JURY: LOTTERY WINNER MUST SHARE JACKPOT WITH CO-WORKERS!

Jury: Lottery winner cheated co-workers  

A New Jersey construction worker cheated five co-workers out of a $38.5 million lottery jackpot and must share the winnings with them, a jury determined today.

The Star-Ledger in Newark reports that that the eight-member jury was unanimous in its decision that the November 10, 2009, lottery was won on a pool ticket and not a personal ticket, as Americo Lopes claims.

“They robbed me,” Lopes, 52, said in Portuguese as he left the courtroom, the newspaper website reports.

The Star-Ledger said the former Elizabeth construction worker testified that he bought 12 tickets — including the jackpot winner — solely for himself, even though he typically played in a lottery pool with the five men who each paid for two tickets.

The five plaintiffs, who won the $20 million suit against Lopes, worked with him at Berto Construction, where they began playing the lottery together in 2007.

The case rested mostly on testimony from the five men and Lopes about the habits of the lottery pool, the Star-Ledger says. A sixth construction worker, uninvolved in the lawsuit, testified that the men gave Lopes money to play the pool the day of the winning drawing.

“I have a lot to do,” Carlos Fernandez, one of the five plaintiffs, said after the verdict. “My granddaughter was born yesterday. I have to buy her a present she’ll remember.”