No such thing as easy money. it comes back to bite you in the end.

A few years back @ a casino near Indy guy wins jackpot.   Instead of taking him in a back room, they were rather uncouth as you couldn't help but hear them tell him he owed child support and this would be taken out of the jackpot win.

Sending in a 'beard' doesn't always work.

Looks like  Mr.Hay.'s "taxes" were worse than Minnesota's  taxes.

I wonder if Mr. Hay even knew his friend was a father and/or had huge other related uncancelable debts.

Research people you want to become friends with.

Well the Iowa lottery does not play....look how long they investigated and got convictions in that infamous MUSL case.   The book about it was a very good read and though it was like looking for a needle in a haystack they won in the end!

"An associate of a lottery winner pleaded not guilty to lottery fraud" and the fraud is "for turning in a winning lottery ticket that reportedly did not belong to him."

If they're saying the legal owner is the person that purchased the ticket than anyone getting a scratch-off as a Christmas present and simply cashing a free ticket could get arrested. And how about the dumpster diving industry or someone finding a ticket in a parking lot?

Most lottery rules and regulations are consistent and most players understand things like back taxes and child support could be deducted. Had neighbors ask me to get scratch-off and other game tickets for them and not any different than asking to purchase a gallon of milk for them.

"Hay successfully claimed Hanson's winnings from the Lottery on Sept. 12, 2018."

It looks like they're saying Hanson was the legal owner of the ticket, but Hanson said nothing watching Hay cash it. The jury trial will start on June 29 and Hay will remain not guilty depending on the outcome of the trial.

Considering the Iowa Lottery hired someone that rigged multiple RNG drawings, it's easy to see why they want to know who purchased a winning ticket. But we're talking about the same lottery that changed their rules "to allow the sale of a "scratchless" scratch ticket". Sure would like to watch that trial just to see how the Iowa Lottery legally defines the owner of any ticket. 

*note to self; never buy a lottery ticket in Iowa

Does that mean they had surveillance video of Hanson buying the ticket?

"If they're saying the legal owner is the person that purchased the ticket"

They're not, because they can't. They can try to sort out who the owner is, but they don't get to decide. The purchaser may buy a ticket on behalf of somebody else who would then be the owner right from the start, or the purchaser may own the ticket when they buy it and then legally gift it to somebody else. As long as the ticket was purchased legally the original owner can legally transfer ownership under normal circumstances.

There may be a valid argument that the debts prevented the purchaser from lawfully transferring assets, but I'm not sure how completely that ties in the other guy to the charges. I'm sure the lottery will argue that he only pretended to be the owner, but how easy will it be to prove that? Can they prove the original purchaser got most of the money back and  the things he supposedly bought weren't paid for with other money? Can they prove the purchaser didn't make a gift of the ticket and then the  claimant felt obligated to give back gifts in return?

Another problem is the Iowa Lottery already gave the winnings to Hays believing he was the real owner. I just don't see the difference between Hanson buying the ticket and giving to Hays and someone buying scratch-offs as Christmas presents. 

"I'm sure the lottery will argue that he only pretended to be the owner"

Hays became the owner when Hanson gave hit the ticket. It will be interesting to see how the lottery plans on proving when the ticket changed hands. Can they prove Hanson scratched and knew the value before giving it to Hays?

It sure looks like Hanson gave the ticket to Hays to avoid paying taxes and child support, but what law did Hays break?

Not sure if you are saying MUSL and Iowa are one in the same.   They are not and Tipton worked for MUSL.   

I see NOTHING wrong with what they did. So if I have a winning ticket, I cannot GIVE IT (as a gift) to a friend of mine??

Thats BS.

Jon

So, the legal owner is the person that purchased the ticket as recorded on video surveillance. The lottery has access to the transaction. 😁✨🌟

If you just wanted to gift your friend the lottery ticket with no strings attached, then that's fine.  But that's not what happened here.

This guy gave it to the friend to redeem so that they could avoid paying back taxes, child support, etc., and then the friend gave most of the winnings back to the original winner.  That's illegal.  It's like declaring bankruptcy while secretly hiding assets from the court.  That puts you in jail.

Very well said, Todd.

Just re-read your article.   So this character skating under the radar for various issues and tried to get over and got outed.  Wheels of justice turn slowly and perhaps his wages will get garnished which they should---if he works that is.

1. Why Hanson went with Hay to pick up the prize at the lottery headquarter?  If Hanson knew he would be in trouble, he should have sent Hay by himself to pick up the money. 

PRIVACY QUESTION. 

Suppose I won $25000, and I go with my brother, friend, co-worker to pick up the winning prize at the same lottery headquarter,

So THEY ARE GOING TO CHECK the BACKGROUND FOR ALL THE PEOPLE THAT SHOWS UP WITH ME. 

