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Subscribe to RSSA Maryland woman who says she purchased one of the winning Mega Millions lottery tickets now claims the ticket has been misplaced. WRC's Shomari Stone reports.
A mother-of-seven who claimed she was one of the winners of the $656 million Mega Millions lottery told NBC News on Thursday that she has lost the ticket.
Mirlande Wilson, 37, claims she bought the winning ticket at a 7-Eleven in Baltimore, but so far none of the three winners -- the two others were in Illinois and Kansas -- has actually come forward to claim the money.
Asked by NBC Washington’s Shomari Stone whether she was going to ask for her share, Wilson said, "if I find it [the ticket]."
Stone then asked Wilson if she had lost the ticket and she replied, "I misplaced it."
Read more news on NBC Washington
She was reportedly responsible for a McDonald's employee pool of Mega Millions tickets, but has said that the winning ticket wasn’t part of the pool.
On Wednesday, Wilson’s lawyer Edward Smith Jr., asked the press to leave her alone. Journalists gathered in his office and were then told to go away.
"That's really it … to ask you to go back to your places," Smith said.
Woman who claims to be Mega Millions winner: Leave me alone
Wilson, a Haitian immigrant, told Stone that her situation was "really stressful."
Amid continuing doubts about her story, Stone asked her if she had made it up.
"I didn’t make up the story," Wilson told him. "I did not make up no story to get no attention."
Maryland Lottery director Stephen Martino said the winner has until Sept. 28 to claim the prize. The winner has to do so in person, but doesn't have to make their identity public. Two other winning tickets were sold in Illinois and Kansas.
Stephen Martino, Director of the Maryland lottery, tells reporters that as of now, no one has approached the lottery claiming to be the holder of a winning Mega Millions ticket.
Martino said the winning ticket was sold at approximately 7:15 p.m. on March 30 -- less than four hours before the drawing -- at the 7-Eleven on Liberty Avenue in Baltimore. It was a Quick Pick ticket, and was the only one purchased at that time.
Martino said that officials have looked at surveillance tape at the 7-Eleven, but that there is an issue because the timestamp on the tape does not exactly match the timestamp of the lottery ticket machine, so they can't be exactly sure who bought the ticket from that video.
Because of all of the rumors swirling around who possesses the ticket, Martino is urging people who bought tickets at the 7-Eleven to check their tickets again to make sure they don't have the winner. He said he hopes that people haven't thrown out their tickets thinking that someone else won, only to have had the winning ticket all along.
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No foolin', I won to, but you see, the dog ate it, aaaa, can you still cut me a check?
I've been wondering. Does her hair come off with the hat? Or are those two separate items?
How many times a day does this woman hit the "dumb" button? So far, I've read: the ticket was one she bought for herself, the ticket was buried in a "secret hiding place" inside the McDonald's, and photocopies of all the tickets in the McDonald's pool exist. Now, she "lost" or "misplaced" the ticket and she was the custodian of the pool tickets. If you think all of this is strange, just wait because it will get even stranger.
The existence of photocopies is important because you don't just have the game numbers, but also lottery agent number, lottery terminal number, and ticket serial number printed on the ticket. This is important for the verification process because if you show up with a winning ticket, lottery will match those numbers against the numbers on file for a winning ticket; this is how they catch people with doctored tickets (doctoring a lottery ticket to obtain a prize that you must file a claim for is usually a felony).
What does this mean for Mirlande the Moron? If she presents the ticket, lottery will almost certainly put a hold on the prize because there is some apparent documentary evidence that she is not the rightful owner of that ticket. Again, go to the numbers on the bottom of the ticket; not only will they tell you where it was bought and on what terminal, but if the winning ticket was part of a sequence of tickets bought at that same location (using quick picks as an example, if you play 29 quick picks, you'll end up with five tickets with five wagers on each and a last ticket of four wagers; the file at lottery will have those wagers, with corresponding serial, agent, and terminal numbers along with the time the wager was made. If the pool photocopies show a sequence of wagers, including the winning numbers, which matches such a sequence on file with lottery, Mirlande the Moron is in big trouble. She'd be looking at felony larceny (value of the prize) and obtaining money under false pretenses (trying to pass the ticket off as belonging to a sole winner and not a pool). Not to mention, if the pool can successfully establish its ownership of the ticket, Mirlande the Moron would most likely forfeit her share of the pool purse due to what would be illegal actions.
What do I think will happen next? This ticket is probably going to surface in someone else's hands. Presumably, it will be someone stupid enough to be a "straw man" for Mirlande the Moron. He'll probably have a preposterous story, like he fished it out of the trash. In the mind of a stupid person, this makes sense because we already have a ticket stashed in a "secret hiding place" only for it not to be there. Where would it most likely end up? In the trash. Where do the legal issues pop up? The people who have what is apparent documentation of ownership never did anything that would result in the ticket ending up "in the trash". The only person who did anything regarding any physical custody or movement of tickets was, in her own words, Mirlande the Moron. The "straw man" in such a scenario would most likely be arrested on the spot.
