£65m lotto winner ‘cheated colleagues’
A MCDONALD’S worker has been accused by her colleagues of trying to cheat them out of a record £65million lottery jackpot.
Mirlande Wilson says the winning ticket she claims to hold was bought for herself alone and not for the 15strong syndicate she buys for.
Her co-workers became suspicious as soon as she informed them of her good fortune and they marched to her house in Baltimore, Maryland.
All six of Miss Wilson’s numbers apparently came up in Friday’s £409million U.S. Mega Millions draw, the largest lottery prize in the world.
There were two other winners in Kansas and Illinois – neither of whom has come forward. The winnings can be taken as an after-tax £65million or as £3.4million a year for 26 years.
Miss Wilson, a 37-year-old Haitian immigrant, had been nominated by her colleagues to collect the cash and play the lottery on their behalf.
The single mother of seven said she had no idea why she was being accused of cheating.
‘We had a group plan, but I went and played by myself,’ she insisted. ‘(The winning ticket) wasn’t on the group plan. I was in the group, but this was separate. The winning ticket was a separate ticket.’
When the numbers came up, Miss Wilson called her Mcdonald’s outlet and told her colleagues that she had become enormously rich.
But Davon Wilson and another man who has been identified only as Allen
‘They are going to kill you’
went to her house and demanded answers.
Allen said he told her: ‘These people (her co-workers) are going to kill you. It’s not worth your life!’
He claimed that Miss Wilson replied: ‘All right! All right! I’ll share, but I can’t find the ticket right now.’ Sulei- man Osman Husein, a shift manager and member of the lottery syndicate, said he was furious.
‘She can’t do this to us! We each paid $5. She took everybody’s money,’ he said.
Lottery hopefuls spent £930million on Friday’s draw. The winning ticket was sold at a 7-Eleven store just outside Baltimore four hours before the numbers were revealed.
Stephen Martino, the director of the Maryland Lottery, said that no one in the state had stepped forward with a winning ticket yet.
This means either that Miss Wilson has her numbers confused or that she has not started the process of claiming the jackpot prize.