THEN, IF my co-worker owes child-support to the States, then we all are in trouble. .. Since I have a clean background, they will suspect me of helping someone in the group.

Can't speak for all state lotteries, but many require an appointment.   With the pandemic I seriously doubt they'd even let those characters to go in with you.   A moot point.

" Hays successfully claimed Hanson's winnings.

Plan A was a success, it's Nicholas's action that followed that got him in hot water. My guess is word got out that he was flush with cash, but he was not following through on paying back child support as he should have. Had he initially done the right thing, we would not be reading this.

Moral of the story: Don't mess with Motherhood.

"Hays successfully claimed Hanson's winnings."

If the winnings belonged to Hanson, why was Hays' name on the check and why didn't Hanson say his ticket was stolen or lost? 

It's probably obvious to anyone reading this article Hanson was looking for someone to cash the ticket to avoid paying back taxes and child support. So let's call that a given if it can be proved in a court of law. But it's Hays not Hanson that is accused of falsely cashing in a $50,000 winning scratch-off ticket. Without witnesses to whatever deal between Hays and Hanson or proof Hays knew of Hanson's tax and child support problems, even Jack McCoy couldn't prove Hanson falsely cashed the ticket.

There is one witness that could testify against Hays, but I seriously doubt Hanson is going to incriminate himself. Like I said before, it's going to be interesting.

l see your point, but the article does not say how much time has expired between Hays cashing the ticket & him being apprehended. Sufficient time had passed for Nicholas to buy the TV, the vacation to Vegas etc etc. as l mentioned, word had to have gotten to the female or females of this story who l " think" got law enforcement involved to end up  nailing Hays & subsequently- Hanson. The bridge in this story goes through the female or females- IMO.Perhaps, in a fit of anger with the mother of his child or children, Hanson ran off at the mouth about him getting the money through Hay's involvement. 

"That's illegal".  Right.  The crime he committed is called fraud. G5

This is nothing new at all. Illegals do it all the time in N.C. I was at the Raleigh claim office and have seen it for my own eyes because the guy didn't have a social security card and he was calling different ones on his cell phone who had one to come to Raleigh and claim it for him.

Found this when I googled "is it illegal to cash a lottery ticket you didn't buy":

It is not illegal to sell a winning lottery ticket, even for more than it's worth. But a host of problems surround the transaction. Any cash transaction of more than $10,000 needs to be reported to the IRS, and attempts to circumvent that retirement are a crime. You would also need to report the money as income.

Probably why Hanson wasn't charged. The ticket was cashed and paid over two years ago, but apparently the Iowa Lottery decided to investigate the circumstances. And why players can't claim anonymously in Iowa, 

The Iowa Lottery Authority rules and regulations 99G.36

Skyler Sturgis Hay, 29, allegedly committed the offense in 2018 when he visited Iowa Lottery headquarters in Clive with friend Nicholas Martin Hanson, 41, to claim a prize for a winning scratch-off ticket worth $50,000. However, the ticket belonged to Hanson, who owed Child Support Recovery, taxes to the state of Iowa, college student loans, and various other debts to "numerous entities."

Won't comment on whether or not the Iowa Lottery can prove that Hays knew why Hanson gave or sold the ticket to him.

 It belongs to the person purchasing the ticket unless you use the additional Claim Form 5754, to claim it together.

"But that's not what happened here."

Based on the claims related in the story that certainly sounds plausible, and maybe ev en likely, but can you prove it beyond a reasonable doubt? Even in Hays wrote  check to Hanson for most of the prize value, how do you prove the reason for doing it? Maybe when he found out that the ticket his very good friend with all of the financial woes gave him so generously he felt that it wouldn't be fair to keep the money. That's another thing that's plausible (I won't argue if you insist that possible is a better word).

Were either of the two stars of the story dumb enough to admit that it was a scheme to avoid  paying the debts? Did Hanson really ask other credible people to claim the prize for him and give him most of the money? Maybe we'll find out somewhere down the road.

"It belongs to the person purchasing the ticket unless you use the additional Claim Form 5754"

Who the owner or owners are is a completely separate matter than what form is required for a single claimant or for multiple claimants who are joint owners.

"It is not illegal to sell a winning lottery ticket"

If you sell a ticket after the drawing or after it has been scratched you're selling a financial instrument with a presumed value (until the lottery examines it there's always a chance it might turn not to be worth whatever prize you think it won) and I'd definitely expect that to be legal under most circumstances. Selling a winning ticket as part of a scheme to avoid having debts withheld might not be considered a lawful transfer of ownership, though it may well give you a better chance  in a criminal trial than  simply making a gift of the ticket.  Not that I see much  reason for it to happen, but if you sell a lottery ticket before the drawing or before scratching it then you're selling a chance, and there's a possibility of running afoul of laws against gambling.

