Man who bought winning lottery ticket at local business finally steps forward

After Tom Cohen purchased a lottery ticket from a Burbank deli weeks ago, he put it in a drawer and forgot about it.

It sat there for more than a month and a half before Cohen went back to Burbank Deli & Market — located at 1414 W. Alameda Ave. — and saw a sign that a winning Mega Millions ticket had been sold there, California lottery officials said.

When he went home and found his ticket, he realized that for about a month and a half, he’d been sitting on $344,779 in winnings.

He claimed his prize on Monday, 45 days after the March 28 drawing. The ticket had five matching numbers, minus the Mega number. The numbers drawn were 2, 3, 9, 50, 73, and the Mega number was 12.

It marked the deli’s first winning ticket since its owner, Jaffer Khimani, bought the store eight years ago.

Cohen declined to comment further when reached by phone Monday.
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Follow Alene Tchekmedyian on Google+ and on Twitter: @atchek.

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