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It's written up and illustrated somewhat like a hardboiled short story, but the case is real--and interesting.
The Man Who Cracked The Lottery
BY REID FORGRAVE
ILLUSTRATIONS BY FRANCESCO FRANCAVILLA
MAY 3, 2018
The file landed on Rob Sand’s desk with something less than a thud. Despite holding the contents of an investigation still open after more than two years, the file was barely half an inch thick. “Happy birthday,” his boss said.
It was not Rob Sand’s birthday. His boss, an Iowa deputy attorney general named Thomas H. Miller, was retiring in July 2014 after nearly three decades of prosecuting everything from murder to fraud. He hired Sand about four years earlier and made him the youngest prosecutor in a nine-attorney team that handled challenging cases all over the state. Now Miller was offloading cases to colleagues. This one, having to do with a suspicious lottery ticket worth $16.5 million, was full of dead ends. Investigators didn’t even know if a crime had been committed. The most tantalizing pieces of evidence were on a DVD: two grainy surveillance clips from a gas station. Sand slid the disc into his laptop and pressed play.
A man walked into a QuikTrip convenience store just off Interstate 80 in Des Moines. It was a weekday afternoon, two days before Christmas. The hood of the man’s black sweatshirt was pulled over his head, obscuring his face from two surveillance cameras overhead. Under the hoodie, he appeared to be wearing a ball cap; over the hoodie, he wore a black jacket. The man grabbed a fountain drink and two hot dogs.
“Hello!” the cashier said brightly.
The man replied in a low-pitched drawl, a voice that struck Sand as distinct: “Hell-ooooh.”
“Couple hot dogs?” the cashier asked.
“Yes, sir,” the man replied quietly, his head down.
The man pulled two pieces of paper from his pocket. They were play slips for Hot Lotto, a Powerball-like lottery game available in 14 states and Washington, D.C. A player — or the game’s computer — picked five numbers between 1 and 39 and then a sixth number, known as the Hot Ball, between 1 and 19. The prize for getting the first five numbers right was $10,000. But a much larger prize that varied according to the number of players who bought tickets went to anyone who got all six numbers right. The record Hot Lotto jackpot of nearly $20 million had been claimed in 2007. The jackpot at the time of this video was approaching the record. The stated odds of winning it were one in 10,939,383.
The cashier took the man’s play slips, which had already been filled out with multiple sets of numbers. At 3:24 p.m., the cashier ran the slips through the lottery terminal. An older man with a cane limped by the refrigerated section. A bus drove by. The cashier handed over his change. Once outside, the man pulled down his hood and removed his cap, got into his S.U.V. and drove away. The gas-station parking lot gleamed; there had been snow flurries that afternoon.
Two years into the case, that was virtually all the investigators had. Sand watched the video again and again, trying to pick up every little detail: the S.U.V.’s make; the man’s indistinct appearance: most likely in his 40s, and 100 pounds overweight, maybe more; the tenor of his voice.
Continued at length:
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/05/03/magazine/money-issue-iowa-lottery-fraud-mystery.html
BY REID FORGRAVE
ILLUSTRATIONS BY FRANCESCO FRANCAVILLA
MAY 3, 2018
The file landed on Rob Sand’s desk with something less than a thud. Despite holding the contents of an investigation still open after more than two years, the file was barely half an inch thick. “Happy birthday,” his boss said.
It was not Rob Sand’s birthday. His boss, an Iowa deputy attorney general named Thomas H. Miller, was retiring in July 2014 after nearly three decades of prosecuting everything from murder to fraud. He hired Sand about four years earlier and made him the youngest prosecutor in a nine-attorney team that handled challenging cases all over the state. Now Miller was offloading cases to colleagues. This one, having to do with a suspicious lottery ticket worth $16.5 million, was full of dead ends. Investigators didn’t even know if a crime had been committed. The most tantalizing pieces of evidence were on a DVD: two grainy surveillance clips from a gas station. Sand slid the disc into his laptop and pressed play.
A man walked into a QuikTrip convenience store just off Interstate 80 in Des Moines. It was a weekday afternoon, two days before Christmas. The hood of the man’s black sweatshirt was pulled over his head, obscuring his face from two surveillance cameras overhead. Under the hoodie, he appeared to be wearing a ball cap; over the hoodie, he wore a black jacket. The man grabbed a fountain drink and two hot dogs.
“Hello!” the cashier said brightly.
The man replied in a low-pitched drawl, a voice that struck Sand as distinct: “Hell-ooooh.”
“Couple hot dogs?” the cashier asked.
“Yes, sir,” the man replied quietly, his head down.
The man pulled two pieces of paper from his pocket. They were play slips for Hot Lotto, a Powerball-like lottery game available in 14 states and Washington, D.C. A player — or the game’s computer — picked five numbers between 1 and 39 and then a sixth number, known as the Hot Ball, between 1 and 19. The prize for getting the first five numbers right was $10,000. But a much larger prize that varied according to the number of players who bought tickets went to anyone who got all six numbers right. The record Hot Lotto jackpot of nearly $20 million had been claimed in 2007. The jackpot at the time of this video was approaching the record. The stated odds of winning it were one in 10,939,383.
The cashier took the man’s play slips, which had already been filled out with multiple sets of numbers. At 3:24 p.m., the cashier ran the slips through the lottery terminal. An older man with a cane limped by the refrigerated section. A bus drove by. The cashier handed over his change. Once outside, the man pulled down his hood and removed his cap, got into his S.U.V. and drove away. The gas-station parking lot gleamed; there had been snow flurries that afternoon.
Two years into the case, that was virtually all the investigators had. Sand watched the video again and again, trying to pick up every little detail: the S.U.V.’s make; the man’s indistinct appearance: most likely in his 40s, and 100 pounds overweight, maybe more; the tenor of his voice.
Continued at length:
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/05/03/magazine/money-issue-iowa-lottery-fraud-mystery.html