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January 18, 2008

Cape Cod robber can keep $1M lottery prize

BARNSTABLE, Mass. — The luck keeps rolling for a convicted bank robber who won a $1 million lottery prize.

Timothy Elliott will be able to keep his winnings, even though he violated his probation when he bought the scratch ticket, according to an agreement reached with the Massachusetts Probation Department and approved today by Barnstable Superior Court Judge Richard Connon.

Elliott, 55, will be required to pay only a monthly $65 probation supervisory fee that had been previously waived because he was indigent.

Elliott was placed on five years probation after pleading guilty in October 2006 to unarmed robbery for a heist at a bank on Cape Cod. Under terms of his probation, Elliott was not to “gamble, purchase lottery tickets or visit an establishment where gaming is conducted, including restaurants where Keno may be played.”

Elliott’s attorney, J. Drew Segadelli, acknowledged his client violated his probation when he bought the $10 ticket for the “$800 Million Spectacular” game at a Hyannis supermarket. But he called the violation minor.

“On the scale, that he scratched a ticket, while wrong, is not such a harm,” Segadelli said.
Elliott, who is currently living in Bourne under the supervision of the Department of Mental Health, declined to comment.

Segadelli said there was never any indication that Elliott, who already has received the first of his 20 annual $50,000 checks from Massachusetts’ lottery commission, would have to return the money. The lottery had previously said Elliott should be able to keep the prize.

“That was a media hype,” he said. “There was no foundation or support for that ever occurring.”

-- The Associated Press

Posted by Brandie Jefferson  at 11:12 AM | Permalink

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