An employee at a gas station convenience store in Toledo is facing felony charges after he allegedly stole a winning lottery ticket from a Washington State Lottery compliance investigator.
Compliance investigators conducted checks on licensed lottery retailers on March 28 “to ensure retailers are correctly validating winning tickets and to identify retailers who may be stealing winning tickets and claiming prizes for themselves,” according to documents filed in Lewis County Superior Court on May 13.
During the checks, the compliance investigator presents a licensed lottery retailer with a ticket that is a $1,000 winner. The retailer is supposed to run the ticket through a machine that plays a “musical chime” and prints out a validation slip when it receives a winning ticket.
A compliance investigator reportedly conducted a check on the Exit 59 Chevron Station in Toledo on March 28 and gave a lottery ticket to a clerk, identified as Ravinder Singh, 27, of Toledo, to check.
Singh allegedly ran the ticket through the lottery machine, and the compliance investigator reportedly heard the machine play the “winning chime” and print a validation slip, according to court documents.
Singh allegedly “took several seconds to review the slip and scratch ticket,” then “informed (the investigator) that the ticket was not a winner,” according to court documents.
Singh allegedly kept both the ticket and the validation slip, in violation of lottery retailer protocol.
The investigator reportedly “lingered for a few moments before walking out” and returned to the store 20 minutes later claiming he lost his debit card.
“While Singh was looking for the card, (the investigator) looked on the counter for the winning ticket/validation slip and did not see it visible anywhere,” according to court documents.
On March 31, two people entered the Washington State Lottery headquarters in Olympia with the missing ticket and validation slip.
When questioned, they reportedly said they were given the ticket by the clerk at the Toledo Chevron Station and later said the clerk, who they identified as Singh, had “contacted them to cash the prize in,” according to court documents.
Singh had allegedly promised to give them $200 of the $1,000 prize, according to court documents. They allegedly “indicated no knowledge about the origins of the ticket.”
When contacted by the Lewis County Sheriff’s Office as part of the investigation, Singh allegedly “claimed he was confused by the ticket and set it aside to ask his boss about it” and “claimed his friend was the one who told him it was the winner.” He allegedly said that he told his friend, who he identified as one of the two people who brought the ticket to Washington State Lottery headquarters, that “he could do whatever he wanted with it.”
He allegedly denied that “there was money that was going to be given to him” and did not answer a deputy’s question about “what his friends would receive in return for cashing the ticket,” according to court documents.
Singh was arrested and booked into the Lewis County Jail at 12:13 p.m on Monday, May 12, according to jail records.
He was charged Tuesday, May 13, in Lewis County Superior Court with one count each of lottery fraud and second-degree theft.
Lottery fraud is a class B felony punishable by up to 10 years in prison. Second-degree theft is a class C felony punishable by up to five years in prison.
Singh was released from the Lewis County Jail Tuesday on his own personal recognizance.
Arraignment is scheduled for Thursday, May 22.
