Kira Enders and Dakota Jones fake lottery $1M prize as Florida couple ‘crudely’ tape two separate tickets and try to pass it off as winning lottery ticket.
They had no chance, but that of course didn’t stop one ‘down and out’ Florida couple trying their luck anyway …
A Florida couple have been charged with grand theft of more than $100,000 after allegedly ‘crudely’ taping two different lottery tickets together and passing it off as a winning $1 million lottery prize. Except sh*t didn’t work.
Kira Lee Enders, 36, and Dakota Jones, 32, both of Defuniak Springs, Florida, were on Thursday arrested and booked with larceny/grand theft of more than $100,000 along with passing a forged/altered state lottery ticket with an intent to defraud according to booking details for the the Escambia County Jail.
‘Hi, I’d like to cash in my winning lottery ticket…’
‘If you’re gonna try to claim a million dollars, you’ve got to do a lot better than this. You know, you’re not a lottery winner, you’re a criminal,’ said Escambia Sheriff Chip Simmons according to WEAR.
According to an affidavit, Enders on March 1 went to the Florida Lottery’s Pensacola office and claimed she won a $1 million prize from the 500X The Cash scratch off ticket.
‘The ticket had obvious alterations and is crudely pieced together from two separate actual scratch-off tickets,’ Escambia County Sheriff’s deputies wrote in the affidavit according to FOX 35.
Deputies allege that Enders ripped the two tickets, which were non-winners, and put them together to make it look like she had a winning ticket. She then wrote her full name and address on the ticket and signed it under the penalty of perjury, before presenting the ‘winning’ ticket to ‘cash in.’
Florida lottery agents and detectives from the Escambia County Sheriff’s Office, in the Panhandle district proceeded to investigate.
Less than a week later after presenting her ‘winning ticket’ Enders called the lottery office in search of her prize. Agents and deputies asked Enders and her boyfriend, Jones, on March 11 to come in for an interview. Upon the couple arriving, cops immediately detained the pair and separated them for questioning, according to the Pensacola News Journal.
An affidavit alleges that Enders and Jones told different stories of how they came across the winning ticket, and that they had taped it together after it was ripped up.
‘What, they don’t go together?’
Enders allegedly told cops she realized she had the ‘winner’ when she scratched off the ticket at her home in DeFuniak Springs but couldn’t remember where she bought it. She tried to go to three different businesses to have the ticket scanned but was unsuccessful, she reportedly said. She planned on sharing the winnings with Jones.
Detectives then asked her how the ticket got ripped and she claimed it had gotten wet in the rain and she tried to scratch it off before it was dry, causing it to tear, the affidavit stated. She allegedly stated she taped the ticket herself.
Detectives then confronted the woman that the ticket was in fact a non-winning ticket made that had been fabricated to look like a winning ticket.
‘What, they don’t go together?,’ the woman reportedly said.
Enders continued to insist that the two pieces of the ticket went together and she did not intentionally commit any fraud because doing so ‘would be dumb and that’s how you go to jail,’ according to the affidavit. Enders also claimed her boyfriend had nothing to do with the fake ticket.
Yes kids, you can see where this is heading…
The boyfriend told detectives that Enders bought the tickets at a Winn-Dixie near their house along with the tickets getting wet, with his girlfriend taking a blow dryer to dry them.
Realizing sh*t wasn’t flying Jones allegedly then changed his story.
The boyfriend said he and Enders were walking near their house when they saw half of a torn ticket on the ground, and then walked about 50 yards and found another half. Enders taped together the ticket and it appeared they won $1 million, Jones reportedly said. He also allegedly said he nor his Enders play the lottery very often, which contradicted what his girlfriend told detectives.
Cops then went back to Enders to tell her that her boyfriend told them a completely different story about how they obtained the tickets, only for the woman to allegedly continue to insist that she bought the ticket.
Watch my winning ticket become a very big losing ticket…
The couple who face a myriad of charges are scheduled to appear in court on May 10.
