't have waited 5 years to file a case. Besides he gave her a portion of the money anyway after him and his buddy won the lotto!
Winning sure does bring out ones true colors....
I think the next family reunion may be a little awkward.
One word sums it all up: GREED!
Get your own tickets. Brother, Sister, Mother, Father, In-law, it doesn't matter they're related when there is lots of
money at stake. Some of them turn into people you don't know anyway.
Splitting tickets isn't worth the price of the headache and heartache.
I grew up with a guy who married a local girl, divorced her then later married her sister. I always figured their family reunions were a little awkward, too.
Oh, Samir Haddad, what have you done?
Why didnt he just deny the fact that she gave him any money at all??
If he and his barber had been buying tickets for years, his mistake was ever accepting a dollar from her at all if she didn't offer to pay on a regular basis. No matter when he won she would have thought her dollar made the difference.
People who don't play the lotteries regularly like to occasionally give a dollar or two to those who do, that way if they ever win, they can claim the dollar that gave was for the ticket that won and they are owed a share.
The sister would be more believable if she had made her claim the day she rode in the limo with her brother so that HE could claim the prize. And she also accepted money from him at that time. Waiting a year and a half before suddenly discovering she'd contributed a dollar to the winning ticket hurts her credibility.
A person has 1-90 days to dispute a charge on a credit card. A person has 30 days to reconcile their bank records. A Person has 10 days to pay a parking ticket.
A person has 45 minutes to pass a drivers test. A person has 30 days til their mortgage or rent monies are due. A Senate /House has 90 days to balance a budget ( hmmm...best not to use that example!).
Basically her clock ran out...snooze...lose
.
This is why if anyone in my immediate family does win the lottery, it needs to be ME. I would gladly do an even split regardless of if they chipped in or not. If it's anyone else, I'm afraid I'd end up with the short end of the stick.
The judge will hopefully throw out this lawsuit. Its a money grab at its finest.
Never mind the sibling battle but the picture of him having to do silly things for publicity is cringe-worthy. I'd hate to be a jackpot winner and have to pose doing embarrassing things like that
For all those millions of dollars I would do that standing on my head and not care one iota about being embarrassed
Yep drama
That's crazy.....so if the sisters had children they would be auntie/stepmom
Now that's done real drama lol 
He need to pay up, she just discover the number that won was the winning numbers when she found them on the paper she put away,right is right.
I'm sure the sister would be thrilled if you'd share the proof you obviously have that she's the one telling the truth and he's the one who's lying.
The fact that she gave him a dollar is irrelevant...she could easily say they had a standing agreement that they would split it as brother and sister
Not neccessarily...She could have said they were trying to workout the payment or she could have said he kept it from her and didnt notify her that he collected the money, or she could have said when she asked for her half he cussed her out and wouldnt return her calls and refused to see her and it also takes time between the time it takes to get a lawyer and him doing his own investigations in building her case etc. etc etc and then you go file in court and they may have months before they even get to see a judge...so a year and a half really isnt that long when you add in all the variables
Indeed
The sister believes she has part ownership of any win he gets because she once gave him a dollar. There are people who will say the winner "owes" them half of a pick-4 straight win because they told them to play that number 10 or more years ago.
Everything is relevant in this type of lawsuit because her lawyer will be trying to convince a jury part (or all) of the jackpot his hers.
Little Sister can try and sue- does not mean she is going to win. Too much time has passed. Why did she not voice her concerns within a few months of the payout? I don't buy this one.
I asked a question once " if someone gave you $5.00 to play, and you won" are they entitled to a part of the jackpot?
The responses were almost universally- NO. Same here, little paper with numbers or not.
* Sage advice: if you do not have it in writing- it never happened.
That must have been one crowded limousine!
Exactly what I was thinking. I was disappointed when I looked at the picture and they didn't look like a family of circus clowns!
I agree 5 years is a long time to wait.
I would say the sister has no claim to the winnings. It sounds as if they are related but not ace boon coons (Now before someone jumps on that as being politically incorrect, let me state that I am a black person and this is a country saying that references actual raccoons). I have 3 brothers and 3 half sisters. I am really only close with one of my brothers just because we are so close in age and grew up together. If they really had a standing agreement, she would have raised the issue from the very beginning and not over a year or so after all the euphoria of the moment had died down.
Statute of limitations to file are usually at least 1-2 years and can be longer if there is some element of awareness required by the planitiff (i.e. I was not aware until 2 years later that this person I gave lottery money to won the JP, etc.). If the action is filed outside the statute of limitations period and there is no reason to justify it, it will not survive a motion to dismiss.
This is why I buy my own tickets, with my own money.
Same here. Other than the few times I was in the office pool when I worked for an employer, it's only me buying for me. And any pool I was in, we all had copies of the tickets, and everyone's names documented on the photocopy.
And it's probably a good idea to not advertise to anyone, even family, that you play the lottery in the first place. None of anyone's business really. If I won, I wouldn't tell anyone (other than my husband), before I claimed my money. Or even after. These people that you hear, who jump up and down and scream to the world when they see their numbers come up on the screen are just asking for trouble. You start getting everybody thinking about what they should get, developing unreasonable expectations in their heads, getting in your face right away putting pressure on you.
I'd just give her, the 1$ dollar back, and tell'er to go pound sand!
I hope she never sees a penny of it!! Todd keep us posted on this one please.
Greed, Greed, Greed,
the article did state he shared some money with her. It did not say how much. But I'm sure it was a nice amount.
She just wanted way more than he gave her.
You know this is why it's not so good to agree vocally how "if we win, or when I win, blah, blah, balh". What happens when you do actually win, you see all the money and make other plans. The greed and jealousy comes out in family members and/or friends.
The only fighting me and my sis would be doing is racing our new toys at the track.
I thought in times like this your family will be the one who will protect you from people who would like to take advantage of you. How come it seems like it is the family who would like to take advantage of you first. Since he already give some part of his winnings to his family, can't the sister just be contented with it, I don't understand why she has to insist on getting bigger part of the winnings.