‘89 Lottery Winner Is Riot Crime Defendant : Loot: Man accused of hiding goods allegedly stolen by his brother has been receiving $120,000 a year in jackpot funds.

A man who had won $3 million in the state Lottery was charged Tuesday with receiving a cache of stolen loot--including five vacuum cleaners--from last month’s rioting.

Sergio Hernandez, 28, who receives $120,000 a year from his 1989 lottery jackpot, faces a felony charge--and a likely one-year jail term--for using his Pico Rivera home to store goods allegedly looted by his brother, county prosecutors said.

“His brother had a bunch of the loot and had to move it, so he said, ‘Hey bring it over to my place,’ ” Deputy Dist. Atty. David Ross said.

“Apparently, it’s a very nice place.”

A team of Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies received a tip that Hernandez was stashing riot booty and raided his home last Thursday, Ross said, discovering the five vacuums along with a video camcorder, CD player, “a couple of cellular telephones and some clothes.”

Hernandez was released on $5,000 bond on a single charge of receiving stolen property.

His brother, Martin Hernandez, 24, of Montebello, was being held Tuesday evening at the Men’s Central Jail in lieu of $5,000 bail. He was charged both with receiving stolen property and with robbery, for allegedly joining in the looting of two stores--Midtown Electronics and National Dollar--”in the war zone” of the unincorporated Florence area adjacent to South Los Angeles, Ross said.

“Martin got into doing the looting . . . and Sergio helped him out,” the prosecutor said. “He knew it was wrong.”

A spokesman for the district attorney’s office said television sets and other electronic equipment were found at Martin Hernandez’s home.

Sheriff’s officials obtained a search warrant for the brothers’ residences based on tips from informants, Ross said. “People were upset with the fact that they themselves or their friends were arrested for looting, so they snitched off these guys.”

The burglary and receiving stolen property charges carry maximum sentences of three years in prison. Even in plea bargains, county prosecutors have been demanding minimum one-year jail terms in the estimated 3,000 felony cases stemming from the looting.

Tuesday evening, sheriff’s deputies and court personnel were left shaking their heads and wondering why Sergio Hernandez might have risked ruining a life made comfortable by the California lottery.

Speculated one worker in the downtown Los Angeles Municipal Court soon after the younger brother, Martin, was arraigned: “I guess he tried to win the other lottery too. . . . “

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