How closely would you guard a winning lottery ticket? What of that ticket was an instant scratcher worth $50K?

How would you react if you got caught stealing a winning lottery ticket? Two brothers accused of stealing a winning $5 million scratch-off lottery ticket became agitated and angry when questioned about it, and one of them threatened to destroy it. As reported in www.huffingtonpost.com.

On trial for the theft of the lottery ticket are Nayel Ashkar, 36, and Andy Ashkar, 34.

Was this an inside job? How could someone let these guys rip off the ticket? The answer is very interesting.

Andy Ashkar is accused of stealing the ticket from Robert Miles at The Green Ale Market on Oct. 27, 2006. Ashkar told Miles, a maintenance worker, the winning ticket was worth $5,000 and paid him $4,000 and kept the other $1,000 for the store, which his father owns.

Nayel Ashkar is accused of conspiring with his brother to try to claim the winnings just before the ticket expired. The jackpot was to be paid out over 20 years, not in a lump sum.

How they were caught remains cloudy. The administrative worker at the office in Syracuse, New York claimed she thought something was amiss when both initially declined to sign the necessary papers to claim the prize, adding that she had never experienced such a subdued reaction from a jackpot winner.

Interesting case that I assure you we will follow over the coming months – or years.