I would say nice try, but….
If you are a regular reader of my articles, and I am confident that you are not (because even my wife and parents aren’t), you know that I like a stupid gambling-related crime or scandal now and again. And what’s nice about this one is that it ties in nicely with yesterday’s story about someone(s) who came up with a scheme to guarantee a lottery win. This…this is not that clever.
In Florida (of course), Kira Enders and Dakota Jones attempted cash in a fake winning lottery ticket. This wasn’t some poor forgery – that would have at least been a valiant criminal attempt. No, all they did was “crudely” tape two non-winning $50 tickets together to try to make it look like they won $1 million.
Enders took the ticket to a Florida Lottery office in Pensacola on March 1 to try to claim the prize. Lottery employees instantly saw that it wasn’t a real ticket, but didn’t let on that they knew and had Enders sign a claim form so they could “process” the winnings.
Six days later, Enders called the Florida Lottery and asked what the status of her prize was. Agent Richard Pisanti asked her to meet him on March 11 to go over paperwork and when she and Jones arrived, they were separated for questioning. Enders’ story was that the ticket had accidentally been ripped apart, so they taped it up.
Different stories
Specifically, according to the Escambia County Sheriff’s Office report, “Enders stated that the ticket was in her car and it must have fallen out because when she found it the next day it had gotten rained on. Enders stated that she tried to scratch the ticket before it was dry and it started falling apart so she taped it so it wouldn’t get more ruined than it already was.”
Jones had a different story. He said that he and Ender were out for a walk when they saw half of the lottery ticket on the ground. “What if that was a winner?” he asked.
He told Pisanti that they found the other half about 50 yards away and took it home to dry it out.
Jones said that when they scratched off the play fields on the ticket, they saw it was a winner.
The report also described the fake ticket in all its glory:
“Each of those tickets were ripped horizontally and then carefully pieced together to become one fraudulently altered ticket using the top half of one of the actual tickets and the bottom half of the other. That fraudulently altered ticket now visually shows that it is a $1 million prize winner.”
Both Enders and Jones were arrested. They have since been released on bond and are scheduled to appear in court on May 10.
