A lottery winner lost their prize after asking their cousin to claim it for them. The cousin took the money and vanished.
A lottery winner asked their cousin to claim the prize on their behalf. Unfortunately, the cousin took the money and disappeared.
The lottery winner wins $1 million prize
The man won over $1 million in the lottery, but he ran into trouble when he tasked his cousin with claiming the prize money.
The lottery winner wanted to stay anonymous, so he asked his cousin, Iris Amador Argueta, to collect the prize.
At the time, Iris was living in Virginia and traveled to New York for the task.
Argueta agreed to receive $50,000 in exchange for claiming the prize on his behalf.
Due to COVID-19 rules, the New York State Gaming Commission was not allowing people to claim lottery prizes in person at the time.
So Argueta had to mail in the winning ticket.
Lottery winner loses their prize after asking cousin to claim lottery money on his behalf
Weeks later, Argueta visited her cousin. She gave him fake paperwork that said he had only won $20,000.
Argueta only gave her cousin $13,436 saying the rest had been kept for taxes.
Argueta’s scheme was exposed when a press release on the New York State Lottery website revealed she claimed the full $1 million prize.
She chose a lump-sum payout of $537,440 after taxes.
When the lottery winner realized his cousin’s deception, he contacted Argueta.
She claimed she had no more money and threatened to sue if he kept reaching out.
Police arrested the man’s cousin after she occupied the winnings
However, the police and prosecutors intervened, and Argueta was arrested and ordered to repay $317,857.13 of the prize money.
Detective Lieutenant John Nagle of the Glen Cove Police Department remarked that it seemed unlikely a relative could be so deceitful.
“When the victim first reported the theft of his $1 million scratch-off ticket by his cousin, it seemed farfetched.”
He added: “When the Glen Cove Detective Division and the Nassau County District Attorney’s Office confirmed the victim’s claims, the defendant was arrested.
Most of the $537,440 lump-sum prize was recovered and returned to the victim.
The worst part of the crime was the fact that it was perpetrated by the victim’s own cousin.”
In 2022, she was forced to forfeit $317,857.13 from her bank account, which was returned to her cousin.
The District Attorney stated that Argueta “thought she hit the jackpot” when she claimed her cousin’s winning ticket as her own and received over $500,000.
But her greedy actions led to her arrest and prison sentence.
Argueta later pleaded guilty to a charge of Grand Larceny in the Second Degree (with a sentence of 1 1/3 to 4 years in prison) and is expected to be sentenced on March 15, 2023.