Posted on: July 24, 2024, 07:51h.
Last updated on: July 24, 2024, 07:51h.
A Tennessee store clerk has been charged with Class A felony theft of over $250K for his failed alleged plot to steal a customer’s $1 million winning lottery ticket.
When the clerk, Meet Patel, 23, arrived at the Tennessee Lottery’s Nashville headquarters to claim the jackpot, lottery officials became suspicious and obtained security video from the store, according to a news release from the Rutherford County Sheriff’s Office.
He went to the Tennessee Lottery Commission to claim the ticket as his own and through their normal line of questioning there were enough red flags for them to say, ‘Hey, you need to get all of your affairs in order and come back to us and we’re gonna hold on to the ticket,’” Lt. Det. Steve Craig told WTVF.
$1M in the Trash
The video from the day the ticket was sold showed a customer enter the Murfreesboro, Tenn. Shell station and buy two $20 Diamond and Gold scratch-off tickets. The customer asked Patel to check them for wins there and then.
If you scratch off the front bar code on a ticket, the store’s computer system can immediately tell you if it’s a winner, regardless of whether you scratch off the other symbols or not.
The video showed Patel scanning the tickets, both of which were winners. The clerk returned one winning ticket with a jackpot of $40 and threw the million-dollar winner into the trash, according to the Sheriff’s Office. Later, the video records Patel fishing out the ticket and putting it in his pocket, authorities said.
Patel is currently being held at the Rutherford County Adult Detention Center. His bond has been set at $100,000, and he is due in court July 30. In Tennessee, the sentence for a Class A felony is 15–60 years in prison.
“It’s pretty obvious. It’s good enough for me to put in front of 12 jurors and make sure that they all come to the same conclusion,” Craig told WTVF.
Real Winner Found
After reviewing the security footage from the store, the Sheriff’s Office was able to identify the real winner and notify him of his good fortune. The Antioch, Tenn. dad, who has opted to remain anonymous, was initially skeptical, believing it to be some kind of telephone lottery scam.
“The feel-good side of this story is the [he] never knew he was the winner until we made contact with him,” Craig said. “That is absolutely life-changing money.”
