Woman Pleads Guilty to Stealing New York Lottery Win from Cousin
A woman from Virginia faces four years in prison for stealing her cousin's $1 million New York Lottery jackpot prize from a scratch-off ticket in 2020.
According to a report from Eyewitness News at ABC, in 2020 a New York man won $1 million from a New York State Lottery jackpot. Wishing to stay anonymous to collect his winnings, he offered his cousin, Iris Amador Argueta, $50,000 to drive from Virginia and cash in the ticket for him.
The only problem, Argueta returned to her cousin with forged paperwork saying that he had only won $20,000. He later discovered that he had, in fact, won the $1 million prize and his cousin had stolen it from him.
After pleading guilty, Argueta faces up to four years in prison for stealing the jackpot money from her cousin.
That's cold-blooded to steal your own cousin's lottery jackpot money after he offered you $50,000 just to drive up and cash it in for him so he could remain anonymous. Sure, $1 million is a lot of money, but $50,000 for a day of work isn't so bad either. In fact, that's already life changing money, but it seems Argueta wanted to change her life a little more and opted to steal the jackpot from her own cousin.
I'd like to think if I ever won $1 million in the New York State Lottery, I'd be able to rely on my cousins and trade $50,000 to keep me anonymous without them stealing the money. But after this story, I might have to send a few texts in the family group chat just to confirm for sure.