Massachusetts Lottery Frequent-Winner Family Accused of $21M Fraud

Three Bay State residents feature been supercharged with legion(p) counts of fraud, money laundering, and assess escape for their roles in what prosecutors aver was a ticket-cashing scheme on a grand scale.

Over eighter years, Ali Jaafar and his sons, Mohamed and Yousef, all of Waterford, cashed inward 13,000 winning Massachusetts Lottery tickets, mostly scratch-offs, for almost $21 million.

While a statistician mightiness be capable to cater an guess of the astronomical odds of this occurring legally, Michael R. Sweeney, the executive managing director of the Massachusetts Bay Colony State Lottery, put it bluntly when he told The New House of York Times Tuesday that “The reality is, it’s zero.”

Nevertheless, the trio have pleaded non shamed to all charges. They also abnegate accusations that they operated a so-called “discounting scheme,” which involves claiming the prizes on behalf of the real winners who owe money to the state.

The Ten-Percenters

In Massachusetts and other states, money canful be deducted from drawing windfalls o'er a sure threshold if the fine bearer is found to owe unpaid country or federal taxes or nestling support. In Massachusetts, the limen is $600.

Lottery winners who happen themselves inward this plight sometimes sell their tickets at a deduction to an resistance ticket-cashing business. The casher usually takes x percent, hence the terms “discounting” or “ten-percenting.”

Massachusetts Lottery Commission officials temporarily prohibited the Jaafars from cashing out inwards 2019 when they realized begetter Ali was the “top individual lottery fine casher” that year, and his ii sons were 3rd and fourth, respectively.

The Jaafars responded to their censor in 2019 by suing the Lottery, requesting an injunction that would allow them go on cashing come out their apparently eternal stream of winnings. They did non succeed.

Under Old Colony Lottery regulations, claimants of to a greater extent than 20 prizes of at least $1,000 in a single year are topic to a survey by the managing director of the lottery, which can buoy outcome inwards temporary bans.

Bogus Gambling Losses

The kinsfolk is also accused of filing untrue taxation returns. Prosecutors claim Cassius Clay Jaafar paid to a lesser extent than $24,500 inward federal taxes on $15 million in drawing winnings. He also received $886,261 inward revenue enhancement refunds for sham gambling losses from 2011 to 2019.

Meanwhile, Mohamed Jaafar paid less than $21,700 on $3.3 gazillion inward winnings. He also received $106,032 in taxation refunds for fake gaming losses o'er the same period, according to the indictment.

In 2019, Clarance Jones, an 81-year-old man from Lynn, Mass., was sentenced to deuce months inwards prison house for fraud. That’s after he cashed thousands of tickets worth to a greater extent than $10 million, profits he squandered at casinos and racetracks, according to his lawyer.

This news is brought to you by the Latest LPE88 Download in Malaysia.