Prosecutors says Eddie Tipton is the person in this surveilance video who bought the ticket.
The Iowa Court of Appeals has thrown out one charge against the man accused of rigging a multi-million dollar Hot Lotto ticket.
The case involves a $16.5 million winning ticket from December 23 of 2010. A lawyer tried to redeem the ticket hours before it was set to expire one year from the drawing date, but the Iowa Lottery refused to pay, as the lawyer would not reveal the identify of the ticket owner.
Four years later, charges were filed and the former security director of the Multi State Lottery Association, Eddie Tipton.
Tipton was found guilty of felony charges of redeeming a lottery ticket with the intent to defraud the lottery, and tampering with the computers that drew the numbers. The Iowa Court of Appeals ruled the filing of the fraud charge should have been dismissed as the statute of limitations on the charge had expired.
The court upheld the jury’s guilty verdict tampering charge, saying it was filed within the time limit and there was reasonable evidence to convict Tipton on that charge.
Here’s the full verdict: Tipton ruling PDF