A Florida couple has been charged after allegedly creating a fake winning lottery ticket.
Kira Enders, 36, and Dakota Jones, 32, both of Defuniak Springs, Fla., are facing several charges including larceny/grand theft of more than $100,000 and passing a forged/altered state lottery ticket with an intent to defraud, per a booking database for the Escambia County Jail.
According to Escambia County Sheriff’s Office reports obtained by local affiliate station FOX 35 and reports from CBS News Miami, Enders attempted to return what she said was a winning $50 scratch-off ticket from the Florida Lottery game 500X the Cash.
However, authorities told CBS News Miami that the ticket displayed obvious altercations, and what Enders tried to submit to the Florida Lottery was allegedly two tickets “crudely” taped together.
“They had an individual that thought that they could crudely take two tickets and put them together and pretend as if they were a million-dollar winner,” Escambia Sheriff Chip Simmons told the outlet.
FOX reported that Enders allegedly brought the ticket to a Florida Lottery office in Pensacola on March 1, and officials immediately designated it as a “non-winner.” Enders also signed official forms at the time acknowledging that there could be legal consequences if she had tampered with a ticket, according to a report from the Sheriff’s Office.
According to the Pensacola News Journal, Special Agent Richard Pisanti later received a call from Enders on March 7 asking about the status of the ticket. The investigator asked her to come to the Florida Lottery office on March 11, and both Enders and Jones, who drove her to the office, were “immediately detained and separated for investigation,” per the outlet.
An affidavit obtained by FOX alleges that Enders and Jones told different stories of how they came across the winning ticket, and that they had taped it together after it was ripped up.
Enders allegedly asked Pisanti: “What, they don’t go together?” per the affidavit, and Jones told the investigator that “they are honest people and they aren’t into fraud.”
“Jones advised that he didn’t know it was a crime to bring it to the lottery office but it was not their intentions to get over on the lottery,” the affidavit reads, per FOX.
Jones was arrested and booked into the Escambia County Jail on April 16, and Enders was booked two days later on April 18.
Simmons told CBS News Miami that the case seemed cut-and-dry to investigators.
“I don’t think this is gonna be a made-for-TV movie type of situation because it was clear to the lottery officials, and obviously clear to us, that she had taken two tickets with different, you know, one side had one serial number, the other side had the other serial number on it,” Simmons said. “Especially whenever you pretend like you’ve won a million dollars, they’re gonna take a look at this ticket.”
Enders and Jones were released from jail on April 19, with bonds of $20,000 and $17,500, respectively, and are both due in court on May 10, per data from the Escambia County Jail.
It wasn’t immediately clear if the pair had a legal rep to comment on their behalf.
