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Store Clerk Stole Winning Lotto Ticket

Friday, November 03, 2006

Nov. 2 - KGO (KGO) -- How safe is your lottery ticket. Do you really know if you have won? 7 On Your Side's Michael Finney has been looking into that and has this remarkable story.

When playing the California lottery you could get the idea the games are based on computer terminals. If you watch on TV, you might believe the lottery is based on little rolling balls. But you'd be wrong, the lottery is based on trust.

We trust the lottery is on the up and up, that the winners deserve their winnings. If we didn't trust, we wouldn't play.

Bob Sehested, Camarillo: "You know, you shop at the same store almost on a daily basis. You become friendly with the people there and you build a trust."

Bob Sehested buys his lottery tickets at a neighborhood market in Camarillo. It's here that a dirty little secret about the lottery and trust first came to light.

A winning ticket worth $530,000 dollars was bought here and redeemed here and the buyer never knew. The clerk, who was trusted by the customer, took the winning ticket for himself. When the clerk tried to redeem it, a suspicious lottery official refused to pay.

Instead, information about the ticket was taken from the store's computer terminal and matched with the store's surveillance camera tapes. The clerk is caught selling a ticket, not buying one.

So, lottery officials had a video tape with a grainy image of a guy that could be the winner, but how to identify him? They decided to take the tape and hand it out to the local media -- the Ventura County Star.

Monica White, Ventura County Star: "It wasn't even in the print edition. It showed up on our Web site for just a couple of hours."

The Ventura County Star showed us just how it appeared when posted.

Bob Sehested: "I see an article that says they are looking for the true winner of the $500,000 dollars in Camarillo. So I figured I knew which store the ticket was bought in, let me pull up the video and see if I know the person, so I can call them."

Bob clicks on the article and sees the video, he even saved it to a disk. Why? Because that's Bob in the light colored shirt.

Bob Sehested: "I trusted the guy. He was smooth, he switched my ticket without me knowing it, without me even suspecting it."

After seeing the video, Bob called the lottery. His story was confirmed and he received a check for a cool half-million.

Bob still plays the lottery. Where? The same corner market, only now he takes one precaution. He signs every ticket he buys, right then, right there.

Bob Sehested: "Sign the ticket -- nothing they can do with it. It's your ticket."

Once a ticket is signed, it can't be cashed in by anyone else. Which brings us to the clerk who stole the ticket. He's in jail awaiting sentencing. He could get eight years.

And because he's gone, Hessein now has the counter job. He says he's learned a valuable lesson -- Bob is lucky.

ABC7's Michael Finney: "So you guys buy tickets together?"

Hessein, store clerk: "Yes. Every single day."

And Bob? He's learned a valuable lesson too.

Bob Sehested: "Thank God for video cameras."

Michael Finney: "You must say that every night."

Of course, the safest thing you can do is to check each number yourself. And just how do California lottery officials determine who the actual winner is? Read about that in The Back Story.

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