Local News in Brief : Lottery Winner Lucks Out
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A Northridge man who has been struggling for nearly a year to collect on a $50,000 winning lottery ticket he mailed in the wrong envelope got word Wednesday that he will get the money within a month.
A check for $51,000--the winnings plus interest--will be issued to Emil Nicholas soon, said California Lottery spokesman John Schade. The money was included in legislation signed into law March 28 providing funds to pay off claims against state agencies, Schade said.
Nicholas, 55, returned his ‘instant winner” ticket last April in an envelope marked for the weekly “Big Spin” drawing, and so the ticket probably ended up buried in a landfill with losing Big Spin tickets, officials said.
Lottery officials insisted for months that payment without a ticket was impossible. What saved Nicholas, however, was that he was able to show state investigators a losing ticket with a serial number contiguous to the winning ticket.
“I’ll believe it after I get it, not before,” Nicholas said Wednesday.
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