Jose Rivera, a California man, is claiming that the winning ticket for Powerball’s $2.04 billion dollars jackpot was stolen from him and has filed a lawsuit arguing that he bought the lucky lottery ticket from Joe’s Sevice Center in Altadena a day before the historic drawing took place, according to TMZ who cited the court filings.
Rivera claims that “Reggie” swiped his Powerball ticket from him on the same day of the purchase, with the complaint not specifying the circumstances of the alleged theft, with the plaintiff adding he approached the thief to try and get back his ticket, with the man allegedly claiming the ticket didn’t match the winning six digits.
Jose Rivera added that “Reggie” would only agree to split the prize 50-50 if it was in fact the winning lottery ticket, so he refused to be blackmailed and contacted law enforcement and the California State Lottery to demand an investigation before the prize was handed out.
California State Lottery are sure they handed the prize to the rightful winner
Three months after the historic Powerball drawing, the California State Lottery announced that Edwin Castro had been identified as the winner of the largest jackpot ever, after buying his lottery ticket at Joe’s Service Center.
The winner decided to take the one time lump-sum payment instead of the yearly payments, which granted him a total of $997.6 million dollars.
Both “Reggie” and Edwin Castro are named as separate defendants in the lawsuit presented by Jose Rivera.
The California State Lottery issued a statement to the New York Post through Carolyn Becker, there spokesperson:
“California Lottery remains confident that Edwin Castro is the rightful winner of the $2.04 billion prize stemming from the Powerball drawing in November of 2022,” she mentioned.
