The jerk who bought a winning Lottery ticket for a group of fellow Portuguese immigrant co-workers and then kept the money for himself has had his day in court and lost. Now Americo Lopes is going to have to split his $38.5 million Mega Millions win with the former colleagues who pitched in on the ticket.
Back in November 2009 New Jersey construction worker Lopes bought one of two winning tickets for a $77 million jackpot. But instead of splitting it with his friends, however, he told no one and just took the cash in a lump sum of $24 million all for himself, quitting his job and blaming it on a foot injury. He even had his friends come by his place and fix his driveway at the time for free! Eventually the truth about his winnings came out, however, and the rest of the group took the man Andrea Peyser dubs "the Portuguese Bernie Madoff" to court.
Lopes insisted he bought the ticket with his own money but yesterday a jury of his peers called BS on that claim. He now has to split the winnings. Of course, doing that is going to be a bit tricky. The lottery already deducted taxes from his $24 million lump sum payment, leaving him with $17,433,966. Now that has to get split between his five former co-workers. "We’ve got to work on the taxes," the winning construction worker's lawyer explained after the verdict. Still, all of them should be able to stop doing construction for a bit now!
