Valid $179 Million Lost Lottery Ticket Turned In- Battle Looms Over 'Lost Property'

Detroit Free Press ^ | 1/6/04

[11th Earl of Mar]

CLEVELAND (AP) -- Someone turned in a valid ticket for the $162 million Mega Millions multistate lottery jackpot, the Ohio Lottery said Tuesday, a day after a Cleveland woman claimed she lost the winning ticket outside the convenience store where it was sold.

[hobbes1]

Of course you could. But what you couldnt have was another ticket with those numbers on it from a previous date, Jamison claims to have played the same numbers the friday prior.

And According to the news item this AM.

Battle, 40, is a pharmacy trainer for Rite-Aid. She would not talk about the specifics of when she bought the ticket, how she lost it or even if she was a regular lottery player

Seems kind of odd to me.....

[mabelkitty]

You have a point there.
I'm getting my news from local media - big mistake on my part. They tend to stay away from anything "controversial" like black people. You think Cinci is bad....

[mabelkitty]

Attorney advised her not to go public with that info, but she did tell the police.

[thesummerwind]

Battle, 40, filed a police report saying she dropped her purse as she left the Quick Shop Food Mart last week after buying the ticket. She said she realized after the drawing last Tuesday that the ticket was missing.Did Ms. Battle tell the police the numbers she bet BEFORE the winning numbers were announced????

[smith288]

You don't live in Cleveland, do you. I do.

Ok, I dont. I live in Columbus. But as far as I can tell, Mrs Jamison acts and looks respectable and has a nuclear family. There is nothing that would tell me she would risk fraud and end up in prison thus destroying her family. Mrs Battle, however, has nothing to lose. 7 kids and 3 husbands? Thats is a personal prison.

[SamAdams76]

The Ohio Lottery says the ticket is a bearer note, which means whoever turns in a valid ticket is legally entitled to the winnings.

Listen. All state lotteries have this policy and they do it for a very good reason: To avoid endless litigation and bickering over situations like this. Whether she genuinely lost the ticket or not, this woman doesn't have a leg to stand on. If you don't have the ticket in hand, then sorry, but you cannot claim your prize. End of story.

At least in Massachusetts (I don't know about other states), there is a signature line on the back of every ticket. If the person buying the ticket signs the back of it, then only that person can claim the prize even if the ticket falls into somebody else's hands. That is why the Lottery here urges everybody to sign the back of their tickets immediately after purchase. If somebody finds a winning lottery ticket on the ground and it is unsigned, they can sign the ticket with their own name and legally claim the prize. No matter what the circumstances.

[BJungNan]

She's a liar and a fraud and she should be sent to jail.

The plot certainly thickens! Hmmmm...stay tuned!

[Bikers4Bush]

That's exactly the point I've been trying to make.
There has been no report of the "loser" verifying any other numbers and the one station we saw it on reported it was a $5 ticket.

[hobbes1]

What I mean is, much like the cops, they dont even ask the most elementary questions...Like,

Was it a single ticket, If not how many plays are on it?
What are they? and how did you pick them as well?

All of that should have been asked by the Donut Squad.Yet they get to carry guns....

[mabelkitty]

She identified a group of men in their 30s in the vicinity when she dropped the ticket. Store owner confirmed a man with that description came into the store and checked his numbers and confirmed he had the winning ticket.

Unless Jemison can prove she played the same numbers last Friday, I wll assume she got it through deception.

[Bikers4Bush]

It's over.

CLEVELAND - A woman turned in the winning $162 million Mega Millions lottery ticket Tuesday, saying she came forward sooner than planned because she was angered by another woman's claim that she bought the ticket and lost it.

Rebecca Jemison, a hospital worker from South Euclid, turned in the ticket for the 11-state jackpot at Ohio Lottery headquarters, officials said. The lottery validated it Tuesday morning as the sole winning ticket for the Dec. 30 drawing.


"I think I checked it about five or six times to make sure to see was it real," Jemison said at a news conference at lottery headquarters.


She said she told her mother even before telling her husband. "Being a mama's girl I wanted to share the news with my mama first," she said.


She also talked to an attorney and an accountant before turning in the ticket.


Jemison took the immediate cash payment option, which is $94 million before taxes. After taxes, the lump sum payment is an estimated $67.2 million. She and her husband said their only definite plan is to relocate.


In the meantime, "I haven't had any sleep so hopefully when everything dies down I can get a, definitely a good night's rest."


She was accompanied by her husband, Sam. They have a 12-year-old daughter.


Earlier, a Cleveland woman, Elecia Battle, 40, had filed a police report saying she lost the ticket last week. Police said her story was credible, but lottery officials said whoever turns in a valid ticket is legally entitled to the winnings.


Jemison said she was not worried about Battle's claim because she knew she had a valid ticket.


"First of all I want to clear up a few things that have come out in the press. One of them is that I've been playing these numbers for about two years," she said.


Ohio Lottery Director Dennis Kennedy said officials were sure that Jemison is the rightful owner of the ticket, saying she provided a receipt from the convenience store marking the time the ticket was sold.


Kennedy said he would let police handle Battle's claim.


Jemison said Battle's story motivated her to turn in the ticket.


