*A New Hampshire woman won a whopping $560 million Powerball last month, and after the shock, joy and disbelief wore off, the fear sunk in. Now she is in court fighting to remain anonymous. Thing is, she signed the back of the ticket for safety (I hear you. I do the same thing) and filled out all the other required info before she learned that if she had put the name of a Trust instead, her desire to not be publicly identified would be met.
Now she is in court hoping to change that.
The $559.7 million winning Powerball ticket was sold last month at Reed’s Ferry Market in Merrimack. It is New Hampshire’s second Powerball jackpot winner in the past year and a half, and is the sixth-largest Powerball jackpot on record and the seventh-largest jackpot overall. Lottery officials confirmed the ticket is a winner.
According to court records filed at Hillsborough County Superior Court South in Nashua. by the attorney for Jane Doe (court docs identify her as such), “She has described the signing as ‘a huge mistake.'”
The petitioner is said to be a longtime resident of New Hampshire, extremely private and active in her community. She would prefer to stay that way.
Attorney Steven Gordon of the Shaheen and Gordon law firm stated that his client “…wishes to continue this work and the freedom to walk into a grocery store or attend public events without being known or targeted as the winner of a half-billion dollars.”
But wouldn’t her neighbors know something was up after all the upgrades she’d probably make? I mean, people who play the lottery generally do so for a reason. Newer car. Bigger house. Nicer clothes.
We SO feel your pain, woman. But at the same time, many of us beg to have such a problem.
When the winning numbers were first announced, Jane Doe couldn’t believe her own eyes.
“She read and reread and reread them again — there was a match,” her attorney said. “The immediate emotions were raw and conflicting – awe, disbelief and an unexpected one: panic about how to protect a piece of paper that is most often casually thrown away along with the whimsical hope of being a winner.”
So what does she plan to do with all that money?
“She intends to contribute a portion of her winnings to a charitable foundation so that they may do good in the world. She wishes to be a silent witness to these good works, far from the glare and misfortune that has often fallen upon other lottery winners,” he wrote in court records.
Sincerely, I say to this winner, ‘Good luck with that.’
I must say though, if I was such a winner, I’d fight for privacy too. Now we know what to do should such a blessing (or curse depending on how you look at it) come our way. I’m praying it does.
Read more on this story at New Hampshire.com
