Illinois woman loses out on $50K lottery ticket in drug case

[UK2K]

Thoughts? I believe IF the ticket was purchased with drug money, then legally, the ticket doesn't belong to her.

On the other hand, if you can't PROVE the ticket was bought with drug money (as in, she could have bought the ticket with babysitting money which would obviously need to be verified) then it should belong to her.


DECATUR, Ill. (AP) — An Illinois woman will lose out on the proceeds from a $50,000 lottery ticket after a state appeals court ruled the government should keep the money because the ticket was purchased with drug money.

The Fourth District Appeals Court ruling overturns a Macon County judge who previously awarded the winnings to Tykisha Lofton, the Herald and Review (http://bit.ly/2dVtgo2 ) reported.

Police found the lottery ticket while raiding a Decatur home where Lofton lived with her boyfriend, Terrance Norwood. Norwood told authorities that he had already turned the ticket in to claim the prize, worth more than $35,000 when paid as a lump sum.

Norwood told police the ticket was his way out of having to sell drugs. He was sentenced in October 2015 for drug dealing, drug possession and armed violence offenses.

Lofton was present during the raid but had told police she wasn't aware Norwood sold drugs.

Police say Lofton didn't dispute that Norwood had purchased the ticket, although she scratched it off. Court documents say Lofton later told authorities she had bought the ticket with money she received from babysitting.

Lofton said her purchase yielded a free ticket and that it was the prize winner. She produced a lottery winner claim form that included her name and details.

The Macon County judge had said he didn't believe her story and ruled that the ticket was most likely bought with drug money. However, he ruled in Lofton's favor, saying that extending Illinois forfeiture laws to grab the proceeds was going too far.

Either way...

That. Sucks. Big. Balls.

[qrich]

How the **** do you prove it was purchased with drug money

[UK2K]

How the **** do you prove it was purchased with drug money
If there's no secondary source of income, it's pretty obvious.

[qrich]

If there's no secondary source of income, it's pretty obvious.

My bro gave me $20 to watch his kids.

My mom lent me $10 for food, spent some on scratchers.

[KyrieTheFuture]

What a ****ing joke

[UK2K]

My bro gave me $20 to watch his kids.

My mom lent me $10 for food, spent some on scratchers.
They gonna swear under oath for that?

How often do they give you $10? When did he give it to you? What day? What time? Did anybody see it? Did anybody see you at his place?

Does he have an ATM receipt?

Then they'll go find out how often you buy scrstchoffs. If it's quite often, then has he been giving you $10 every time you bought them? Or just this one special time, which seems highly unlikely?

Want to submit to a polygraph test?

[NumberSix]

The money Illinois have to spend on the upcoming lawsuit will cost more than $50k.

[sd3035]

It doesn't matter if they are useless criminals, that money belongs to them

[NumberSix]

It doesn't matter if they are useless criminals, that money belongs to them
Actually, if they bought the ticket with money they obtained illegally, it's not theirs. They have no legal claim to that money or anything purchased with it.

[sd3035]

Actually, if they bought the ticket with money they obtained illegally, it's not theirs. They have no legal claim to that money or anything purchased with it.

yeah but how can that possibly be proven?

[NumberSix]

yeah but how can that possibly be proven?
Do these people have an income? If you have no job and you're a drug dealer, it's not difficult to tell where your money comes from.

I might be wrong on this, but i don't think you can even claim lottery winnings if you bought it with welfare money.

[UK2K]

The money Illinois have to spend on the upcoming lawsuit will cost more than $50k.

That state is so fooked, they couldn't even pay out their winners until recently:


Lottery winners in Illinois get IOUs for prizes over $600

You can play the lottery in Illinois these days, but you just can't win much.
The cash-strapped state said on Thursday that it can't pay out anything over $600 for the time being. For a ticket worth more than that, winners get an IOU that won't be paid off until the state government resolves its long-running budget crisis.

Illinois Lottery spokesman Steve Rossi blamed the hold-up on "the ongoing budget stalemate in Springfield," the state capital. "Once a budget is passed, all outstanding claims will be paid."

The administration of Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner has been tussling over the state's finances with the Democratic-controlled legislature for months.
Things have been going downhill for Illinois lottery winners for a while. Back in July the state capped its payouts at $25,000.

http://money.cnn.com/2015/10/16/news/illinois-lottery/

[Long Duck Dong]

Just pay the crack whore :rolleyes:

Then have the IRS audit her

[TommyGriffin]

They gonna swear under oath for that?

How often do they give you $10? When did he give it to you? What day? What time? Did anybody see it? Did anybody see you at his place?

Does he have an ATM receipt?

Then they'll go find out how often you buy scrstchoffs. If it's quite often, then has he been giving you $10 every time you bought them? Or just this one special time, which seems highly unlikely?

Want to submit to a polygraph test?
The burden of proof resides on the state to prove that the ticket was bought directly with drug money, not the other way around.

Honestly the ticket was probably bought with drug money, but the seizure of the lotto winnings appears to have not been legitimate due to lack of concrete evidence.

Polygraph isn't admissible in court.

[UK2K]

The burden of proof resides on the state to prove that the ticket was bought directly with drug money, not the other way around.

Honestly the ticket was probably bought with drug money, but the seizure of the lotto winnings appears to have not been legitimate due to lack of concrete evidence.

Polygraph isn't admissible in court.

The plus side is, it doesn't look like they seized it.


However, he ruled in Lofton's favor, saying that extending Illinois forfeiture laws to grab the proceeds was going too far.

Her argument was that the winning ticket was a free ticket from another winning ticket, which was incredibly stupid.

I don't know. Normally you can trace drug money through accounts and what not, but I'm curious to know how they just decided it's not legally hers.


"Because of the direct link between the lottery winnings and the funds used to purchase the original ticket, the winnings can reasonably be considered 'proceeds traceable' to Norwood's illegal drug sales," they wrote.

[TommyGriffin]

I would be interested to how they proved so certainly that the ticket was bought with money directly from drug trade. There is nothing really to disprove the story someone gave as an example before about "my friend gave me 10$ to buy some things at the store." Perhaps it couldn't be verified through under oath testimony. Maybe since the state can prove that they were paying rent and buying food and basically living off drug money, any expendedatures on the side ultimately got subsidized by the drug money and were not possible without it. Therefore making the ticket valid for seizure.

However it was done, in my opinion it seems like an uphill battle to prove without a shadow of a doubt that the ticket was bought directly with drug money. They got it done nevertheless.