Sorry, Ma
A lotto win pits mother against son in a lawsuit

By TAMALA M. EDWARDS
Time Magazine
Jan. 26, 1998

For more than a decade Phyllis Klingebiel and her son Michael shared a monthly ritual. Each would chip in $20, and Michael would spend it on "Pick 6" lottery tickets in their home state of New Jersey. Late on Oct. 2, Phyllis says, Michael woke his parents with dreamlike news: "Mom, we won!" The winning ticket was worth $2.17 million, which Phyllis expected to be split evenly. But the next day, when Michael, 38, and his wife Jillanne went to claim the purse, there was no mention of Phyllis. That night Michael told his parents that he had bought the winning stub separately from their $40 monthly pool. Sorry, Ma. Phyllis, a sixtyish retiree, then decided to remind her son of what happens when you don't play well with others: she's suing him, claiming breach of an oral contract.

Phyllis tried to keep the matter quiet and even delayed serving Michael with the legal complaint so that it wouldn't ruin his Christmas. But the Newark Star-Ledger ran big with the anti-Oedipal tale last week. Talk-radio hosts and their audiences trashed Michael so relentlessly that a moist-eyed Phyllis called a press conference, at once begging the media to back off her boy and declaring she had no plans to back off the lawsuit. Explains her lawyer, Gary Blaustein: "Your mother loves you even if you are a murderer." Michael, who works for an electronics company, declined comment.

Anthony Boscia, the liquor-store owner who sold the winning ticket and receives a $1,000 bonus from the lottery for his trouble, has absorbed the moral of this story. "I'm taking my family out for a wonderful time," he says, "and that includes my parents."

Love's Lottery Lost

By Kenny Herzog
Long Island Press

You couldn't help but feel for Kenneth Parker as he sat with attorney Dominic Barbara, telling the sad story of how his wife who skipped town with Lotto loot he said was partially his.

Parker, 77, of Farmingdale, and Connie Parker, 74, now of Melville, were a senior couple entering their sixteenth year of marriage when an innocent piece of paper purchased for $20 at Puff & Stuff in the Sunrise Mall on Valentine's Day turned up a $25 million winner. Connie took the money and ran—to a new solo condo, taking advantage of a prenuptial agreement and exiting what she claims was an abusive relationship. Kenneth, however, took his anger and filed—in court, seeking both a divorce and what he feels is his share of the cash.

"You have an issue of the enforceability of the whole [prenuptial] agreement," says Gary Blaustein, a New Jersey-based divorce lawyer who worked on a very similar case between a mother and son (see "Family Ties" entry below).

And...because he is a husband and they're going through a divorce, and if the court determines [the jackpot is] marital property, then he's entitled to a piece of it."

Alas, this type of Lotto nightmare is as common as the advertised dream. Here's a look at some other notable lottery-induced squabbles:

Family Ties

For 10 years, Michael Klingbiel and his mother, Phyllis, both of New Jersey, agreed they would split any lottery earnings garnered from the $20 a month Phyllis sent her son to go toward 40 tickets. When Michael finally cashed in on October 2, 1997 with a ticket he bought on his own and intended to share it with his wife, not mommy dearest, Phyllis did what any caring, rational parent would do—she stopped talking to him and slapped him with a lawsuit. Two years later, she was awarded 22.5 percent of his winnings and was finally ready to forgive.

A Bitter Custody Battle

Perhaps Kenneth Parker took his cue from Helen Dinand of Naples, Fla., who woke up one day this summer and decided the $60,000 per year share she was receiving from her ex-husband's $359,800 annual lottery intake wasn't cutting it. The couple won a $58 million-plus prize back in 1990 and divorced in 1997, so Dinand could head out to California and pursue acting, leaving ex-hubby Marcel Imbert with their three kids. Imbert, nearly 30 years Dinand's senior, claims 60 grand is the amount she requested in the divorce proceedings, while Dinand thought this was merely what she was collecting on interest. No word on whether the couple is considering reconciliation as an out-of-court solution.

The Not-So-Golden Ticket

The winning lotto slip was "a curse," claimed the attorney for Frank Welsch, Jr. and his five relatives, who went to court in 1989 against friends and business partners James Macieko and Catherin Salegna to figure out who was the rightful inheritor of a $24 million jackpot. Welsch and his family were about to take over ownership of Macieko and Salegna's Ozone Park card shop when Macieko had an employee play the weekly numbers for him. However, Welsch, who in turn was sued by Macieko and Salegna to get it back, confiscated the triumphant ticket. Ultimately, they settled out of court and saved their friendship, which they must have decided was more important than the measly $10 million the Welsches received or the $14 million Marciek and Salegna shared.

Someone Dropped the $3 Million Ball

It's one thing to see your game-winning dart fall out of the bullseye or fall to your knees as a no-doubt hook shot rims around for what feels like days only to slip over the wrong side of the net. But try and fathom your multi-million-dollar lotto ball hanging out for nearly five seconds in its triumphant slot on a lottery wheel, only to have it pop out into the neighboring $10,000 notch. This is precisely what happened to Los Angeles resident Doris Barnett on December 30, 1985. She was granted the smaller sum, but Barnett was not about to take runner-up, and after a three-year-plus litigation tango, she was awarded $3 million—and no one in her family tried to take it from her.