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Holly Lahti burst into the spotlight a week ago in a feel-good story about a single mother who won a $190 million Mega Millions jackpot. Then came the mugshot: a thin young woman with disheveled brown hair, sporting a black eye and cuts and bruises on her face and neck. It turned out she was separated from a man who court records indicated had abused her, and now has a possible claim to some of the money through a quirk in Idaho law.

LOS ANGELES—A Vancouver man has been sentenced to 171 months in federal prison for running an international lottery scam that took in $1.8 million from mostly elderly victims who were lured to the scheme with promises of huge winnings in international lotteries. Dillon Sherif, 49, an Iraqi national whose birth name is Nuraldin Shareef Karim, was sentenced late Monday by United States District Judge Dean D. Pregerson. In addition to the 14 ¼-year prison sentence, Judge Pregerson ordered Sherif to pay $924,613 in restitution to his victims. Monday's sentencing ends a long legal saga in which Sherif operated bogus lottery...

FORT WALTON BEACH, Fla.- A Florida man says he accidentally shredded and threw away most of a winning lottery ticket worth $14.5 million. Chris Gooden, 31, of Fort Walton Beach said he purchased a lottery ticket Sept. 20 using the numbers from the back of his fortune cookie, 3-4-5-7-19-30, and the numbers came up as winners in the Sept. 22 drawing, the Fort Walton Beach Northwest Florida Daily News reported Tuesday. Gooden said he searched for the ticket and eventually realized he had accidentally shredded the ticket along with a stack of papers from his truck. He said pieces of...

She's been homeless, bankrupt, a robbery victim and assaulted on the job -- but radiant Rikers Island guard Garina Fearon now has 54 million glorious reasons to start living la dolce vita. The 34-year-old single mom from East New York, Brooklyn, who has endured a lifetime of hardship and poverty, told The Post she's the mystery winner of last Friday's Mega Millions drawing. "I wanted a better life. I was struggling as a single parent," a beaming Fearon said yesterday. "I've really come back from nothing." She never imagined such joy was possible when she was down to her last...

On Aug. 25, McCassell visited the Ideal Stop, Dairy and Grill in Laurelton, where the ex-signalman paid $2 to buy four randomly generated “Quick Pick” Lotto tickets for that night’s drawing. ‘He’s our best customer,” said store owner Hussein Mused. “He’s always in here buying breakfast. He likes to buy the $1 and $2 Lotto.” The next day — unaware that six numbers on one of his tickets had hit for the $14 million first-prize jackpot — McCassell went to another lottery vendor, Dynasty Deli and Grocery on Jamaica Avenue in Jamaica. There, McCassell himself checked the tickets on an...

NEW YORK — A retired New York transit worker is a big winner, but it took some detective work to find out just how big. $14 million, it turns out. The New York Lottery on Friday revealed the tale of Milledge McCassell, 72, of Laurelton, in hope of delivering a moral to the story. McCassell on Aug. 26 took unsigned tickets he bought a day earlier to the Dynasty Deli and Grocery in Jamaica, Queens, to check for possible prizes. He checked them himself on a store scanner, which for one ticket flashed "Big Winner." “I knew it was a...

A SINGLETON man took some convincing that the call from NSW Lotteries about a $1 million win in last night's Lotto draw was genuine. "I'll give you a call back after I check the numbers myself,'' he told the official who broke the good news by telephone this morning. NSW Lotteries said the father-of-two, in his forties, was only persuaded after seeing a sign about the win at his local Lotto agency, Singleton Pharmacy.

County Officials Try To Keep Mega Millions Couple From CollectingBy STEPHANIE BARISH wpix.com 4:51 PM EST, January 6, 2010 NEW YORK (WPIX) - A Suffolk County couple may have to wait a little while longer before cashing their $162-million check they won in last week's Mega Millions jackpot. Richard and Mary Morrison, of Miller Place, allegedly owe the county $950,000. As a result, county officials are seeking a court order to stop the couple from collecting their prize. According to reports, the money stems from a judgment made in 2000 against a homeless shelter the Morrison's ran for the county...

The traditional medicinal practice of smoking dried vulture brains to induce a vision of winning lotto numbers is killing off the bird's population in South Africa, researchers say. Scelo, a young healer in downturn Johannesburg's market for muti, or traditional medicine, says the birds are becoming more scarce. "I only have one every three or four months," he said. "Everybody asks for the brain. You see things that people can't see. For lotto, you dream the numbers." Rolled into a cigarette or inhaled as vapours, vulture brains can also help at the horse races, boost an exam performance, or lure...

