Had No Money to Pay Rent : Unemployed New Yorker Wins $8.5-Million Lottery

An unemployed warehouse manager who was worried about how he was going to pay his rent won an $8.5-million lottery jackpot, officials announced today.

Anthony Tocco, 54, of Albany, was the only person to pick the six numbers in Wednesday’s Lotto-48 drawing. It is the third richest lottery prize won by one person in New York Lottery history.

Tocco, a warehouse manager for about 18 years, was laid off about two weeks ago.

“Honestly, I didn’t know where the rent was coming from,” he said. “But now, there is no reason to worry. My wife wants a new house and we’re going to buy one.”

Tocco, who has played Lotto for about three years, said he learned he had the winning ticket while he was drinking coffee at a fast-food store and read the winning number in a newspaper.

Tocco said he told his wife ‘ “I have three numbers, wait, four numbers,’ and then I screamed ‘I have them all!’ ”

Tocco said he didn’t know how he picked the winning numbers. “They might be birthdays or even numbers of the pews in my church,” he said.

Tocco and his wife, Frances, have two sons. They said they would give 10% of their winnings to their church, the Unity of Faith Christian Fellowship Church.

After a mandatory two-week waiting period, Tocco will receive an installment of $404,761, less 20% for the Internal Revenue Service, and then 20 annual installments of about the same amount thereafter.

Larger individual Lotto jackpots than Tocco’s were a $20-million prize won in 1984 by a retired Bronx carpenter and a $10-million prize won by a Queens housewife, also in 1984.