It’s a typical scene: customer comes in convenience store and hands the clerk a lottery ticket from the previous day’s drawing to see if it is a winner. Clerk says it is not a winner, and customer is not all that surprised. But what if the ticket was actually a big winner, and the clerk just keeps it and claims the big prize? That is what happened recently to a man in Baton Rouge.
The store clerk, Melissa Trahan, told him the ticket was no good. It was in fact a winner of about $800,000 total. She pocketed the ticket and later gave it to her mother. Her mother agreed to present the winning ticket in return for $150,000 of the winnings.
Store cameras later revealed the scam, and mother and daughter are now in prison. They could be sentenced to as much as 20 years behind bars.
Here’s the sad part – the actual winner may not even receive the money he was rightfully due. The money has been seized by authorities as evidence.