Dispute Over Lotto Winnings Before Jury

They may not exactly be picking a lottery winner, but 12 jurors are being asked to decide who among a bitterly divided Orange County family can claim a winning ticket worth $12.6 million.

“You thought this guy was lucky when he won the lottery,” an attorney for one of the family members told jurors Tuesday with the opening of an Orange County Superior Court trial stemming from the dispute. “You’re going to hear otherwise in this case.”

The fight pits 67-year-old Joan F. Markham against her son, Brian D. Markham of Newport Beach, and daughter-in-law Nicole Markham.

The elder Markham contends she was coerced into signing over her 1994 California lottery winnings to her son and daughter-in-law, who are embroiled in a divorce and custody battle.

In a counter suit, Nicole Markham alleges her estranged husband was the real winner of the lottery, and that he is conspiring with his mother to cheat her out of her fair share of the winnings.

Out of the tangled dispute, jurors will first be asked to answer one simple question: Who owned the ticket when it was bought on Aug. 2, 1994? Depending on their answer, two more trial phases could be held to sort out the dispute.

Joan Markham, a former bookkeeper who was vacationing in Great Britain in August 1994, said her son, at her instruction, used $10 he owed her to buy her Quick Pick tickets, including the one that landed the $12.6-million fortune.

Her attorney said Brian Markham held onto the ticket for three weeks until his mother returned to claim the prize, which amounts to $631,000 a year for 20 years, or $454,320 annually after taxes.

The elder Markham, a British citizen who lives in southern Orange County, contends her son and daughter-in-law soon after coerced her into signing over her winnings by threatening to bar her grandchildren from visiting her and to have her deported.

“My client succumbed to that pressure,” attorney Milford W. Dahl Jr. told jurors.

Joan Markham told lottery officials she was relinquishing her winnings to her son because of her health, her attorney said.

An attorney for Brian Markham said his client agrees he bought the tickets for his mother with $10 he owed her, and said it was Nicole Markham who pushed to have the money signed over to them.

Attorney Richard B. Specter said Brian Markham has kept a promise to buy his mother a house and to give her a monthly allowance from the winnings.

Nicole Markham’s attorney, however, disputed the loan story. and said Brian Markham had been buying lottery tickets twice a week for years.

“The ticket is community property and this $10 loan is an absolute fiction,” attorney Tom Malcolm told jurors.

The trial, before Commissioner Dennis Keough, is expected to last through June.