Man wins $32M lotto dispute with sister
OTTAWA— Sam Haddad did a happy dance outside the Ottawa courthouse Tuesday, minutes after a judge dismissed a lawsuit from his sister seeking millions from the $32-million lottery jackpot he and his longtime barber won five years ago.
“Five years of hell is almost over. It’s over!” the 63-year-old Ottawa man cried, as a female relative ululated joyfully behind him. “That’s Lebanese yodelling,” Haddad explained to bemused journalists.
“Now we can enjoy our money,” Haddad’s wife, Denise, exclaimed. “We’re going out for the biggest supper, and I’m going to get so drunk for the next few days, I don’t even know who I’m going to be!” The celebratory scene was in stark contrast to the response of Haddad’s sister, Leila Nahas, who sued her brother nearly three years ago, alleging she had contributed one dollar to the purchase of the winning $3 Lotto 6/49 ticket in June 2008.
“Enjoy my money,” she called bitterly to Haddad’s family supporters as she descended a courthouse staircase following the emphatic conclusion from Superior Court Judge Robert Beaudoin that her story was “simply not plausible.”
Nahas’s husband, George, shielded his wife from journalists eager to get her in front of cameras stationed in front of the courthouse.
“We pursued what we believed was right,” George Nahas said in a brief interview. “We did that reluctantly at the beginning, but we were forced into it by the attitude of (Haddad), who did not really accept any responsibility, rejected us, told that we were hungry for money.”
In his ruling, the judge found that during last month’s civil trial, Nahas utterly failed to prove any of the material points of her story.
According to her, Haddad had appeared at the Union Smoke Shop, the store she and her husband ran on Rideau Street, on June 27, 2008 with a losing ticket for the June 14, 2008 Lotto 6/49 draw in his wallet.
She claimed they agreed that she, Haddad and Mike Dettorre, her brother’s barber for more than three decades, would play the same numbers in the next day’s Lotto 6/49 draw.