Employees at a McDonald’s in Maryland are outraged at a co-worker who claims she won a $105million Mega Millions jackpot which she is not planning on sharing – despite the fact they had pooled their money for tickets.
Workers at the fast food outlet bought a number of tickets together for the biggest lottery in world history but Mirlande Wilson, 37, claims she separately bought one of the three tickets nationwide that will split a record $656 million payout.
‘We had a group plan, but I went and played by myself. [The ‘winning’ ticket] wasn’t on the group plan,’ Wilson said.
‘I was in the group, but this was separate. The winning ticket was a separate ticket,’ the single mother of seven said as she and her fiancé left her home.
The Haitian immigrant who has seven children claimed she had hidden the winning ticket and would present it to lottery officials today.
But later she started to backtrack saying she wasn’t sure whether she had won or not.
‘I don’t know if I won. Some of the numbers were familiar. I recognized some of them,’ she said. ‘I don’t know why’ people are saying differently. ‘I’m going to go to the lottery office today. I bought some tickets separately.’
With winning tickets also sold in Illinois and Kansas, a single Maryland winner would get an after-tax lump sum of $105 million, or $5.59 million a year for 26 years.
Wilson’s co-workers — who make little more than $7.50 an hour — are furious at her claims she bought the winning ticket with her own money.
‘She can’t do this to us!’ said Suleiman Osman Husein, a shift manager and one of 15 members in the pool. ‘We each paid $5. She took everybody’s money!’
A man identifying himself as the boyfriend of a McDonald’s manager named Layla, who was part of the pool, said Wilson bought tickets for the group at the 7-Eleven in Milford Mill, where the winning ticket was sold.
The group’s tickets — along with a list of those who contributed to the pool — were left in an office safe at the fast food outlet, said the man, who gave only his first name, Allen, as he stood next to Layla. She declined to comment.
Maryland McDonald’s Worker Mirlande Wilson Claims She Has Winning Mega Millions Ticket: MyFoxDC.com
