Lottery Winner Becomes Record-Setting Loser
LOS ANGELES, CA — It’s official. Someone in Chatsworth is a record-setting loser. With a court ruling this week, a Los Angeles man lost his bid to claim a $63 million SuperLotto Plus jackpot, by far, the largest jackpot in state history to go unclaimed.
The man, Brandy Milliner, sued the state, alleging he bought the winning ticket. However, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Yvette Palazuelos dismissed Milliner’s lawsuit based on evidence provided by the state that Milliner’s ticket wasn’t the real deal.
According to the California Attorney General’s Office, the winning ticket was purchased Aug. 8, 2015 at the 7-Eleven store at 20871 Lassen St. in Chatsworth, but Milliner’s ticket was bought at a 7-Eleven store at 4051 Leimert Blvd. in Los Angeles on July 10, 2015. Deputy Attorney General Neil Houston argued that experts could tell where Milliner’s ticket was bought by examining its paper stock. The winning numbers were 46, 1, 33, 30, 16 plus Mega number 24.
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Milliner was so close to claiming the jackpot. According to his lawsuit, he even received a letter from the state congratulating him on his winning. But it was followed by another letter claiming his ticket was “too damaged to be reconstructed.” The letter cited a section of the California Lottery Act that explained the commission was unable to process Milliner’s claim, the suit stated. He tried to force the lottery commission to fork over the money claiming it has “interfered” with his prize by withholding the ticket, refusing to return it and refusing to award him the grand prize.
According to lottery officials, it’s not uncommon for scammers to try to claim a jackpot with a hoax ticket. What is unusual in this case is that a major jackpot would go unclaimed.
“It’s an odd situation,” California Lottery Deputy Director Russ Lopez told Patch when the deadline to claim the winning ticket expired.
He said no credible winner ever came forward.
“We pay out 60 million a week on average, so we have a lot of claims. We are looking at backlogs of claims to see if anyone tried to claim it,” he said at the time. “There were so many hoaxes, so many photoshopped tickets, so many claims. Anybody can make a claim. The bottom line is: is it truthful? Did they purchase ticket? Is that the true original ticket with the true original numbers? We conduct a full and thorough investigation on all major jackpot wins.”
City News Service contributed to this report. Image of the Chatsworth 7/11 courtesy of Google Earth