Since it will almost certainly never benefit me I'll share an idle speculation about selling a winning ticket instead of claiming the prize myself. I sometimes buy tickets when I happen to be in a different state where the income tax rate is lower, and on those occasions I'll buy a ticket for multiple drawings. That means that if the state allows a full year to claim a prize any prize I win, except perhaps for the first drawing, can be claimed more than a year after I bought the ticket. Suppose I were to win a significant prize and waited for 366 days before selling the ticket for 95% of the value of the prize? Let's say the prize is $100 million. Whoever buys the ticket has a cost basis of $95 million and a profit of $5 million on which they'll pay income taxes. I'll have a profit of $95 million (ignoring the $2 purchase price).

Do I pay regular income tax on that $95 million or do I pay the lower long term capital gains tax rate? The law is very well-established law that if a winner sells the remaining value of an annuitized prize the income from the sale will be treated as regular income, and none of the attempts to claim that income as capital gains has been successful. Unlike those people I wouldn't be selling a (remaining) lottery prize. I'd be selling a financial instrument, in the form of an unclaimed lottery ticket. The purchaser of that instrument would presumably claim the prize and be declared the winner, while I would be a guy who never received income in the form of a lottery prize but had a lot of income from the sale of the financial instrument I'd held for more than a year.

It definitely would be interesting provided a criminal trial held in open court comes to fruition.  My guess is a plea deal will be offered to both of them and that they'll accept it and a jury trial wont ever happen. 

But who knows!  Both defendants are gamblers, maybe they've got the nerve to go to trial.  The prosecutor has to be able to prove their original intent/motivation was to avoid paying child support and back taxes.  Based upon the knowledge he/she has, the prosecutor must think they can do that or they wouldn't have charged those guys in the first place.  G5

The article doesn't say if Hanson was charged with anything and the allegations against Hays are he cashed the ticket so Hanson could avoid paying back taxes and child support. Hays will probably say he cashed the ticket because Hanson offered him a few thousand to do it.

Most state lotteries suggest and promote buying scratch-offs as stocking stuffers at Christmas time and people give money as presents too. Couldn't find any Iowa law making it illegal to resell or gift lottery tickets. Because Hanson accompanied Hays, there is no question of the ticket being stolen or of ownership.

The Iowa Lottery withholds 5% for state taxes and 24% for federal taxes on winnings over $5000 off the top so taxes were paid on the winnings. Because 29% was deducted from the $50,000 winnings, Hays probably didn't have to pay more and maybe got a refund.

Even though I'm positive Hanson is dirty, I don't see how they can prove Hays knowingly cashed the ticket so Hanson could avoid paying back taxes and child support.

it's a pretty weird situation, but we're talking about Iowa where a New York lawyer tried to redeem a $16 million Hot Lotto ticket bought in Iowa just hours before the ticket expired. Maybe they do background checks on all the people accompanying the winner.

This ticket was cashed in 2018 so pandemic was not an issue.

I too think Hays was well aware of exactly what Hanson's situation was with regard to Hanson's child support being in arrears and back taxes.  And that's probably because Hanson told him all about it. (And they could be related too - cousins or brothers-in-law.)

But the thing is, how can the prosecutor possibly know (not to mention prove beyond a reasonable doubt) exactly what or was not in Hay's head? Judges always say "You can not tell me what was in the defendant's head. That's hearsay."  The DA obviously knows that, so what does he have up his sleeve that makes him think he can get a conviction?   Or maybe the DA is bluffing hoping he can get Hays take a plea deal. 

Knowing that most District Attorneys wont charge someone unless they think there is a solid chance for a conviction, if the DA truly isn't bluffing, what makes him think he can put Hays away?  G5

Iowa-So much going on there- From Hot Lotto to Fields of dreams. What's not to love. 

I still dont see an issue. Lets take a smaller example... say I win $4 on Powerball. Can I give that ticket to a FRIEND as a GIFT?

Regardless if its $4 or 200 million. Why cant I give it to whoever I please for WHATEVER reason I want?....and did the defendant ADMIT he has malice intent OR is it assumed because of his past debts? Also, say I win 200 million, can I hand that ticket (not yet signed) over to a charity?

Jon

THANK YOU !!!!!!!!

But whhhhyy couldn't they just over look the bag ... I'd offer up my Cut in taxes and say I am not responsible for whether a grow man pays his bills ot taxes ... Cheezy lawyer

Looks like they're going to prove Hansen's motive by getting the testimony of other people he tried to get to cash his ticket. 

I'm surprised at the charge against Hay though.  Why not charge him as an accessory in defrauding the courts or whomever it is that's responsible for making sure Child Support is paid?  If Hansen told the other people why he wanted them to cash his ticket, then it can be assumed that Hay knew what he was doing.