A winning $1 million lottery ticket picked out of a gas station trash can has become the subject of a three-way legal battle in Arkansas.
Sharon Jones was at a Super One Stop in July 2011 in Bebee, Ark., when she went to a trash bin to pick up a handful of discarded lottery tickets, as she had done many times before, according to her attorneys.
"It was, in fact, not a losing lottery ticket and not only that, but it's worth a million dollars," Jones' attorney Winston Collier told ABCNews.com. "Thus a controversy was born."
Jones turned in the ticket and received a check for $680,000. After the check was issued, the lottery commission began the process of confirming all winning tickets and in the course of the investigation, surveillance footage showed Jones grabbing a handful of discarded tickets from the trash bin.
After seeing the footage, the store manager, Lisa Petriches, claimed that customers were not allowed to take tickets from the bin and that she had a deal with the manager that those tickets belonged to her.
A month after Jones collected her check, Petriches filed a lawsuit against her, claiming that the winning ticket was hers. Petriches also claimed that there was a "Do Not Take" sign on the bin.
"Our theory is that it was abandoned property," Collier said. "Once someone has abandoned it, it becomes the property of the first possessor."
One of Petriches' attorneys, Steven Underwood, refused to comment for the story.
A third party entered the equation this week when Sharon Duncan claimed that she was the one who originally purchased the ticket and that the jackpot is rightfully hers. The attorneys are meeing with the lottery commission on Monday to determine if there is any way to confirm the ticket's ownership.
The $680,000 winnings are frozen as the case makes its way to court, but Collier said that his distressed client already spent some money in the month she had the winnings that she would not have otherwise spent, including buying a used car.
美國阿肯色州的一張百萬美元巨獎彩票近日引發(fā)三方法律爭奪戰(zhàn),這張彩票是一名女子在一家加油站的垃圾桶撿到的。
去年7月,莎倫•瓊斯在阿肯色州畢比市的“超級第一站”外的垃圾桶里撿到了一把丟棄的彩票。據(jù)她的律師描述,之前她也經(jīng)常這樣做。
瓊斯的律師云斯頓•柯里爾告訴ABCNews網(wǎng)站:“事實上,這張彩票不僅中了獎,而且中了100萬美元。所以爭論就產(chǎn)生了。
瓊斯兌換了這張彩票,收到了68萬美元的支票。支票開出后,彩票委員會開始對所有獲獎彩票進(jìn)行核實,在調(diào)查中,監(jiān)控錄像顯示瓊斯從垃圾桶里抓出了一把丟棄彩票。
看到這段錄像后,店主麗莎•彼得里奇聲稱,顧客不能從垃圾桶里撿彩票,她和管理人員早就約定好這些彩票歸她所有。
瓊斯領(lǐng)走支票后一個月,彼得里奇起訴了她,聲稱這張巨獎彩票歸自己所有。彼得里奇還表示,垃圾桶上有“不要帶走”的標(biāo)識。
柯里爾說:“我們的理論是,這是被放棄的財產(chǎn)。一旦有人放棄了它,就會歸第一位持有人。”
彼得里奇的一位律師、史蒂文•安德伍德對此未予置評。
本周,又有一位女士加入了這場爭奪戰(zhàn)。莎倫•鄧肯聲稱自己是彩票的買主,大獎當(dāng)然應(yīng)該歸她所有。幾位律師周一在彩票委員會碰面,決定是否有辦法確定彩票的歸屬。
由于這起案件交由法庭裁決,這筆68萬美元的大獎被凍結(jié)起來,但柯里爾說他的經(jīng)濟拮據(jù)的委托人在中獎當(dāng)月已經(jīng)花掉了一些本不該花的獎金,包括買了一輛二手車。