The State - News from Sept. 15, 1989

About 200 people who thought that they had won free tickets for the state lottery and to professional sports games actually won a trip to jail, courtesy of a Bakersfield police sting operation. Letters from an official-sounding, but entirely fictitious, “Bakersfield Area Department of Lottery” were mailed to misdemeanor and felony suspects whom police had been unable to arrest. They were told to show up at an office in downtown Bakersfield to claim a Lotto ticket and tickets to a Los Angeles Dodgers baseball or Los Angeles Lakers basketball game. But as recipients of the letters arrived, they were arrested and hustled off to jail. “A lot of them say, ‘I knew it,’ ” said Sgt. Dave Haskins. “That’s amazing, because it means their sense of greed overrides their sense of self preservation.”