Lottery Ticket Was as Phony as the Seller’s Story, Officers Say

A man who claimed to be a Vietnam veteran in trouble with the government because he owed back taxes was arrested in Placentia for allegedly trying to sell a counterfeit $50,000 lottery ticket, lottery officials said Wednesday.

The case is the first in which someone has been arrested on suspicion of trying to sell a forged lottery ticket--as opposed to trying to cash in a bogus ticket, according to Lew Ritter, state lottery security chief in Sacramento.

Meanwhile, another first occurred Wednesday when a temporary employee of the state lottery and her cousin were arrested on suspicion of grand theft, conspiracy to commit grand theft and embezzlement.

In the Orange County case, lottery agents arrested Gerald O. Miller, 39, of La Mirada. Miller allegedly told a woman he met Sunday at the La Mirada Mall that he would meet her in Placentia on Monday night to sell her a winning $50,000 ticket for $10,000, said Agent Wayne Mackley of the Lottery Commission’s regional office in Anaheim.

Miller assertedly told the woman that he was a Vietnam veteran “angry at the government” because he owed back taxes that would be taken from the winnings. This was the reason Miller used for offering to sell the ticket, Mackley said.

But before the meeting, the Placentia woman called lottery officials to verify that she would be able to cash the ticket. Mackley arranged to pose as her brother and meet Miller at a mini-mart. Two other agents waited nearby.

Mackley said Miller accepted “good-faith” money while the agent pretended to retrieve the balance from his car. When Miller accepted the cash, Mackley said, the agents arrested him.

The ticket “was one of the better ones I’ve seen,” Mackley said. Officials refer to the alteration as a “cut-and-paste” ticket because the back is split from the front and parts of two ticket fronts are pasted together to give a winning combination.

Miller was in Orange County Jail on Wednesday on $10,000 bail. He was booked on suspicion of attempted grand theft.

In the other case, temporary lottery employee Sharyn Jefferson, 38, of Sacramento was arrested Wednesday on suspicion of forging her cousin’s name on a player’s $5,000 lottery ticket. The cousin, Gerry O’Neill, 34, also of Sacramento, also was arrested.

The ticket, which belongs to Victor Shay of Gardena, will be hand-delivered to him today, Ritter said.

Across the state, officials have made about 40 arrests on lottery-related offenses, Ritter said. About 30 of the arrests were for “cut-and-paste” tickets, he added.

Ritter said it is “impossible” for such a ticket to go through the system because the validation number on the front and the pack ticket number on the back must match when entered into a computer for validation.

In Orange County, officials are working on 13 suspected forgery cases. Miller’s arrest was the sixth in the county since the lottery began in October, said agent Thad Dwyer.