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A customer entered a Circle K store in Scottsdale, Arizona last November with the intent to purchase $85 worth of lottery tickets.
The tickets were printed out but the woman soon realized she only had $60 on her, thus having to leave some of the tickets behind.
One of those tickets turned out to be worth nearly $13 million.
Of course, nobody knew this at the time when those remaining tickets were up for grabs the next morning.
Robert Gawlitza was the store manager at the time. Another employee printed out the tickets.
"Their policy is to have Robert, the store manager, and the clerk that printed out the tickets purchase those unsold tickets," said Josh Kolsrud, who is Gawlitza's attorney.
The drawing took place overnight. The next morning, Gawlitza reportedly arrived to work and learned that the jackpot-winning ticket had been sold (or more accurately, printed) at his Circle K location.
He then located the stack of 25 leftover tickets from the previous day—the ones the customer had never purchased.
He checked those tickets against the winning numbers and discovered that one of the unsold tickets matched all six numbers.
Kolsrud claims Gawlitza did everything he was trained to do: clock out, take off his official Circle K shirt, buy the ticket, sign it, and then clock back in. He even offered to split the winnings with the coworker who printed the tickets the night before.
"The first thing he does is he decides to split it with somebody, you know, like that’s not the action of somebody who has nefarious intentions," Kolsrud said.
The Circle K corporate office has possession of the winning ticket and claims the money belongs to the company.
Gawlitza was fired in January after 20 years of service.
Based on the court filings and reporting to date, Circle K claims Gawlitza was terminated because he violated company policy regarding lottery tickets, while Gawlitza disputes that and says he followed established procedures.
More specifically, Circle K's argument is not merely that Gawlitza bought an unsold ticket. Rather, it's that he purchased it after he already knew it was the $12.8 million jackpot winner, which the company says violated its policies and deprived Circle K of the opportunity to determine ownership.
The money is still with the lottery office. And lottery officials say they will comply with the judge's orders over who finally gets the $12.8 million.
Fox 10 Phoenix visited the home of the woman who purchased the $60 in lottery tickets, leaving the winning ticket (she did not have the money for) behind. Nobody came to the door.
- Jagajeet Chiba, Gambling911.com
