A Tennessee gas station store clerk faces allegations of stealing a $1 million scratch-off lottery ticket from a customer and attempting to claim the prize for himself.
Thieving store clerk ties to cash $1 million scratch off
Meer Patel, 23, of Murfreesboro, was apprehended and charged with theft exceeding $250,000, according to a press release issued by the Rutherford County Sheriff’s Office on Monday.
The incident began when the unsuspecting winner bought two $20 scratch-off tickets at the Shell gas station Patel worked at on July 13.
Employing a common tactic among lottery players to expedite the process, the customer scratched off only the front barcode and asked Patel to check the tickets to see if they were winners.
“If you scratch off the front bar code it will tell you if it’s a winner or not regardless if you scratch off everything showing how much you won,” explained Lt. Detective Steve Craig.
As it turns out, both of his picks were winners with one worth a cool $1 million, and the other for a lesser amount.
Patel paid the man for for the lesser-winning ticket and purportedly discarded the $1 million ticket in the trash bin.
Store surveillance footage obtained by investigators from the Tennessee Lottery showed Patel allegedly retrieving the ticket from the garbage and pocketing it after the customer left.
“He threw it on top of the trash as the gentleman left he took the trash out on camera you can see him grab the ticket and put it in his pocket,” Craig detailed.
“Mr. Patel is then seen later in the video celebrating in the store after scratching off the front of the ticket and learning it was a $1 million winner,” added Detective Dennis Ward.
Patel then allegedly attempted to claim the $1 million prize with the Tennessee Lottery but was thwarted after employees did their due diligence.
“He went to the lottery commission to claim the ticket as his own, but red flags were raised, and they held onto the ticket.”
What Patel likely overlooked is that Lottery officials scrutinize all substantial winners, which includes reviewing security footage of the ticket purchase.
“It’s pretty obvious. Good enough to put in front of 12 jurors and they’ll reach the same conclusion,” said Craig remarked.
Craig mentioned that the store footage helped authorities locate the fortunate customer, who was unaware of his windfall. “He was very thankful,” said Craig.
The winning customer, an Antioch father who wished to remain anonymous, has since claimed his prize.
“The feel-good side of this story is the [man] never knew he was the winner until we made contact with him,” Craig stated. “That is absolutely life-changing money.”
Patel is currently held on a $100,000 bond at the Rutherford County Adult Detention Center and is scheduled to appear in court next week.
This certainly isn’t the first time a lottery winner was ripped off by a greedy store clerk.
Store clerk steals $3 million lottery ticket
In a similar case, a man finally received a $3 million check from the Massachusetts Lottery last year, several months after his winning Mega Millions ticket was allegedly ripped off by a store clerk who attempted claim the money as her own.
“I’ve got to say, I’m pretty excited today because it’s real today with the check in hand,” said Paul Little in June of last year.
Little had inadvertently left the quick-pick ticket at the Lakeville liquor store where he purchased it at the beginning of the year. Unbeknownst to him, the store clerk, Carly Nunes, snapped it up and tried to claim the ticket as her own.
When she tried to claim the ticket at the Massachusetts State Lottery headquarters, it was inexplicably both torn and burned. Nunes was also seen arguing with another individual over the money.
Once officials opened an investigation, Nunes confessed that she hadn’t purchased the ticket herself. She has since pleaded not guilty to accusations that she intended to cash the unclaimed winnings.
“It really gave me a greater appreciation for what the Mass Lottery does as far as making sure the rightful people get the award,” Little said about officials. “I can’t say enough for all the people who helped me get to this point.”
Surveillance footage from the liquor store confirmed that Little was the real winner, and lottery officials managed to track him by posting flyers in the Lakeville area. Little eventually returned to the store, where the owners verified he was the purchaser.
“That’s the amazing part of it. A lot of things had to happen for me to be standing here today,” he told reporters.
Gas station clerks nabbed for stealing lottery tickets in sting
In Louisville, three gas station clerks were indicted in 2019 for a similar scheme, after being set up in an elaborate sting operation.
After an undercover investigation by the Kentucky Lottery, a Jefferson County grand jury indicted Indrias Joseph, Jinalben Savadara, and Divang Vyas, for stealing winning tickets.
The investigation spanned over several months in 2018 and involved visits to 60 retailers in Louisville to determine if store clerks were properly processing winning tickets, after customer complaints had been made at several locations.
During the sting operation, investigators visited retailers with four to five bait tickets, including one that was a $18,000 winner. The tickets were encoded with an alert that pinged the Kentucky Lottery’s Louisville headquarter if someone tried to cash them.
They caught two clerks telling the undercover officer that there were no winning tickets, which they then kept and tried to claim.
Joseph attempted to cash the ticket to claim the winnings himself in February 2018, while Savadara tried to cash the ticket at a convenience store Vyas worked at, who in turn stole the ticket from the original thief and took it to the lottery offices himself.
All three defendants face charges of state lottery fraud, a Class B felony punishable by 10 to 20 years in prison, as well as providing false information to a state lottery investigator, a Class D felony punishable by one to five years.
