Powerball winner owes $29,000 in child support

[Gregzs]

Report: N.J. Powerball winner owes $29,000 in child support | NJ.com

Report: N.J. Powerball winner owes $29,000 in child support

Just two days after discovering that he won the fourth-largest Powerball jackpot in the game's history, Pedro Quezada has attracted the attention of the Passaic County Sheriff's Department, which says he owes about $29,000 in unpaid child support, according to reports.

NorthJersey.com reported today that officers stopped by the 44-year-old's apartment this afternoon in connection with a warrant that is several years old.
"Because of Mr. Quezada's large winnings, generally the New Jersey Division of Lottery would satisfy the judgment before all of the winnings are released," Passaic County Sheriff Richard H. Berdnik said in an e-mail to NorthJersey.com. "Like everyone else, until this warrant is satisfied, Mr. Quezada, is subject to potential arrest."

The Dominican immigrant and father of five claimed his $338 million Powerball jackpot prize Tuesday.
At a press conference Tuesday at the New Jersey lottery headquarters in Lawrenceville, Quezada said he will stop working at his store, Apple Deli Grocery in Passaic. But he was reluctant to speak about past financial difficulties.
However, public records show he purchased a two-family house in Passaic in 2006 for $273,000 that was foreclosed and sold at a Sheriff?s sale three years later.

In addition, Quezada?s small bodega was severely damaged in May 2009 when a fire that started in an alley gutted the store and two upstairs apartments in a three-alarm fire, officials said.
Quezada purchased his winning ticket ? with numbers 17, 29, 31, 52, 53 and Powerball 31 ? at Eagle Liquors in Passaic. His was the only winning ticket in the multistate lottery.

 

[troubador]

I give him 3-5 years and it will all be gone.

 

[DOMS]

So he couldn't pay child support, but had money to spend on the lottery? With or without money, he's a douche bag.

 

[Gregzs]

So he couldn't pay child support, but had money to spend on the lottery? With or without money, he's a douche bag.

Even so, the lottery takes a minimum of 21 days before any amount is received by the winner. Two days after stepping forward police show up on his doorstep as though someone who works in a bodega can pull $29,000 out of thin air before next month. Perhaps the police had no idea of his address or place of work until now or they are trying to put an arrest on his record instead of being patient.

 

[dieseljimmy]

Well it will probably be paid now... Better late the never.

 

[dogsoldier]

Guys like that have no concept of how to handle that sort of money. I'm with troubador. Within a couple years he will be broke, in debt beyond anyone's wildest imagination and probably living out of his broken down Mercedes that is jacked up under a bridge in Hoboken.

I heard on the radio that only about 25% of big lottery winners live a good life after getting all that money.

 

[DOMS]

Even so, the lottery takes a minimum of 21 days before any amount is received by the winner. Two days after stepping forward police show up on his doorstep as though someone who works in a bodega can pull $29,000 out of thin air before next month. Perhaps the police had no idea of his address or place of work until now or they are trying to put an arrest on his record instead of being patient.

None of that changes the fact that he wasn't paying child support and was playing the lottery. He's a shit human being.

 

[Gregzs]

The other end of the scale:

GOOD NEWS: Co-Workers Include Florida Woman Who Declined Office Lotto Pool in $1 Million Winnings | Fox News Insider

One lucky Florida woman is likely thanking her lucky stars for some super cool co-workers. Even though Jennifer Maldonado told her fellow employees at a realty firm that she didn?t have the cash to participate in an office Lottery pool they were sponsoring, they made a decision that would change her life after they found out they actually won!

Laurie Finkelstein Reader is the employee who headed up the pool, and she told Fox and Friends? Steve Doocy this morning that when she originally approached Maldonado, who was a new employee at that time, she told her it just wasn?t a ?good time? for her to spend money. Laurie and another co-worker offered to lend her the money, but Maldonado declined.

?I didn?t have the money. I mean, I needed the 20 dollars to spend on something else versus the lottery at that time,? she said Thursday morning.
But that didn?t stop Reader and the rest of the team to include her in their winnings once they discovered they?d all be cashing in on $1 million.

