Ohio Woman Admits Lying in Lotto Case

CNN ^

[AppyPappy]

CLEVELAND (AP) - A woman said through tears Thursday that she lied about losing the winning ticket for a $162 million lottery prize awarded to another woman.

Elecia Battle, 40, of Cleveland, is dropping her lawsuit to block payment of the Mega Millions jackpot to the certified winner, said her lawyer Sheldon Starke.

[dread78645]

.....so far I only see a charge of filing a false police report.

In Texas, a false lottery claim over $200 is a felony.

[new cruelty]

Thanks for the valuable insight.

I'm going to Atlantic City soon. I'll still give the Martingdale system a try.

Thakns again!

[SerpentDove]

>>Maybe she figured that if she had the money, she would be able to get in enough trouble that Cleveland would have to rehire the cops.<<

Now THAT is funny!!!

[NYCVirago]

Maybe she figured that if she had the money, she would be able to get in enough trouble that Cleveland would have to rehire the cops.

Great line!

[NYCVirago]

There's little difference between throwing money away that could make your life and the lives of your children happier and taking a substance that takes your life from you.

Please. Smith288 is not exactly Pete Rose here -- even $5 a week isn't exactly going to put the children is the poorhouse.

[Tempest]

How on earth is a lottery a tax??? All contributors to it are willing.

[ladylib]

``I'm not a bad person, I'm really not,'' she said. ``Everyone has a past.''

What the hell does that mean? Everyone's been arrested for something sometime?

[ladylib]

Yes, she will, according to news reports -- 30 days to 5 or 6 months in jail. And since she's been convicted before......

[smith288]

Please. Smith288 is not exactly Pete Rose here -- even $5 a week isn't exactly going to put the children is the poorhouse.

Some of these people act like the passive lottery playing will end my family as I know it. *sigh*

[AppyPappy]

How on earth is a lottery a tax??? All contributors to it are willing.

So is a sales tax.

[Tempest]

Sales tax is voluntary?!?!? You mean I could have opted to have the sales tax deducted from my purchases all this time?!?!

You mean that by participating in a sales tax I will be contributing to a pool that is organized by a private corporation that will be submitting my sales tax in with other willing contributors whom will by luck of the draw decide who will recieve the bounty of that sales in return in either one lump sum or 26 annual payments?

Lottery is not a tax. Nor is it legislated in a manner that requires everyone to participate in it.

[RightWinger]

They should make her buy 10 tickets a week and give them to a charitable organization.

[justlurking]

If you have a 1 in 35,000,000 in winning $5, you don't play. But if the return is $55,000,000 then you do.

For a proper comparison of risk vs. return, you really need reduce the advertised jackpot substantially. For the MegaMillion game, a $100 million jackpot is paid over a 25 year period, so the cash value is actually slighly more than half that (it depends on the implied interest rate, which is around 4.5% at the moment).

So, if we make things easy and presume it is half the advertised jackpot, the potential return on a $1 investment is actually about $50 million.

However, the odds of winning the MegaMillions jackpot is 1 in 135,145,920. So, the advertised jackpot would hav eto exceed about $270 million for the potential return to exceed the risk.

[justlurking]

These giant jackpots have a 100% chance of being given away.

Not quite. For it to be 100%, every possible combination of numbers would have to be purchased by one or more players. For the drawing in question, 1,130,918 tickets won various amounts of money for matching the "mega-ball". Since there are 52 balls, a uniform distribution of mega-ball picks would mean about 58.8 million tickets were sold.

However, the odds of winning are 1 in 135 million. So, that means there was only about a 1 in 2 chance that someone would have actually won the jackpot in the last drawing.

Presuming that every set of numbers are chosen more or less randomly (without explicit measures to exhaust all the possibilities), there is always a chance that there is some set of numbers that were not chosen. As you choose more sets of numbers (randomly), the probability gets smaller, but never becomes zero unless you have an infinite number of random choices.

[steve-b]

How on earth is a lottery a tax??? All contributors to it are willing.
So is a sales tax.

I've decided not to pay the sales tax any more. From now on, I'm going to live on air (the fact that you cannot fatten capons so notwithstanding).

[mhking]

She did it 'cause she wanted to "help people?" The only person she wanted to help was herself...

Just damn.

If you want on the list, FReepmail me. This IS a high-volume PING list...

[Wissa]

However, the odds of winning the MegaMillions jackpot is 1 in 135,145,920. So, the advertised jackpot would hav eto exceed about $270 million for the potential return to exceed the risk.

Yup. With those odds, if you bet on a small jackpot and only got ten or fifteen million after tax, you'd slap your head and say "Well, THAT sure wasn't worth it!". (end sarcasm)

A smaller jackpot can be enough to change your life (being able to quit your job to travel around the country for a few months, for example). As long as you're not betting money you can't afford to lose, and you're the type who buys lottery tickets, you're better off playing it any time the payoff would be enough to set you up for the rest of your life.

[Lancey Howard]

``I'm not a bad person, I'm really not,'' she said. ``Everyone has a past.''

Here's a riddle: Would Elecia Battle be more likely to vote Democrat or Republican?

Time's up.

[Bella]

I sincerely hope she doesn't get away with this. She's already got a record, wonder if she was on probation? If so, she's going to be going for awhile.

[freeangel]

Sorry to say, that even with her past, the news just reported it will earn her no more than 6 months.