Ex-store boss convicted in theft of lottery tickets

A 32-year-old Little Rock man arrested during an investigation into possible lottery fraud at the convenience store where he was manager was convicted of felony theft Monday for stealing about $1,500 worth of scratch-off tickets.

The theft by Alfred James Walker Jr. came to light in April during a probe launched over complaints that the Arkansas Lottery Commission was deliberately allowing defective $20 scratch-offs to be sold at the store. Walker faces a sixyear maximum for Class D felony theft when he is sentenced by Circuit Judge Herb Wright on Jan. 30. Wright found Walker guilty after an hour-long bench trial on Monday.

No one saw Walker stealing tickets from the Raceway gas station where he had worked for two years, the last year as a store manager, and he denied any wrongdoing on the witness stand. About 71 Arkansas Millionaires Club tickets were missing, and more were found to be scratched after lottery officials began investigating complaints about flawed Millionaires Club tickets being sold at the store.

It’s not clear how many tickets were stolen. Walker can only be held accountable for stealing activated tickets because Raceway only had to pay for the missing scratchoffs, which owner Donnie Miller testified amounted to about $1,500.

Deputy prosecutor Debora Inman told the judge that

Walker was the only person who could have taken the tickets. Tickets for the game were kept locked up before being activated to play. Store surveillance video showed him activating tickets and cashing them in around the time of the theft, she said.

A Raceway customer, Rick Tomboli, 46, sued the Arkansas Lottery Commission in April after buying subtly scratched tickets at the convenience store on South University Avenue. He claimed that the tickets were marked as a result of defective manufacturing but that the agency still allowed them to be sold rather than suffer a financial loss by recalling them. Commission officials started an investigation into the store’s lottery sales after learning about Tomboli’s claims, eventually calling in Little Rock police once agency investigators developed reason to believe a crime had been committed.

Both the commission and the manufacturer, Scientific Games International Inc., deny the tickets are defective, and they have petitioned the court to have the lawsuit dismissed. Millionaires Club tickets have never been withdrawn, and the game ends in March. Top prizes for the game are $10,000, $50,000 and $1 million. Only one of the four $1 million tickets remains in play, according to the lottery website, which shows 820,618 tickets worth $10.1 million in prizes remain out of the 1,052,926 issued after the game started in February.

Lance Huey, lottery security director, testified he discovered Millionaires Club tickets were missing during his review of the store’s inventory. Joseph Sublett, the Raceway district manager, testified that only Walker, as store manager, had the keys for the lockbox that holds tickets that have not been activated to play. Sublett said Walker explained pinholelike scratches on some tickets could have occurred when the tickets were placed in sale boxes. Sublett said Walker had previously violated store policy by buying tickets at the store and cashing them in.

Sublett told the judge that Walker was the only one in the store with authority to activate tickets, but acknowledged on cross-examination that the activation code was known to other employees. He also said the lockbox was not always locked as it should have been. Sublett said he’d also seen several cashed tickets in Walker’s jacket after the theft came to light. Some of them had been $20 tickets, he testified.

Sublett said at least 71 tickets, most of them Millionaires Club, were missing when he counted the scratch-offs, a significant discrepancy because Walker’s inventory that same day had shown those tickets available for sale.

Police Sgt. Rusty Rothwell said he also saw the inventory discrepancy, testifying that Walker had reported 176 tickets in the store when there were actually 102.

“I don’t know exactly what he was doing, but it wasn’t right,” Rothwell said.

Rothwell said Walker had told him he had twice won $500 playing Millionaires Club tickets at the store and that Walker’s brother had won $1,000 in the game.

Justin Webb, a commission security specialist, said he saw surveillance video from the store that showed Walker activating and immediately cashing in lottery tickets at the store. The recording, however, was accidentally deleted and could not be produced in court.

Walker testified for about 11 minutes, saying the tickets he’d cashed in at the store had actually been purchased from a North Little Rock liquor store. He said he held on to losing tickets, some of which were gifts from customers, because they can be used for Internet promotions offered by the lottery. He also denied having the only keys to the lockbox, testifying that an assistant manager also had a key. With Sublett’s knowledge, Walker said, he and that assistant had shared a key for about four months after his set was lost when his car had been stolen.

Defense attorney Brandy Turner called for the case to be dismissed, arguing anyone could have stolen the tickets. Walker is free on $1,000 bond.