PENSCOLA, Florida (WSVN) -- A Walton County couple is facing felony charges after allegedly attempting to claim a million-dollar lottery prize, authorities reported.
Kira Ender and her boyfriend, Dakota Jones, were arrested after trying to pass off an altered $50 ticket as a real $1 million winner at a Florida Lottery office in Pensacola on March 1.
Escambia County Sheriff Chip Simmons detailed the case in an interview.
“They could crudely take two tickets and put them together and pretend as if they were a million dollar winner,” he said.
The mismatched words on the back of the ticket and differing serial numbers were immediate red flags to lottery officials.
Further investigations revealed that neither original tickets won any prizes. The arrest report stated that Endres signed an affidavit stating the ticket was real and acknowledging the penalties of perjury if caught lying.
Enders and Jones were inconsistent with their stories of how they came into possess the ticket, leading to more suspicion by police.
“If you’re gonna try to claim a million dollars, you, you’ve got to do a lot better than this. Um, you know, again, uh, you’re not a lottery winner, you’re a criminal,” stated Simmons.
The couple’s attempt to follow up on the prize a week later led to investigators discussing the matter with them in person, which quickly unraveled their scheme.
“You know, I gave him probably the biggest hug I could ever recall giving him, and he held on tight"
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