Indian-Origin Man Accused of Lottery Theft
New York: An Indian-origin man has been charged with stealing a $1 million winning lottery ticket from a customer at the petrol station where he worked in Murfreesboro, Tennessee. According to local officials, 23-year-old Meer Patel was arrested and charged with the theft on Monday. The Rutherford County Sheriff’s Office informed the ticket buyer of his winnings.
The incident occurred at the petrol station where Patel was employed. When the ticket buyer asked Patel to check if the ticket had won, Patel allegedly claimed it had won a smaller amount, paid the customer, and threw the ticket in the trash. Detective Steve Craig, quoted by the Cheatham County Exchange newspaper, stated that after the customer left, Patel retrieved the ticket, scratched off the hidden section, and discovered it was a $1 million winner. He then took the ticket to the lottery office, where staff became suspicious.
State lottery investigators reviewed the petrol station’s security footage, which showed Patel picking the ticket from the trash and celebrating after discovering the win. Investigator Vic Donoho confirmed this sequence of events to the publication.
The Sheriff’s Office was notified, and Patel was subsequently arrested. Meanwhile, investigators Craig and Donoho reviewed the store’s video footage to identify the ticket buyer and informed him of his unexpected fortune. “The feel-good side of this story is that the man never knew he was the winner until we made contact with him,” Craig told the publication. “That is absolutely life-changing money.”