Sweet Story
Wonderful people -- from
Netscape/CNN/AP comes this story from New Jersey:
Couple to Aid Evacuees With $258M Jackpot
A couple who were the sole winners of a $258 million Mega Millions jackpot say some of their winnings will go to help Hurricane Katrina victims.
Harold Lerner, 60, got a call from a friend telling him someone in Rutherford, where the couple live, had bought the winning ticket from the Sept. 16 drawing.
"Little did I know it was my wife who purchased the ticket. We ran downstairs. On the top of the newspaper were the five numbers, and I read off the numbers," he said at a press conference Friday.
"She says, 'Honey, I think we're millionaires,'" he said. "We hugged, kissed and embraced. I'm thinking, `This can't be right, maybe we made a mistake.' We checked it 500 times."
Sure enough, the winning numbers from the Sept. 16 drawing - 5, 16, 41, 46, 50 and the Gold Mega Ball number 1 - were all there.
The couple got paranoid, Helen said, and stashed the ticket in her underwear drawer. Then they went for a walk around town, where residents were still buzzing about the as-yet unknown lottery winner.
Since Helen, who bought the ticket, chose the cash option, they will get $156.1 million, lottery officials said. The federal tax bite will amount to about a quarter of that.
Along with helping Katrina evacuees, they said some of their winnings would go to Seton Hall University, where Helen graduated in 1976.
Nice -- philanthropy is not dead...
Posted by DaveH at September 25, 2005 3:17 PM