?She thought we were doing a ?new girl prank? on her when we [first told] her that we?d won..,? Reader said. ?That?s how we do everything, she?s a part of our family ? we all win together, or we all lose together? I can?t imagine anyone not sharing this type of blessing that we were given.?

On the opposite end of the spectrum, we recently told you about this story from Indiana, where one woman is doing battle in court with her co-workers over a winning ticket.
Kelly’s Court Debates: Indiana Hairdressers Claim Co-Worker Cut Them Out of $9.5 Million Lottery Win | Fox News Insider

 

[Gregzs]

How One Lottery Winner Blew Through $10 Million in Less Than 10 Years - DailyFinance

How One Lottery Winner Blew Through $10 Million in Less Than 10 Years

With a $338 million Powerball ticket having been sold in New Jersey -- the fourth-largest jackpot in Powerball history -- it's a good time to remember that the sudden gains of a lottery windfall can be fleeting.

Imagine, for instance, winning $10 million and having almost none of it left less than a decade later.

It happened to Sharon Tirabassi, a 35 year-old resident of Hamilton, Ontario. Nine years ago, The Hamilton Spectator reports, Tirabassi cashed a check from the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corp. for $10,569,00.10 (Canadian). Today, after spending almost all her winnings -- "big house, fancy cars, designer clothes, lavish parties exotic trips, handouts to family, loans to friends" -- she's back in the working class: riding the bus, working part-time, living in a rented house.

What remains of her windfall is in trust for her six children; the money will become available when they turn 26.

"The moment I got it, I divided it among my family," Tirabassi told The Spec: $1 million to her parents, and $1.75 million among her four siblings. She was generous with others, too, buying houses and renting them out at low rates, paying people's rent, offering loans for bail and business ventures.

"All of that other stuff was fun in the beginning, now it's like ... back to life."

That other stuff included vacations in Cancun, Florida, Las Vegas, California, and the Caribbean, as well as four cars: a Hummer, a Mustang, a Dodge Charger and a custom Cadillac Escalade.

Tirabassi was a single mother, recently off welfare and newly employed as a personal care provider, when she struck it rich on Easter Weekend in 2004. As a teenager, she had lived in shelters, and all that money didn't come with instructions. Tirabassi didn't hire a financial adviser; she didn't even keep close track of her account balance. Suddenly, with just $750,000 left, Tirabassi woke up: "that was just time for fun to stop and to just go back to life."

Tirabassi's husband, Vinny, who brought three kids of his own to the marriage, shares her stoicism about the couple's lost fortune. He says he lived simply his whole life and is used to not being rich. Recalling the post-winning entreaties of suddenly interested friends, some of whom came asking for favors and then disappeared, Vinny says, "Money doesn't buy you happiness. It caused her a lot of headaches." His wife had a hard time saying no to those she thought of as in need: "That's the way I was brought up," she says. "Help those who can't help themselves."

For the complete story of the couple's financial descent, head over to The Spec.com, and check out the paper's 2007 interview with Tirabassi, when she had already spent half of her winnings.

Tirabassi's experience stands in contrast to that of Sandra Hayes, who pocketed around $6 million when she and a dozen coworkers split a $224 million Powerball jackpot in 2006. (Watch Hayes tell her story in the video below.)

Like Tirabassi, Hayes went on a spending spree -- including a boat, an Escalade and a Mercedes -- but she also paid off her mortgage and student loans, and was leery about handouts to friends and relatives. Today, Hayes lives comfortably but not extravagantly.

"I love a good deal, I'm on a budget, I save my money," she says. "I try not to live above my means." Her warning to the newly rich: "If you're not disciplined, you'll go broke. I don't care how much money you have."

Hayes sounds as though she might have taken lessons from Six Tips on How to Avoid Squandering a Financial Windfall. For more advice, check out these Powerball winners' lessons on how to hang on to your cash, whether you're a millionaire or just trying to make ends meet.

 

[DOMS]

Not everyone is meant to have a lot of money.