"I was angry at first but not worried at all," Jemison said. "I knew what I possessed."


Battle's lawyer, Sheldon Starke, did not immediately return a call seeking comment on the lottery's announcement. He had said Battle intended to make a case that the winning ticket was lost property.


Battle told police that the numbers — 12, 18, 21, 32 and 46 and Mega Ball 49 — represented family birthdays and ages.





Jemison said she picked the numbers at random and only played them for large jackpots.

South Euclid police Lt. Kevin Nietert said he had not been able to reach Battle and her attorney by phone.

He said that if it was later determined there was a lack of truthfulness, police could consider criminal charges. The charge could be filing a false police report, a misdemeanor punishable by 30 days to six months in jail and a $1,000 fine, he said.

[hobbes1]

Ohio Lottery Director Dennis Kennedy said officials were sure that Jemison is the rightful owner of the ticket, saying she provided a receipt from the convenience store marking the time the ticket was sold.

[Bikers4Bush]

For emphasis....

"Ohio Lottery Director Dennis Kennedy said officials were sure that Jemison is the rightful owner of the ticket, saying she provided a receipt from the convenience store marking the time the ticket was sold."

"South Euclid police Lt. Kevin Nietert said he had not been able to reach Battle and her attorney by phone."

[mabelkitty]

Here's what I don't get.
Why didn't the "attorney" that she consulted tell her not to answer any questions or make any comments at the news conference? Sheesh! If she is lying, everything will be checked by the end of the day just because of the nosy journalists in Cleveland who don't want to break real news like how Kucinich destroyed Cleveland and why our city never recovered from default (and never will)...but I digress.

[smith288]

Ohio Lottery Director Dennis Kennedy said officials were sure that Jemison is the rightful owner of the ticket, saying she provided a receipt from the convenience store marking the time the ticket was sold.

Game. Set. Match.

[hobbes1]

LOL GMTA

[stlnative]

Are you still believing that Ms. Battle was telling the truth that she lost the ticket?

If I am right each ticket has a ID number (serial number) on it. These are printed out when the lotto number sets are picked and printed. You go in and pick your numbers and it gets printed out with the ID number also on the ticket.

The machine knows the serial number on the winning ticket (this serial number ID's the store at the very least). The serial number ID's the store and probably includes a number for how many tickets were sold. Example... The Serial Number might be 1231010 (123 would ID the store, 1010 would ID that this was the 1010 ticket sold for that day, 1010 would also mark the time period the ticket was sold).

I am sure they questioned Ms. Battle to find out if she only had one set of numbers on the winning ticket or if she had several sets of numbers picked out on the one ticket. (chances are she said it had only one set) If she had more than one set, that what were the other numbers? Since they have the serial number of the winning ticket, then they would know how many sets of numbers were on that ticket and what the numbers were for each set of number on the ticket. Ms. Jemison has the winning ticket that probably has more than one set of numbers on it and she probably has the slip card with all the numbers on it, since she played these numbers for over 2 years. Most weekly lotto players have sets of card they fill out and use weekly when playing. They hand the prefilled card out to the cashier, they slip it in the machine, it prints the ticket out, they hand back the ticket and the prefilled card so that prefilled card can be used again without having to fill out a new card each week. You only replace and refill out a new slip card when to old one wears out or cannot be read by the machine. Most people fill the new card out to match the old one. Ms. Jemison can probably prove that she has been playing these same numbers for sometime as she probably has old loosing tickets that hold the same numbers on them.

The point is... the lotto knows which store sold the ticket, what time it was sold, what the serial number is on the winning ticket, if the ticket held only one set of lotto numbers or if it held several lotto number sets, if it held several sets of numbers then they know what the numbers are for each set.

The lotto folks are not going to tell the cops that the winning ticket had one set of numbers or if it had several sets of numbers, they also will not disclose if the ticket had several number sets and if it did were all the numbers picked by the machine or were they taken from a slip card. They will wait until the person who has the winning ticket shows up to verify who the winner is. The lotto people probably knew all along that Ms. Battle was not the winner or had serious doubts if Ms. Battle claimed that the ticket had only one set of numbers when it did not or if she claimed it had several sets of numbers and if she told them they were picked by her or machine. If they were picked by her then she should know what each set of numbers were. Lotto officials know if the number sets were random (picked by the machine) or if they were read off a slip card. There are many ways to know who the true purchaser was of the winning ticket.

It is possible that the cops believed Ms. Battle at the beginning, but they probably contacted the lotto officials and they probably told them what Ms. Battle told them. The lotto may have told the cops that her story did not match up with the true ticket and the cops let Ms. Battle run with her story so that she could be pinned as a lier or the lotto officials would not release the specifics to the cops about the real winning ticket.

[mabelkitty]

They don't give receipts for lottery tickets.
Lottery tickets are sold seperately - not with goods.

[IYAS9YAS]

Thanks, didn't see that originally. If they didn't publish when or where the ticket was purchased, and she knew it, either someone blabbed elsewhere or she may have a claim. Either way, only two people know for certain who is lying and who is telling the truth.

[PBRSTREETGANG]

Does Ohio Lottery Director Dennis Kennedy live in Cleveland? Otherwise, mabelkitty won't believe him.