Lottery winner had unexpected year to consider ramifications of winning

Degli Martinez won the $65 million New York Lotto jackpot in June 2007.  However, in his excitement, he lost the ticket.

Luckily for him, New York law does not simply provide that he is out of luck.  Instead, he had to wait one year to see if anyone found the ticket and turned it in to collect.

The year elapsed and he received a lump-sum payment, after taxes, of over $21 million.

I wonder whether Degli (a maintenance man at an upscale apartment building in Manhattan) used the year wisely to plan for his new-found wealth so he does not go down the path of personal and economic destruction that so many people traverse after winning a lottery.

See Reuven Fenton, Austin Fenner, & Lukas I. Alpert, Loser’s $65M Win, NY Post, July 10, 2008.

Special thanks to David S. Luber (Attorney at law, Florida Probate Attorney Wills and Estates Law Firm) for bringing this article to my attention.