Lottery News

This Wednesday, a scammer who robbed nearly $1 million from a woman in a lottery scheme was sentenced to federal prison for 108 months.

An elderly woman from Estes Park, Colorado, was scammed by Leonard Luton, a Jamaican national living in Brooklyn, New York for more than $970,000 according to the prosecutors.

According to the documents produced in the court, Luton and another Jamaican national worked together and were responsible for convincing the woman that she has had won $2.8 million and a Mercedes Benz in a lottery. The scheme proposed by them required her to pay thousands of dollars upfront in fake fees in order to receive the fictional winnings.

According to a press release by the United States Department of Justice, the scamsters got the woman mail packages of money and checks, in addition to six iPhones, delivered to different addresses of Luton's friends.

The conmen even visited the old woman's house in Estes Park and robbed her through other techniques of forgery. The first such incident occurred in October 2018, when a co-conspirator, showed up on her doorsteps at 1:30 am disguised as an FBI agent. He showed her a fake FBI badge and ordered her to hand over him $65,000 in cash.

For the second trip, Luton visited her house himself in January 2019 in the hope of conning her with more money, but he got arrested there and then. And to everybody's surprise, he was holding one of the iPhones that he robbed off the woman.

Finally, in February 2020, Luton was convicted for one of his conspiracies to commit and aid mail fraud. In addition to his term for 108 months, the United States District Court Judge, Christine M. Arguello, entered an order of forfeiture of $484,123.16 and imposed a special assessment fee of $900.

As per the FBI Special Agent, this has been a great step in combatting such scammers who prey on the vulnerable people of the community.

This is why we always propagate - Do Not Fall For Alluring Emails and Calls! Think twice that have you ever played a lottery. Or have your numbers even matched the ones drawn? Because no state lottery calls to inform you are a winner. You are solely responsible for playing and winning a lottery.