$6M Lottery Ticket Battle Between Ex-Couple
An ex-couple, who won over $6m in the lottery, are going to court. One partner is suing the other for half of the prize money.
Denise Robertson is suing her former live-in boyfriend, Maurice Thibeault, for half the $6.1 million he won with a Sept. 20, 2017, Lotto 6/49 draw.
The Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation is urging a judge to let it walk away from an ugly legal war between a $6 million Chatham lottery winner and his ex-girlfriend, saying it doesn’t care who gets the cash.
Is this a classic situation…
“This is a classic she said, he said dispute,’” OLG lawyer James Doris said Monday in a Windsor court.
“It’s clear the real fight here is between Ms. Robertson and Mr. Thibeault.”
Robertson claims she has a right to half the winnings because she and Thibeault bought lottery tickets as a couple and had a longstanding agreement to share any winnings. Thibeault denies there was such an agreement.
Robertson claims Thibeault told her their ticket was not a winner. She alleges she returned home from work five days later to learn he had moved all his things out. Robertson is suing him for $3 million.
OLG paid Thibeault $3,073,361 in January and withheld the disputed half. The agency wants the court to take control of it until the legal battle is over. If that happens, the money would be held by the Ministry of Finance.
Who should the money go to?
“OLG takes no position on who should get the money as long as it is released from liability,” said Doris.
Thibeault’s lawyer, Richard Pollock, said OLG should give the money to his client, then Robertson can sue him for damages based on the alleged agreement to split lottery winnings.
Pollock said Robertson has no right to claim the money from OLG, or have a say in what it does with the winnings, because she didn’t co-operate with the corporation’s investigation into the dispute.
And the battle continues…
