A man who won $10 million in a California lottery game has been sentenced to more than 17 years in prison for a drunken-driving crash that killed three people.Thomas Turnour had pleaded guilty to gross vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated and causing injury while driving intoxicated.
The winner of a SuperLotto game in 2001 was sentenced Friday in San Bernardino.
Authorities say the 52-year-old man from Victorville was driving a pickup truck that hit a car stopped at a red light in San Bernardino three years ago. Three people inside the first car died.
His attorney says Turnour essentially "turned over everything he has" to settle a lawsuit filed by the victims' families.
Saturday, August 16, 2008
Another lottery loser
Via the Arizona Republic:
Mmm...I guess my question is, so what is your point?
ReplyDeleteSeems like if I guy who won the lottery and liked to drink alot, would budget enough money for a chaffeur or at least cab fair.
Or did he blow the whole wad and the his victims aren't going to get squatt?
The point of the posts under the "lottery winners and losers" label is that winning the lottery seems to often be correlated with being a loser in one's subsequent life, and this is another confirming data point. I have also included the one disconfirming data point I've come across, Brad Duke. (I wonder how his investment program is doing in the current market?)
ReplyDelete$10 million should have been plenty of cab fare.
It's not clear how much was left for the victims of his accident.
Thanks for responding Jim, I did click on the label and found the articles very interesting.
ReplyDeleteI liked the story about Whittaker who obviously was a gambling addict being that he was getting into trouble at the race track.
Winning the lottery seems to be correlated with being a loser in one's former life, too, since, by virtue of playing the lottery at all, a person is showing poor judgment--and certainly poor money management skills.
ReplyDeleteJim,
ReplyDeleteHere is another lottery story for you, I found this rather humorous. From today's NY Times.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/22/nyregion/22super.html?adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1219463976-lkYadtbDzmwex44rlXlFEg
"Winning is, of course, the essence of the lottery, though it might be said that losing is its natural state. And Mr. Otero is certainly a natural — at losing. For the last three years, he has utterly failed to recoup a rather staggering investment: $500 to $700on the lottery a week."
The punch line is even sweeter. They interview this fool, who is complaining about an acquaintance who won the lottery, but routinely spent very little. This fool actually is planning on winning the lottery, and thus rationalizes throwing away substantial sums of cash. Actually enough to make some good investments!
Sheldon: Wow, that's a good story! Thanks!
ReplyDeleteI like how Otero complains that it's "not fair" that the other guy wins, because he wasn't spending as much to play.