Forgery Charge Reduced in Lottery Case : Penal Code Questioned; Defendant Pleads Guilty to Grand Theft

Gerald O. Miller was charged with forgery for allegedly attempting to sell a counterfeit $50,000 lottery ticket, but on Thursday he was allowed to plead guilty to a lesser crime because the prosecutor said a forgery charge appears not to apply in the case.

“It’s questionable whether the forgery section of the state penal code covers what he did,” said Deputy Dist. Atty. Carl Ilg. “There’s nothing in there (the law) about lottery tickets.”

As a result, the forgery charge was dropped and the 39-year-old La Mirada man pleaded guilty to attempted grand theft and is scheduled to be sentenced later to one year in jail. The forgery charge would have carried a two-year prison term.

‘Never Had a Lottery Before’

Miller was arrested Feb. 3 in Placentia after he told a woman he had met at a mall that he would sell her a $50,000 ticket for $10,000 because he was a Vietnam veteran and owed the government back taxes.

Ilg said Thursday the problem stems from the fact that “we’ve never had a lottery in California before and so there’s nothing in the penal code to deal with it.

“I’m certainly hoping someone takes the ball on this thing and we can get some legislation so we’ll have a section that covers this,” he said.

State lottery officials say they are trying to decide how to cope with the problem. There have been more than 40 cases of tickets being altered since the lottery began last fall.

Two Alternatives

“We are certainly aware of it and we’re trying to do whatever will have the greatest effect,” said Tim Ford, an attorney for the state Lottery Commission.

Ford said it appears that the commission has two options: to ask the Legislature to amend the penal code or to ask the state attorney general for an opinion.

While “legislation is obviously the best route,” Ford said, it would have to include an urgency clause so that it could take effect quickly. Otherwise, he said, the earliest such an amendment would go on the books probably is next Jan. 1.

Although an attorney general’s opinion would be a quicker solution, Ford said, it might have only limited effectiveness because “it would be by no means binding on the courts.”

Both proposals may be taken up at the commission’s next meeting in March, although the panel’s approval is not needed when it comes to obtaining an attorney general’s opinion.

‘Any D.A. Can Ask’

“In fact, such a request doesn’t even have to come from us,” Ford said. “Any local D.A. can ask for one if he thinks it’s necessary.”

Meanwhile, a Los Angeles County prosecutor says she is not convinced that lottery ticket cases cannot be prosecuted under the forgery law as it presently stands.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Betty Seawell, who is scheduled to appear Tuesday in Whittier Municipal Court to prosecute a ticket alteration case, said she has found a case where someone was prosecuted for forging a pari-mutuel wagering ticket at a race track and she believes that lottery tickets fall into the same category.

However, Seawell said, she thinks the situation should be clarified.

“I hate to see us in a position where we can’t charge forgery when that’s exactly what people have tried to do,” she said.