A Florida woman is facing felony charges after she took a Walmart customer’s winning lottery ticket, totaling $2,700, police records show.
Tameka Hall, 40, is facing one felony charge of grand theft of property valued between $750 and $5,000, according to an arrest affidavit from the Volusia Sheriff’s Office.
According to the affidavit, a customer — who told police he plays the same lottery numbers every day — went to the Walmart in DeLand, Florida, on June 14 to cash in a ticket that had won him $2,700.
After verifying the man’s winning ticket, Hall, the cashier at the store, told him that his earnings were too large for her to provide to him on site, the affidavit said. Instead, she provided him a receipt with instructions on how to cash in the ticket elsewhere.
But Hall, when handing the man the instructions, neglected to return the ticket itself, which is required when trading in a lottery ticket for cash, the affidavit said.
The man later returned to the Walmart to retrieve his missing ticket, but it couldn’t be found.
The store manager, who also spoke to police, said she saw Hall pocket the winning ticket on store surveillance video after she handed the victim the instructions on what to do next, the affidavit said. Hall then left work for the day and never returned the ticket.
When police spoke to Hall the next day, she told officers she had intended to return the ticket to a manager, even though she still had it in her possession, according to the affidavit.
She also said she was not aware of the fact that the victim would need the physical ticket to obtain his earnings from another location, according to the affidavit. She explained that she only pocketed the ticket because another customer came up to the lottery counter shortly after the victim left and she wanted to help them out.
Hall claimed, according to the affidavit, that she never intended to deprive the man of his winnings.
She then told officers that she still had the winning ticket, and led them to her car to retrieve it. According to the affidavit, it was in the front seat of her vehicle, along with personal documents and other receipts.
Police were able to confirm that the ticket Hall returned was the one that belonged to the victim, and later determined that Hall was at fault, the affidavit said. Hall was arrested and booked into the Volusia County Branch Jail.