All she had to do was keep her mouth shut because Maryland law allows you to claim a prize without having to be publicly identified (this is contractual by-laws of the lottery commission for promotional purposes). She would have more than likely had the cash option in her hands and the door hitting her in the backside on the way out. She could have gotten away with the entire purse before anyone in the pool even figured out what happened, if only she kept her mouth shut. Instead, she'll be looking at jail time and forfeiting her share of the purse.
Are you kidding! This soldier is only expression himself, it does nothing to Obama, it doesn't hurt or injury him, it doesn't hold him against his free will. A soldier from combat, I’ve express myself self on whether we should be in this situation, all the way from my commander to the president on hand. The question to me would be has he done his job, if in combat, protecting his fellow soldier and serving his orders. I've heard nothing against that. I'm getting tired of we, and I am not white, cannot say anything against a black person. It's discrimination, @!$%#, go to a black party and that all you heard is them crackers, or hocky. We are turning like the Muslim, can't talk about this or that, a book get you killed. We just gave the gay an open expression, which I hate, by this Obama. Where still trying to figure out if he an American still. An article 15 of military code of justice, but a dishonorable, hell no.
look at her... are any of you shocked?. farce.
If she had a ticket, it's now in the dump in a Big Mac box. Boo Hoo!
She still will never get any money unless she produces the ticket. That's the way the lotto works.
she misplaced the ticket ? please ! just like she misplaced condoms 7 times...!!
And here I thought we were gonna get Schameeka here off the system and she could support herself for a change.....oh well !!!! Give her a hoodie !!
stupid is what stupid does !
Instead of flipping burgers she flipped.
It's trash like this that make the people from Baltimore look stupid. What a colossal moron this woman is. This dumba**, coupled with the thugs that robbed, beat up & stripped the guy a couple weeks ago, is the reason that people look at the city & shake their head in disgust & shame. While I don't live in Baltimore, THANK YOU SWEET JESUS...I live in MD & I have to say, I'm pretty ashamed of this state. Baltimore is disgusting & most of the people who live there are the exact reason for the stereotype. Gross!!
Such stupidity .....
You watch, when the real person comes forward she's going to claim they found her ticket and try to get it or part of it through the court and the real winner will have to wait years to get the money.
the lady is crazy the first day that I had won I've would of camped out at the lottery office she messed around and lost it real idiot
The down side to this whole thing would be if someone else really does have the winning ticket, coming forward now to claim their winnings will be made unnecessarily hard on them due to additional scrutiny the lottery board may want to apply on them.
I think she never had it to begin with, that this whole thing sounds faked. If she did lose it, how stupid is that? Why didn't she just take the ticket, quit her job, cash it in and go far, far away. How do you forget where you hide something as valuable as that? It would be burned into my head! I think she's a crazy ass looking for attention. I hope someone finds it and cashes it in and divides it among the winners and leaves her out of the game. They could claim that they "found" their winning ticket finally.
"
Now, that is what you call "DUMB". Who in their right mind would lose a lotto ticket worth millions. Yep, she is not the brightest crayron in the box. Lady, please stop doing this to yourself, you will look plain stupid.
Don ax her nuttin. She be truful.
I sense an Obama apology coming.
Don't they have a video of the person who bought the winning ticket? By now they know the place, day and time the ticket was bought and if the place has a security camera they could find out if she is the person who actually bought the ticket.
You folks may think she dosen't have the winning ticket. READ the story...she has an attorney...who most likley told her to say; " I misplaced it"...Until he finds a way to ensure she screws her co-workers out of their share. There is a case similar to this where the winning party had to share...but this attorney will no doubt use the fact that it was a, " quick pick single bought ticket" to prove it was not a part of the pooled tickets. I think she won but is too mentally challanged as what to do from here....hence the attorney. His first question to her would have been..." show me the ticket and I'll help you" thats why he is still around... to ensure he get his share too lol
@ #4.12
I think she did, as well. otherwise, she would have not spent her Mcdonalds salary on a lawyer assuming, the state did not appoint her one due to the lottery issues shes in.
About two years ago in Cleveland, Ohio a woman claimed to have the winning ticket in the Ohio Lottery, but couldn't produce it. Then another individul came forward with the winning ticket. The woman claiming to have had the ticket then said she must have dropped it, lost it etc. The Ohio Lottery Commission froze the prize money and let the Court attempt to sort it out. Eventually, this woman acknowledged she had lied. She then tried becoming a female professional boxer. Money does strange things to people. As Forest Gump said "stupid is as stupid does"
why is the press giving this idiot any attention at all?
Such BS...she BS'd her way into this stupid lie. Some people are such idiots!
@!$%#neequa please, it may be wedged between her gigantic asscheeks.
Or as someone posted earlier, she could be the smartest of us all! She may have someone else come forward and then they will share. Problem with that is, if party #2 doesn't hold up their end of the bargain, where does she go? Can't sue!
Sometimes things aren't what they seem!