Some Find Dark Lining in Jackpot Gold

Gordon Jensen gets bird-dogged by Wall Street types every week, and the calls from long-lost friends and relatives with hard-luck stories are still coming.

As far as SuperLotto winners go, Jensen is a small fry. He won a measly $6.5 million two years ago. It’s nothing, he says, compared to the $40.6-million lump sum jackpot awaiting the purchaser of a winning ticket bought Wednesday at an Anaheim convenience store.

“Whew! I can’t even imagine,” said the 74-year-old Jensen, who lives in Fountain Valley when he and his wife aren’t on a luxury cruise liner in the South Pacific, Baltic Sea or Mediterranean.

Instead of cruising, lottery winner Amador Granados is still taking a bruising, 10 years after his lucky six numbers came up.

In April, the Orange County district attorney’s office snatched $109,609 from his $11-million jackpot for failure to pay child support. And creditors are lining up to get their piece of him.

Interviews with a sampling of local lottery winners suggest that hitting the Lotto jackpot can be a leafy-green godsend--a first-class ticket to the land of the idle rich where there are no worries about retirement, credit-card debt or affording college for the kids.

But joining the millionaires club also can come with a hefty price tag, from being dogged by the IRS to being fleeced by relatives. And while money can’t buy love, some winners have discovered it sure can buy a good divorce attorney.

“I know it’s cliche, but the money really does bring out the worst in people,” said Brian Markham of San Juan Capistrano.

In 1994, Markham bought a lottery ticket for his mother, he said, that reeled in $12.6 million. Unfortunately for him, he was in the middle of a bitter divorce at the time, and the jackpot became fair game.

His estranged wife sued, alleging Markham was the real lottery winner and was conspiring with his mother to cheat her out of her share. After an out-of-court settlement, she walked away with a “chunk of money,” Markham said.

The whole experience has left him disgusted with the legal system. The divorce case alone cost him $250,000, and it still is not resolved, he said. “When they know you have all this money, they just keep the wheels grinding.”

On top of this, Markham’s closest friend from England, where he was born, won’t speak to him. The reason? Money.

“I lost a friend because I wouldn’t give him the money to start a supermarket,” Markham said. “And this is someone I’ve known my whole life.”

Becoming an instant millionaire can be as terrifying as it is exciting, detaching winners from the comfort and stability they enjoyed in their less prosperous life before the lottery, said UCLA psychologist Albert Mehrabian, who specializes in the effects of major life-changing events on the personality.

“These people are bombarded by a huge pressure wave,” Mehrabian said. “It’s going to come at them from all angles, from their friends and relatives. Everyone is going to be looking to them for a piece of this and that.”

Mehrabian said lottery winners would be wise to prepare themselves, and to avoid making major decisions or commitments too soon, both financial and personal.

“Don’t get married next week. Don’t invest half the money in the stock market,” Mehrabian said. “The sharks are swimming around you.”

Jose Caballero was a deliveryman for a San Jose furniture company in 1985 when he won a $2-million lottery prize with one lucky spin of the wheel in a Hollywood television studio.

The next day, immigration officials arrested him for being in the county illegally. Seven years later, he was arrested for selling heroin to an undercover cop at a West Los Angeles restaurant.

Winning the lottery has been a much more pleasant experience for Wanda Willey, who with her son won half of a $54-million jackpot in 1996. Willey and her husband moved from Fullerton to Yorba Linda, and took a cruise off Alaska.

“We didn’t go crazy,” Willey said. “We give thanks for each day, and live it the best we can,” Willey said. “We know we’re secure, and that our family is going to be secure after us. That’s a lot.”

Jensen, the Fullerton lottery winner, agrees--but said he was shocked to find out how much of his $325,000 annual payment is gobbled up by the government. He’s also taken out extra liability insurance on the rental properties he owns, just in case someone tries to use the courts to tap into his fortune.

“It’s a little bit of a frustration, but it’s sure as hell worth it,” Jensen said. “Now I can afford anything. I’m going to go everywhere in the world, if I can live long enough.”