Lottery Winner Bought Ticket With Phony Credit Card
I was reading the paper this morning and I came across this story and thought it was pretty funny. I don’t know what was going through her mind, but enjoy:
A woman who won a $1 million Oregon Lottery prize last year admitted in court Thursday to buying scratch-it tickets with her dead mother-in-law’s credit card — but she refused to give up her winnings saying she bought the winning ticket with her own cash.
Christina Elizabeth Goodenow, 39, is set to stand trial on counts of criminal forfeiture connected to her October 2005 lottery win. Goodenow pleaded no contest Thursday in Jackson County Circuit Court to counts of aggravated first-degree theft, first-degree forgery and cheating.
She refuses to give up the lottery prize or what’s left of her first payout, said Rachel Bridges, deputy district attorney for Jackson County.
“She’s not agreeing to give up the money,” Bridges said.
Because prosecutors believe fraud was involved with the purchase of the tickets, they say Goodenow should not be able to keep the prize money and launched forfeiture proceedings to seize the winnings.
The Jackson County District Attorney’s Office froze $10,800 found in Goodenow’s bank accounts, the product of her initial $33,500 payout, Bridges said. The prosecutor said she also froze Goodenow’s $1 million prize and had it placed in a Medford Police Department account.
“That was to take the lottery out,” Bridges said. “They do not want to be the middleman.”
For about six weeks, she had been using a credit card that belonged to her mother-in-law, Inez Cornett, who died more than a year earlier, Bridges said. Goodenow had signed Cornett’s name for more than $11,000 in purchases but signed her own name to the back of the scratch-its.
Goodenow, asked lottery officials to keep her win quiet, claiming to be a victim of domestic violence. Police got wind of the crime about two weeks later as Goodenow continued to use Cornett’s credit card. Investigators initially recovered $1,300 of the prize money.
Goodenow used the fraudulent lottery funds to pay off her mother-in-law’s credit card and numerous parking tickets, Bridges said.
But she compounded her legal problems when she violated her probation on a drug charge. That led to her being jailed Thursday.
Goodenow was sentenced to six months in custody after admitting in Circuit Court to violating her probation on a 2004 conviction for possessing methamphetamine. She continued to use meth and failed to complete her community service or drug treatment, Bridges said. Goodenow also pleaded guilty Thursday to possessing meth about a week after being released from jail on the lottery case.