(ANSA) - Ficarra, August 3 - This small Sicilian town has decided to take its chances and shoot for the record jackpot of Italy's SuperEnalotto game rather than wait for the state to fill its empty coffers. The jackpot has reached an astronomical 115.9 million euros, its highest ever, and for many weeks has been the biggest prize of any game worldwide. Since the town is out of petty cash, Ficarra Mayor Basilio Ridolfo took 115 euros from the salaries of town council members to bet on a series of numbers which he hopes will include the winning six-number combination...

A 92-year-old great-grandmother from Queens accidentally discarded a winning $1 million scratch-off lottery ticket - but a scrupulous supermarket clerk saved the day. -snip The Far Rockaway woman scratched them, thought they were losers and asked the clerk to toss them.

A Manhattan deli clerk may have sliced his last salami - after selling himself the winning ticket to the biggest scratch-off lottery jackpot in state history. Waleed Alsaidi, 22, will take home $10,000 per week for the rest of his life - about $6,450 after taxes are withheld - after getting lucky in the New York Lottery's "Win for Life Spectacular" game. The Yemen native said that he bought the ticket as a present to himself while working the lonely late shift on New Year's Eve at his family's S&M Deli on Seventh Avenue in Harlem.

Wife's Lotto secret costs years of grief If you won a $28.5 million jackpot, would you tell your spouse? Bernice Heslop won -- and didn't tell. The legal fights continue 12 years later. BY EVAN S. BENN When Bernice Heslop opened the paper that Sunday in 1995 and saw the six Lotto numbers, her first thought must have been: ''I can't believe it. I'm RICH!'' And then, the evidence suggests, another thought formed, something like: ``Hmmmm . . . no need to tell the hubby about this.'' It was a fateful decision that has tangled three people -- Heslop, her...

DES MOINES, Iowa -- The Powerball prize goes to an estimated $161 million Saturday. None of the tickets sold for Wednesday night's night drawing matched all six numbers drawn, which were: 9-16-21-30-52 and Powerball 9. The Power Play number was 2. Players matching all five numbers and the Powerball would have won or shared the $140.6 million jackpot. Click here to find out more! One ticket that matched the first five numbers but missed the Powerball was sold in Pennsylvania. That ticket holder will win $200,000. Eight other similar tickets were also sold, two each were sold in North Carolina...

The man who was arrested went out for drinks and lap dances, they say. Finally hitting the Lotto may have cost Kalvin Stockford his life. The burly Orange County tree trimmer won $10,000 last month and had been bragging about it ever since. Employees found their crew boss dead on the floor with empty pockets Monday morning at Gator Tree Experts near West Fairbanks Avenue. Suspicions quickly focused on Dwayne Ricardo Smith, a missing co-worker with a history of violent crimes, according to Orange County sheriff's reports. Within hours, Smith's best friend began telling detectives about a night that began...

BROOKLYN, N.Y. – No one can say exactly how much money illegal immigrants spend on lottery tickets. However, the owner of a small store in Bensonhurst admitted to me that the biggest fans of the New York Lottery are Mexicans. “They earn next to nothing doing dirty work, yet they throw $20 to $30 a day to the wind,” he marveled. “Sometimes entire families play!” Vendors rarely ask their lottery customers for ID. They couldn’t care less about a person’s age, legal status, or knowledge of English. This amounts to legalized fraud because illegal immigrants who win large sums of...

Retail owners in Atlantic Canada have been winning lotteries at rates 10 times higher than their statistical odds, confirms a review by the lottery corporation in the region. "Can I statistically explain why retail owners are winning 10 times more? No, I can't," said Mike Randall, vice-president of social responsibility for the Atlantic Lottery Corp. He added that he has not found evidence of wrongdoing, despite the higher than average win rates. "If I had any evidence of wrongdoing, I can tell you that those retailers would no longer be retailers, we would take decisive action," he told reporters Wednesday....

Italian firm's takeover of state lotto operator angers lawmakers Lottery director stands by decision to OK $4.7 billion merger; says it will be business as usual. SACRAMENTO - An Italian company with a blemished history quietly purchased a U.S. firm that runs lotto and other online games in California and 24 other states - a development that has surprised and angered California lawmakers into action. But the state lottery's acting director is standing by her decision to approve California's part in the $4.7 billion merger, as the lottery and its online operator, GTECH, reassure critics it will be business as...

(CNN) -- A dispute over a winning lottery ticket would have cost Indiana's Hoosier Lottery $5 to resolve in 1997. Now it will cost more than $1 million to settle in court.

Should illegal immigrants be allowed to collect on winning lottery tickets? Yes No Not sure