Fraud Investigation Former Store Clerks Plead Guilty to Lottery Fraud

The final three store clerks indicted by a grand jury in 2011 on charges of lottery fraud have plead guilty to their charges.

Bhaggy Patel and Hardik Patel were charged in conjunction with a ticket presented at Pantry Fresh, 464 Squires Road in Lexington. Vaishaliben Patel was charged in conjunction with tickets presented at Hunter’s Market, 6303 Lower Hunters Trace in Louisville. All three have now entered guilty pleas to facilitation to commit state lottery fraud. Each defendant received a five year sentence and was placed in a diversion program for a five year period.

http://liarcatchers.com/fraud_investigation.html

One other person charged by the grand jury, Joanne Wiggins (who was employed at Meijer Gas #162, 9905 Dixie Highway in Louisville when charged) pled guilty in 2011 to criminal attempt to commit state lottery fraud.

Bill Hickerson, KLC Sr. VP of Security stated, “As part of our ongoing efforts to help protect lottery players from fraud, KLC’s Security Department began a testing program in the spring of 2011 to determine if store clerks were following proper procedures for cashing winning tickets. This testing involved 33 retailers in Louisville and Lexington. The retailers were specifically chosen based on previous customer complaints or prior cashing activity.”

In three retail locations, players’ winning tickets were not properly paid, and the tickets were later presented for payment at KLC headquarters by these indicted individuals.

“Our office and the KLC have spent that last several years litigating the application of the Kentucky Revised Statutes that govern the operation of the lottery to the facts of these cases,” said Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney Stacy Greive. “All rulings from the Jefferson County Circuit Courts on the motions filed by the defendants were favorable to the Commonwealth and support the efforts put forth by the KLC in these investigations. The Commonwealth’s Attorney’s Office believes that the results reached in these cases were just and equitable to all parties involved.”

“While I’m disappointed in the actions of these individuals, I continue to believe the overwhelming majority of our retailers and their clerks are honest in their dealings with our players,” said KLC President and CEO Arch Gleason. “These numbers don’t reflect an overall picture of our retailer base as these particular stores were visited because of prior complaints or previous cashing activity. They were not randomly chosen, and as a result are not representative of the behavior of our more than 3000 Kentucky Lottery retailers.”

“We’ve said for some time now that players have two ways to protect themselves – low-tech and high-tech,” said Gleason. “On the low-tech side, we encourage players to always check their tickets closely to see if they’re winners, and sign their tickets before handing them over to be scanned. On the high-tech side, players can check their tickets in a self-service scanner at nearly all retail locations to see what they’ve won before they turn over tickets. In addition, video monitors placed at nearly all KLC retailers show a player whether or not a ticket is a winner. These measures protect both our players and our retailers.”

Players are encouraged to contact the Kentucky Lottery’s security department through their Fraud Watch program if they feel they may have not been properly paid a prize. Information can be submitted by phone at (502) 560-1813 or via email at klcfraudwatch@kylottery.com. “We have the ability through our computer systems to quickly look at any single transaction. This allows us to investigate any activity on a ticket to determine what happened at the terminal during a transaction,” said Hickerson.

Gleason said the Integrity Testing Program will continue, but since the operation is an ongoing security measure, no additional details will be released.

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