$1bn lotto winner accused in lawsuit of lying about promise to share funds with family

The winner of a $1.35bn Mega Millions lottery jackpot has been accused in a lawsuit of lying about promising to share his winnings with his family.

The payout was one of the biggest in US history. Still, the identity of the winner, who bought the ticket in Lebanon, Maine, remains anonymous, as they used an LLC to collect their lump sum payment of roughly $500m after taxes.

Though the identity of the winner remains anonymous, the story of the lucky ticket has only gotten more complicated with time.

Since November, the lottery winner has been locked in a lawsuit against his daughter’s mother, alleging the woman, only identified in court documents as the pseudonym Sara Smith, violated a non-disclosure agreement by revealing the nature of the man’s winnings to the rest of family before the year 2032, at which point their daughter would be 18.

However, a new round of court documents obtained by The Daily Beast further complicates the picture.

In a series of competing disclosures filed on 10 May, the various parties in the suit all allege misconduct on the part of the other.

Ms Smith, for her part, alleges that the lottery winner, identified as John Doe in court documents, was in fact the one who revealed his historic lottery win, a disclosure the woman’s lawyers argue “shatters the remaining shards of this suit.”

Mr Doe’s father, meanwhile, claims the lottery winner revealed himself and suggested various ways he would share his money.

“February or March of 2023, my son came to my house in [REDACTED], and informed me and my wife that he won a large amount of money in the Maine State Lottery,” the father writes in the latest round of court documents. “I understand that my son has stated that he told me nothing about his money ‘other than the simple fact that I had won.’ That is not true.”

The father insists he never asked for any money.

Nevertheless, he claims his son began making promises for how he would share it anyway, including that he would build his father a garage with old cars to fix up, buy the house where his father had raised him, set up a $1m trust fund for his father, and fund medical expenses for his father and stepmother if need be.

The father also claims that his son insisted he no longer have communications with Ms Smith, leading to a rift between the two men.

“I told him… ‘You are not the son I knew,’” his filing adds. “He got angry, calling me a ‘dictator’ and an ‘a***hole.’ I have not heard from my son since, and he has not done any of [the] things he promised.”

For his part, Mr Doe claims that Ms Smith is attempting to publicly expose his identity, and allegedly falsely accused him of trying to “kidnap” their daughter, after he refused to pay for Ms Smith and her boyfriend to go on a vacation.

“I made the mistake of telling my father that I had won the lottery without having him sign a confidentiality agreement,” Mr Doe says in the court documents. “Our relationship deteriorated quickly thereafter. I did not tell him what I was doing with my money, how I was going to benefit my daughter, or any facts other than the simple fact that I had won.”

Ms Smith, in the court documents, alleges Mr Doe has a security team which allegedly follows her and her daughter on a daily basis.