News & Politics

Rant

Arkansas Lottery Winner, Criminal

Posted 28 months ago|5 comments|1,557 views
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Ok, Arkansas finally started a lottery and one of the first big winners is now being thrust into the spotlight as a criminal. Unfortunately the timeline of the events is not considered before the sensationalist paparazzi have their articles published and not even the local newscasters are considering the truth before they draw attention to one of our lowlifes.

Seems this man was out looking for some seedy entertainment and an undercover police officer offered to perform oral sex on him. I’m sure some payment was expected but so far the other articles and stories don’t specify who asked or offered nor the amount that the services were worth. Anyhow, in order to receive his entertainment, he had to expose himself to the officer, only natural since these transactions cannot be performed with all your clothes on and zipped or buttoned up. About the time he got his tool out, the officer decided to identify themselves as a police officer and proceeded to arrest him for all the supposedly bad things he was doing. Soliciting, exposing himself and, if the articles are true, being in possession of narcotics.

There is just one MAJOR problem with the whole story and the timeline. The arrest occurred in August, more than a month before the lottery was even opened for ticket sales.

So truth be told, this whole story is not about a lottery winner who got in trouble with the law, it is about a person who was in trouble with the law who bought a winning lottery ticket.

Why do I make the distinction? Because a lottery winner who gets in trouble with the law sheds a bad light upon the entire lottery, and those who oppose lotteries will use an incident like this to their advantage in fighting to get the lottery outlawed. But a criminal who buys a winning lottery ticket is just a lucky crook and usually a dumb one, which there is no doubt, this guy is.

Instead of holding on to his winning ticket for a few days or weeks, he claimed his prize (100K) and then went in front of a judge and claimed that he was indigent and wanted a free lawyer! STUPIDIDITY on two feet. The judge denied his request and gave him a week to get one on his own dime; with 100,000 dollars he should be able to get a fairly good one.

In case my point is a little muddled up in this rant, here it is: Reporters, newscasters and any other person who jumps on this story and tries to make the lottery out as the bad influence for making this guy well off for a few days and causing him to do bad things, need to have their ethics examined by someone with more smarts than they have. I’ll take that job if no one else wants it. The lottery is not the culprit here, this guy was doing bad things before the lottery even existed in this state and the very case in question’s date of the crimes occurrence is more than a month before the lottery sold it’s first ticket!

Come on folks, if news is that hard to dig up, do a dog story or show movies of the sunset.
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COMMENTS
Altruist
Altruist
Eugene, OR
28 months ago: I agree that the lottery is not responsible for making people bad or stupid. The lotteries do a lot of good like helping finance schools, and keep the government solvent, because people are unwilling to pay additional taxes.
Unfortunately the lottery is sort of a tax on the poor and the ignorant because these unfortunate people are the ones that use it the most, hoping to strike it rich because there is no other way that they can have hope.
For most of us it is just fun, but some spend food money on the lotto.
markbyrn
markbyrn
 Moderator
28 months ago: He only won $100,000? I'll give him a year before he's broke again. Gambling isn't just a tax on the poor though; plenty of mathematically challenged idiots with large wads of cash willingly hand over a chunk of it to casinos everyday.
28 months ago: Lotteries are no more a tax on the poor than the practice of all insurance companies charging someone with a poor credit rating more for being covered. Same goes for credit card companies charging the highest interest rates to those with the lowest credit scores. The belief that a lottery is a tax on the poor was started by those who oppose lotteries and is a fallacy. Why? Because a tax is not voluntary and playing the lottery is. If you want to cry "Tax on the poor" you better start with the auto insurance companies and the state governments that mandate that to drive a vehicle you have to have auto insurance.

I agree he will be broke quickly; he was broke when he got it and the judge made sure he has to spend most of it on an attorney. But the point of my rant was against the press who would never have reported on the criminal case unless they could tie it negatively to the lottery.
28 months ago: SS, I must point out that the lottery in Arkansas did not sell its first ticket until 1OCT2009, so the “suspected Sleaze Ball” has not been “playing it for some time” in this state.

Sorry to hear that you agree with Altruist that lotteries are a tax on the poor. Maybe you did not read my post? Taxes are mandatory and the lottery is voluntary. As soon as paying taxes becomes my choice, then you can say playing the lottery is a tax.

Sure lotteries “entice” people, same as churches entice people to become members and give money for the “hope” of going to some better place after they die. I wonder which gets the most money from the poor each year nationwide…… Neither money making enterprise is a sure bet but at least with the lottery there is a possibility of getting a return on your money invested.

It is always good when someone wins, either the lottery or in life. But when the press uses a person’s prior criminal activity to shed a bad light on a good government program, someone has to say something.

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