Texas Clerk Steals $1m Lottery Jackpot Ticket - 10-28-09

October 28 - Despite the fact that he had been buying his Mega Millions lottery tickets from Pankaj Joshi, a clerk at Lucky's Food Store in Grand Prairie, Texas, for years, 67-year-old Willis never saw it coming when Joshi stole his winning ticket worth $1 million from right under his nose.

Usually we publish happy stories about instant lottery jackpot millionaires, but this time the focus of our tale is an unhappy 'almost millionaire'. The Mega Millions lottery debacle dates back to May this year, when Willis visited the store and asked 25-year-old Joshi to check to see if they were winners.

The dishonest clerk pretended to do so and told Willis that there were no winners, so the pensioner left the store empty-handed. However, Joshi held onto the winning ticket and then proceeded to claim the Mega Millions megaplier jackpot of $1 million, which amounted to about $750,000 after taxes.

At the lottery claim centre in Austin, Texas, the criminal clerk had the money wired to a private bank account and then vanished, never to return to Lucky's Food Store where he was the king of the microwave and the big gulp. He is thought to have fled the United States and returned to is native Nepal.

Lottery authorities got wind that something was wrong thanks to Nick Parveez, Joshi's Lucky's Food Store manager, who contacted them in July when he learned that the store had sold a winning $1 million Mega Millions megaplier ticket around the time that Joshi stopped showing up for work.

It soon became apparent that Joshi had pulled a fast one and skipped town, to the detriment of Willis. After the 'conman clerk' received his undeserved windfall, he allegedly spread it amongst various bank accounts. Up until now authorities have only been able to recover roughly $350,000 of the jackpot.

If Willis can prove in court that that the money is rightfully his, at least he'll be able to enjoy some of his Mega Millions megaplier jackpot. Said Austin assistant district attorney Patty Robertson this week, 'Never to this degree have we seen a clerk steal a winning Mega Millions jackpot ticket.'

The moral of the story folks is to verify your winning tickets before you check them at lottery retailers as well as write your names on the back of your tickets in the event that they are lost or stolen.