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16th May 2024
10:39am BST
A man who won one of the biggest jackpots in US history is now getting sued by members of his family for not sharing his winnings with them as promised.
The unidentified winner, who bought the winning Mega Millions ticket at a village store in Lebanon, Maine, has been slapped with a costly lawsuit by his Dad and the mother of his daughter, after winning just over a billion dollars.
The win totalled $1.35 billion (€1.24 billion), but worked out at around $500 million (€460 million) after taxes.
His ex-partner is accusing him of promising to set up a million dollar trust fund for their daughter, which she claims he hasn't done.
His father, on the other hand, claims his son promised to cover his medical expenses, and that hasn't happened either.
The lottery winner, on the other hand, has some claims of his own. He says that his ex-partner violated a non-disclosure agreement by telling the rest of the family about his newfound wealth before their daughter's 18th birthday.
As if the story couldn't get any more dramatic, the ex-partner is claiming that he was in fact the one who told the family about his lucrative win, not her.
In the court filings, published by The Daily Beast, the jackpot winner's father told him: "You are not the son I knew," and revealed: "I have not heard from my son since, and he has not done any of [the] things he promised."
As for the winner's ex-partner, she claimed that he paid for a "security team" to follow her and her daughter in unmarked cars between home, school, and work, and that they have been monitoring her electronic devices.
"I often hear a clicking noise when I am on calls, including on calls with my attorneys, and I have had a number of unexplained dropped calls," Smith’s declaration states. "This has been happening for months."
For his part, the lottery winner claims that his ex is attempting to publicly expose his identity, and allegedly falsely accused him of trying to "kidnap" their daughter, after he refused to pay for her and her new boyfriend to go on a vacation.
The allegations between family members keep flying back and forth. It makes you wonder whether winning the lottery is worth the hassle.
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