Lotto Pool Just the Ticket for 3 Local Residents

Student loans. A new house. A whole lot of Christmas presents under the tree.

It may not be millions, but none of the 15 co-workers who will share an $8-million pot out of Wednesday’s Super Lotto jackpot are complaining.

An extra $19,200 a year for the next two decades can’t hurt.

Especially not when it comes two weeks before Christmas.

Three Ventura County residents were among the group of Star Telecommunications employees who held one of four winning tickets in the $32-million jackpot.

The employees from the Santa Barbara company teamed Wednesday morning to buy $75 worth of tickets at a store on Santa Barbara’s State Street.

By 8 p.m., their numbers--4, 7, 9, 12, 18 and 21--made them each $288,000 richer, once Uncle Sam’s 28% cut is factored in.

The $8-million share they will split means each will receive annual post-taxes checks for $19,200 for 20 years.

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“We’re going to buy a house,” said an elated Nanette Bergman, 27, of Ventura as she stood with her husband, Ed. “We’ve got three kids and we really needed it.”

Michelle Discepolo, 23, of Oxnard, a staff accountant only one year out of college, said she had no doubt what to do with her windfall.

“I’m going to pay off all my student loans,” she said.

And Philip Lansdown of Camarillo said he plans to blow some Christmas cash on his two teenage daughters.

“I just happened to be at the right place at the right time,” he said. “I always wanted to say that.”

The Star Telecom group also teamed up to buy tickets a few months ago when the jackpot passed $30 million. They won $10.

Word of their more lucrative success this time spread quickly Wednesday after one of them saw the numbers on television.

Not everyone in their office was so thrilled.

One co-worker, they said, decided not to buy in because he spent his last $5 on a breakfast burrito.

He vowed never again to eat a breakfast burrito, they said.

The Star Telecom employees bought their ticket at the Mini Mart at 439 State St. The store owner wins $40,000--or half of 1%--for selling the winning ticket, California Lottery officials said.

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The jackpot was the second awarded to a local group of employees in recent years.

On March 18, 1995, a group of 26 workers from the 3 DBM Co. in Camarillo shared a $36-million jackpot, lottery spokesman Stephen Freund said.