Too Many Wives : $13-Million Lottery Winner Not Lucky

Richard VanDeBoe won’t have the happy Christmas he and his girlfriend planned after they won the $13.6-million Iowa lottery last month. His ex-wife and his estranged wife are making sure of that.

VanDeBoe immediately quit his meatpacking job and planned to buy a house with Kelly Elsinga but suddenly his bad debts caught up with him.

VanDeBoe and Elsinga received their first $510,750 lottery payment Tuesday, but most of VanDeBoe’s $255,375 share was withheld--under a court order.

And he’ll need more than the $21,000 he was left with just to pay taxes next spring, his lawyer says.

VanDeBoe bought the winning $1 ticket for Lotto America’s Dec. 3 drawing. When he claimed the jackpot two days later, he told a news conference he gave the ticket to Elsinga as a Christmas present after he knew it was a winner.

“I’m scared, happy--everything all at once,” Elsinga said at the news conference. “We’re just one big happy family, happier now.”

She said they would buy a house and Christmas presents for her two children.

“I’m supposed to work tomorrow but I’m not going back,” VanDeBoe said at the time.

But soon, the estranged wife came forward, claiming he gave the ticket to Elsinga to avoid having to pay her a cut of the winnings. They were married in 1981, separated three months later and never got divorced because “we could never afford one,” said Kandy McCullough VanDeBoe.

Then, the former wife showed up, also questioning his motives, saying VanDeBoe was years behind in child-support payments for their three children.

The state also made a child-support claim.

The Internal Revenue Service joined in, declaring that if a gift had been made, VanDeBoe could owe millions of dollars in gift taxes.

At a court hearing, VanDeBoe agreed to pay his child-support debt and to clear up claims the state had against him.

VanDeBoe, 37, and Elsinga, 27, then entered into a joint-winner agreement to settle the gift tax issue. It also permitted Elsinga to get her half of the money while the courts sort through the claims against VanDeBoe.