A winning $1 million lottery ticket picked out of a gas station trash can has become the subject of a three-way legal battle in Arkansas.
Sharon Jones was at a Super One Stop in July 2011 in Bebee, Ark., when she went to a trash bin to pick up a handful of discarded lottery tickets, as she had done many times before, according to her attorneys.
"It was, in fact, not a losing lottery ticket and not only that, but it's worth a million dollars," Jones' attorney Winston Collier told ABCNews.com. "Thus a controversy was born."
Jones turned in the ticket and received a check for $680,000. After the check was issued, the lottery commission began the process of confirming all winning tickets and in the course of the investigation, surveillance footage showed Jones grabbing a handful of discarded tickets from the trash bin.
After seeing the footage, the store manager, Lisa Petriches, claimed that customers were not allowed to take tickets from the bin and that she had a deal with the manager that those tickets belonged to her.
A month after Jones collected her check, Petriches filed a lawsuit against her, claiming that the winning ticket was hers. Petriches also claimed that there was a "Do Not Take" sign on the bin.
"Our theory is that it was abandoned property," Collier said. "Once someone has abandoned it, it becomes the property of the first possessor."
One of Petriches' attorneys, Steven Underwood, refused to comment for the story.
A third party entered the equation this week when Sharon Duncan claimed that she was the one who originally purchased the ticket and that the jackpot is rightfully hers. The attorneys are meeing with the lottery commission on Monday to determine if there is any way to confirm the ticket's ownership.
The $680,000 winnings are frozen as the case makes its way to court, but Collier said that his distressed client already spent some money in the month she had the winnings that she would not have otherwise spent, including buying a used car.
美国阿肯色州的一张百万美元巨奖彩票近日引发三方法律争夺战，这张彩票是一名女子在一家加油站的垃圾桶捡到的。
去年7月，莎伦?琼斯在阿肯色州毕比市的“超级第一站”外的垃圾桶里捡到了一把丢弃的彩票。据她的律师描述，之前她也经常这样做。
琼斯的律师云斯顿?柯里尔告诉ABCNews网站：“事实上，这张彩票不仅中了奖，而且中了100万美元。所以争论就产生了。
琼斯兑换了这张彩票，收到了68万美元的支票。支票开出后，彩票委员会开始对所有获奖彩票进行核实，在调查中，监控录像显示琼斯从垃圾桶里抓出了一把丢弃彩票。
看到这段录像后，店主丽莎?彼得里奇声称，顾客不能从垃圾桶里捡彩票，她和管理人员早就约定好这些彩票归她所有。
琼斯领走支票后一个月，彼得里奇起诉了她，声称这张巨奖彩票归自己所有。彼得里奇还表示，垃圾桶上有“不要带走”的标识。
柯里尔说：“我们的理论是，这是被放弃的财产。一旦有人放弃了它，就会归第一位持有人。”
彼得里奇的一位律师、史蒂文?安德伍德对此未予置评。
本周，又有一位女士加入了这场争夺战。莎伦?邓肯声称自己是彩票的买主，大奖当然应该归她所有。几位律师周一在彩票委员会碰面，决定是否有办法确定彩票的归属。
由于这起案件交由法庭裁决，这笔68万美元的大奖被冻结起来，但柯里尔说他的经济拮据的委托人在中奖当月已经花掉了一些本不该花的奖金，包括买了一辆二手车。
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