SHELBYVILLE, Ind. -- It's a case of finders-keepers.
Karrie Jeremiah fished an Indiana lottery ticket out of the trash at a restaurant. It was a winner, worth $100,000.
Two people had bought the $5 scratch-off ticket at the restaurant. A clerk at the cafe told them it wasn't a $40 winner and they tossed the ticket in the trash. But Jeremiah said she wondered if the ticket had been checked for all the winning combinations.
It turns out that it hadn't been.
Lottery officials said the clerk should have been better trained, but Jeremiah is the rightful winner. She got a check for nearly $72,000, after taxes.
Mark McNeely, an attorney for cafe owner Shirley Bailey, said lottery officials had been negligent by not providing adequate training.
'Let's focus on the real issues and not try to cast all of our blame on this little merchant here in Shelbyville when the lack of training may have been the issue that caused the problem to begin with,' he said
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