Most groups purchasing lottery tickets know that you must share and record all the numbers for a group purchase and store the ticket(s) in a mutually accepted place. But the $640 million Mega Millions drawing last weekend enticed a lot of new players to participate. And Mirlande Wilson of Baltimore, Maryland, has a fight on her hands over who owns the winning ticket.
Wilson, a single mother of seven children, admits that she did contribute to the McDonald’s “office” pool, but swears that she purchased the winning ticket separately with her own cash. “We had a group plan, but I went and played by myself. [The ‘winning’ ticket] wasn’t on the group plan,” Wilson told the New York Post, insisting she alone bought one of the three tickets that will split the record $656 million payout.
Her co-workers disagree. Suleiman Osman Husein, a shift manager and one of 15 members in the pool told the Post, “We each paid $5. She took everybody’s money!” Further corroborating Husein’s version was a man identified by the Post only as Allen, who was also part of the pool. He said Wilson bought tickets for the group at the 7-Eleven in Milford Mill, which is where the winning ticket was sold.
Further complicating the case is a security recording at the convenience store where the ticket was purchased, which may show that the winning ticket was purchased by a man. Link
