[SIZE=+2]Cheated Texas lottery winner says he’s staying hopeful [/SIZE] [SIZE=-1]11:52 AM CDT on Wednesday, October 28, 2009 [/SIZE] [SIZE=-1]By AVI SELK / The Dallas Morning News aselk@dallasnews.com [/SIZE] Willis Willis is a man of few wants. Courtesy If he had a million dollars – and he almost did until, police say, a convenience store clerk tricked him out of his lottery winnings – he would get a root canal and send his daughters to college. If there was anything left, the 67-year-old Grand Prairie man said, he might buy a set of golf clubs. For Willis, the more pressing question is when – or whether – he will see the first cent of the $1 million authorities say he won in a Mega Millions drawing in May. Willis didn't realize he was a winner when he gave the ticket to the clerk, who handed him $2 back and cashed in on the big prize himself. "I hope to have it in my hands as soon as I can possibly get it," Willis said Tuesday, the first day he has talked publicly about the case. His lawyers might do more than hope. "Mr. Willis should not be forced to sue to collect his prize," attorney Sean Breen warned in a letter sent on Monday to the Texas Lottery Commission. Breen said the commission should have been suspicious when the clerk, "one of its own agents," claimed the prize. He wants it to give Willis the full amount immediately – even while police seek to recover the bulk of the cash and find the clerk, Pankaj Joshi – who may be as far away as Nepal by now. Willis has been rolling with the punches since his lucked rolled in – and then right back out. He called Joshi a "lowlife," but said he had never doubted the clerk's honesty in the four years he had bought tickets from him at the Lucky Food Store in Grand Prairie. "I never noticed anything," said Willis, an out-of-work maintenance man. "I was always treated with respect." Willis didn't find out about his missing million for weeks and thought his buddies were pulling his leg when he walked into his favorite sports bar and was told a lottery commission investigator had been asking around for him. "I thought somebody was making this up," he said. Even after the investigator took photocopies of Willis' old lottery slips – he has played the same numbers for a decade – and told him he might have won the drawing, he didn't immediately realize how much was at stake. "Hey, I think I've won," he told his four daughters when he checked the Mega Millions Web site a few days later and saw five of his lucky numbers listed for the drawing. Even then, Willis kept his wits about him. "Nothing excites me to jumping up and down," he said. At which point in the interview his attorney chimed in with some optimism: "He's going to be plenty excited when they tell him he's getting his money," Breen said.
He is not the store owner just a clerk who cashed $1 million that didn't belong to him then fled out of U.S to his native nepal, he wired the money to overseas bank account I've read this in the paper but I didn't know the victim was black until now. if Mr willis knew he won why didn't he carefully check how much he won ? or be a computer savvy and check the results online, You can't trust anybody nowadays there are too many crooks out there....... I have read similar story where a gentleman won $1 million and he thought he just won $10 so he went to the store to cash it, the store clerk checked the ticket and said: "I can't cash this for you" and handed the piece of winning paper back to him, "you mean you can't cash $10" the winner asked so the clerk said: "check here" he showed him how much he won $$$$$ that clerk was very honest. He coulda done the same thievery
Ahh that's really crap, I hope he sees some of that money! or the lottery fund makes a goodwill gesture to him, just shows you cannot trust anyone.
To anyone who plays the lottery:make sure you have the winning numbers,and put your name and addy on the ticket. I saw a Dateline report some months back of people who are cheated out of their lottery winnings by store owners.
Finally luck was on his side Willis Willis will finally get some of his $1 million lottery jackpot. On Tuesday, state District Judge Bob Perkins signed an order restoring to the Grand Prairie man $395,000 seized from the bank account of a store clerk accused of stealing the winning ticket. "I feel pretty good, a bit relieved," said Willis, 67, shortly after the hearing in Austin. "I'm glad we finally made it to this point." Willis said he planned to spend part of the money on medical bills and a daughter's college tuition. "It's all stuff that has to be paid for," he said. "Things I really needed the money to take care of." About $365,000 of the cash restored to Willis was seized by Travis County prosecutors from bank accounts opened by the store clerk, Pankaj Joshi. The other $30,000 was recovered from people in Dallas to whom Joshi had given money. Authorities believe Joshi took the ticket from Willis, told him it was not a winner and cashed the ticket himself. He then returned to his native Nepal. The Nepalese government has frozen an additional bank account connected to Joshi there, said Patty Robertson, a Travis County assistant district attorney. Sean Breen, Willis' Austin-based attorney, said the account is believed to hold around $300,000. Prosecutors are working with the U.S. State Department to return to the money to Travis County. However, because a foreign government is involved, the process is complicated, Robertson said. "I really don't have a timetable on when, or if, that will happen," she said. About $50,000 of the winnings probably won't be recovered because Joshi withdrew it in cash, Breen said. Joshi, 25, who was a student at the University of Texas at Arlington, is charged in Travis County with fraud and unlawful flight to avoid prosecution. His bond is set at $10 million. Authorities have gone to great lengths to locate him. Robertson said. They have contacted his parents and notified the Nepal Embassy in Washington, D.C. Newspapers in Kathmandu, the Nepalese capital, have reported extensively on the case, she added. Breen said he will continue to try to force the Texas Lottery Commission to award Willis the rest of the jackpot. Lottery officials have refused, saying they consider Joshi the winner because he signed and redeemed the ticket. After Tuesday's ruling, Breen said he wondered how the commission could still deny that Willis was the winner. "The judge looked at the evidence and determined it was obvious Mr. Willis was the winner," he said. Willis bought the winning ticket May 29 at the Lucky Food Store at 902 Great Southwest Parkway in Grand Prairie, authorities said. He returned there May 31 to have the Mega Millions ticket and others scanned to see whether they were winners. The Mega Millions ticket was a winner, but Joshi, who scanned it, gave Willis only $2 for a Cash 5 ticket, authorities said. BY ALEX BRANCH
I didn't notice that until you pointed it out. WTH were his parent's thinking? Reminds me of a woman I met once named Rosy Nipple... another WTH moment.
I am sick and tired of greedy money worshippering types who are almost everywhere these days, such kind of people will sell their own mothers down the river, its true love of money is the root of all evil.... Becaause those types of people put money ahead of people and everything else they cannot be trusted. ALL they see is the dollar sign. good god, I am sick of them. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs and some by longing for it have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, in their eagerness to get rich, have wandered away from the faith and caused themselves a lot of pain. Certainly, the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil. Some people who have set their hearts on getting rich have wandered away from the thruth and have caused themselves a lot of pain. For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows. For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil: which some reaching after have been led astray from the faith, and have pierced themselves through with many sorrows.
Well, Jay. Now I know you can quote the Bible, but what does your Qur'an say? Or did you change faiths?
At least he got some of his money and lives to see it, not like that poor SOB Abraham Shakespeare that was off'ed because he won the lottery. By a White Woman no less!
We need to have a News Of The Weird or On The Lighter Side section for some of these Truly Fucked And Screwed Stories. Un-freakin'-BELIEVABLE!!!!!!!!!:smt107 OpinionsCartoonStudios@Yahoo.Co.UK
