NOVA SCOTIA, Canada — A lottery jackpot check presentation turned into a family feud when the woman who put her nephew’s name on the winning ticket refused to split the prize and vowed to sue for the remaining portion.
Barbara Reddick gave her nephew Tyrone MacInnes $100 to buy tickets for Chase the Ace, a lottery with a jackpot that had reached $1.2 million, and told him to put his name on the ticket as well, for good luck, the CBC reported she said.
"He's always lucky with his draws, right?" Reddick, of Guysborough, Nova Scotia, told The Province. "I said 'Well, put your name on the ticket and you'll be my good luck charm.' I didn't say split. I never mentioned money at all."
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When their card was picked, it was Tyrone, who lives in Glace Bay, Nova Scotia, whose contact information was on the ticket, who was called, according to the CBC. They found out they won and Tyrone wanted half, she told The Province.
“I would have given him $150,000,” she said. “Listen, Tyrone was the son that I never had. Me and Tyrone -- ask anybody -- we’re very very close … . Tyrone is getting nothing from me. It’s just for the principle. We were so close. He broke my heart. He broke it. … People go crazy when it comes to money.”
At a check-presentation ceremony Thursday, Reddick was visibly distraught and as the cameras clicked, she quickly told her nephew that she would see him in court.
"I'm taking him to court. I'm getting a lawyer tomorrow," she told the CBC.
Lottery officials were dismayed with the way the presentation devolved.
"I can't really explain it. I didn't expect anything like that to happen. I just came to deliver the checks and present them to the winners," Bernice Curley, chair of the Chase the Ace lottery, told the CBC. "I'm a little bit disappointed that happened at the end."
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