False Lottery Claimant Charged with Crime
Unfortunately, as my darling wife is wont to point out, being a DUMB@SS is not a crime. In the case of Elecia Battle, if there were any justice, it would be punishable by execution or something close to it.
CHICAGO (Reuters) - An Ohio woman who said she lost the winning ticket for a $162 million lottery prize was charged on Friday with filing a false police report.
The police department at South Euclid near Cleveland said the charges were lodged against Elicia Battle, 40, a day after she admitted the whole story was a case of wishful thinking.
She could be jailed for as much as six months under the charge and fined $1,000.
Battle's lawyer, Sheldon Starke, has said he believes Battle talked herself into believing she really had lost a ticket. The prize was awarded to the real ticket holder, Rebecca Jemison, 34, and Battle filed a suit to stop the money from being distributed,
She dropped the suit on Thursday.
A helluva way to get your 15 minutes of fame isn't it? How someone could be so craven as to make up this sort of stories almost defies explanation. Working is so gauche and so slow. No, if you want to make some serious bank in the Bush economy, the way to do it is to sue to keep someone else from enjoying their success and perhaps even leech off the publicity you'll get. As a very wise man (Roger Ailers? Rupert Mudrdoch?) once said, any publicity is good publicity.
The truly sad and wrong thing about this is that Ms. Battle probably will make some serious bank off this sorry episode. She'll go on talk shows, give interviews, all the while playing the contrition and the "I was just trying to provide for my family" cards. Before long she'll be following the lead of Heidi Fleiss, Amy Fisher, Tonya Harding, and Monica Lewinsky. She'll be selling handbags, or lingerie, or shoes, or perhaps even making guest appearances on "Celebrity Boxing". Yeah, before long she'll be providing for her family just fine, thank you.
Who says lying, deception, and crass self-promotion don't pay well? Some would say those are quintessentially American qualities, and they just might have a good argument. How sad.
