Man jilted after woman cashes in wins court ruling

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — A Florida man is still trying to get half of his ex-girlfriend’s $1 million lottery prize, eight years after he says she took the winning ticket and left him. He says she reneged on a long-ago promise that they’d split any winnings.

On Thursday, the Florida Supreme Court agreed that if they were still romantically involved, any spoken agreement made years earlier was still valid.

Now a jury will have to decide if a pact was ever made and if the couple was still an item when Lynn Poirier’s lucky number was drawn.

Howard Browning says he and Poirier agreed in 1993 to share any lottery money they might win. They loved playing the lottery, sometimes driving out of state to buy Powerball tickets when the jackpot grew big enough, according to his lawyer, Sean Sheppard.

“They were a big lottery couple. That’s what they did,” Sheppard said.

On July 2, 2007, Browning and Poirier walked into a gas station convenience store near Orlando and separately bought $20 tickets for the raffle.

Two days later, Poirier’s number was drawn. She said nothing about winning and left the house she owned with no explanation, Sheppard said. About five weeks later, Poirier, then a 54-year-old special education teacher, went to the Florida Lottery headquarters and claimed the prize.

The court was only ruling on the agreement, not whether Browning should get the money.