COURTS
Clerk accused of absconding with lottery cash
Authorities believe he lied to customer, claimed money in Austin, then fled to his native Nepal.
By Steven Kreytak
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
In the five years that he worked at the Lucky Food Store outside Dallas, Pankaj Joshi's co-workers never saw him play the lottery, according to a search warrant affidavit.
So when the 25-year-old quit his job at the convenience store and claimed a $1 million lottery jackpot in Austin, Joshi's co-workers were suspicious and told investigators, the affidavit said.
Those investigators now believe that in May, after a regular customer brought in his lottery tickets and asked Joshi to check if they were winners, Joshi kept the winning ticket, did not tell the customer and claimed the prize for himself, according to the affidavit and Travis County Assistant District Attorney Patty Robertson.
A Travis County grand jury indicted Joshi in September on one count of claiming a lottery prize by fraud, an indictment that was unsealed this month.
Now authorities are trying to track down the winnings as well as Joshi, a native of Nepal who worked at the store while attending the University of Texas at Arlington.
The charge is a second-degree felony, punishable by a maximum of 20 years in prison.
Texas Lottery Commission officials could not be reached Tuesday to determine whether Willis Willis, who investigators believe is the rightful lottery winner, would ever receive his prize.
Willis, 67, regularly cashes checks and buys lottery tickets at the Lucky Food Store on Great Southwest Parkway in the Dallas suburb of Grand Prairie, the affidavit said.
On May 29 at 6:14 p.m., someone cashed a $237.80 check and bought $20 in lottery tickets at the store, the affidavit said. Willis said he was that person, the affidavit said.
Willis told investigators that he uses regular numbers when he plays — such as family members' birthdays — and some random ones, and he gave investigators some of the numbers to prove he made the purchase, the affidavit said.
Two days later, on May 31, Willis returned and asked the clerk to check his numbers, he told investigators.
"The clerk lies to him about his winning ticket," Robertson said, and "says he has a $2 winning ticket, when in fact it's a Megaplier million-dollar ticket."
According to the Texas Lottery Commission Web site, an out-of-state winner won $35 million that night in the multistate Mega Millions game with a ticket that matched the numbers on five out of five regular balls and two other balls — the mega ball and the multiplier ball.
The ticket Joshi is accused of redeeming also matched the five balls and the multiplier but not the mega ball.
On June 25, Joshi presented a winning ticket at the Austin lottery claim center and had $750,000 — taxes were withheld — transferred to his Washington Mutual account, the affidavit said.
Joshi transferred some of the money to different accounts in the days that followed, the affidavit said.
Investigators with the Lottery Commission and Austin police began looking into the matter after Joshi's boss at the convenience store reported his suspicions in a call to lottery headquarters in Austin on July 29.
In subsequent interviews, co-workers told investigators that there was no surveillance video from when the ticket was purchased or when it was checked two days later, the affidavit said.
Store employees told investigators that when Joshi quit, he said it was to help his cousin in Nepal at her perfume store, the affidavit said.
One employee also told investigators that he left a message on Joshi's phone indicating his suspicion about the lottery winnings but never received a call back, and the next time he tried to call he found Joshi's phone disconnected, the affidavit said.
In late September, authorities executed a series of search warrants and seized $215,288 from several accounts opened by Joshi, according to court documents.
"We are still working on trying to recover the rest," Robertson said.
Hector Gomez, the supervisory deputy U.S. marshal in Austin, said investigators have a strong suspicion that Joshi has returned to Nepal or is somewhere else in South Asia, and deputies in his office are "trying to coordinate with our law enforcement contacts abroad" to locate him.
skreytak@statesman.com; 912-2946
