$1 Million Lottery Ticket Allegedly Stolen On Long Island
Father and son deli owners were arrested Saturday and charged with grand-larceny after allegedly stealing a lottery ticket worth $1 million, Nassau police said Saturday.
A 34-year-old customer purchased the winning ticket Thursday from the Peninsula Deli & Grocery in Hempstead, NY. The man, who doesn’t speak English, scratched off the ticket before leaving the store. He saw he was a winner but did not note the prize amount. He handed the ticket to Karim Jaghab, the 26-year-old co-owner of the deli, to collect his winnings. Jaghab confirmed the ticket was a winner, gave the man $1,000 in cash and kept the $1 million “Unwrap the Cash” scratch-off.
The customer became suspicious of the incident and returned to the deli the following day. Jaghab and his father, 57-year-old Nabil Jaghab, then offered the man $10,000 and told him not to report the incident to the police.
Nassau County Police Dept.
The man’s suspicions were raised further and he did go to the police, who found the winning ticket and determined its $1 million worth.
The Jaghabs claim the situation was a misunderstanding. The younger Jaghab said to Nassau County police “The guy handed me the ticket. I ran it through the machine. I paid him $1,000. I told him I would give him $10,000. I just didn’t want to get in trouble.”
His father also claimed it was an accident. “My son made a mistake,” he told police. “He had the ticket now. Everything is OK. We threw [the] ticket in the garbage.”
The New York Post points out that the deli-owning duo shouldn’t have given the customer any money at all. “Lotto prizes worth more than $600 are typically paid out from state lottery offices,” the article reads, “not the store where the ticket was bought.”
This is far from the first case of its kind. In fact, it’s not even the first one on Long Island this year. Two Suffolk County gas station clerks were arrested in April and similarly charged with scamming a customer. In that case, they told the customer his ticket was worth just $774, instead of the actual prize of $74,892.
Whatever the prize, it’s not a bad idea for lottery players to make sure they know exactly how much they’re entitled to before they hand over winning tickets.
