A Cleveland woman who claimed she'd lost her winning lottery ticket found herself in legal trouble when the truth finally came out.
When the winning numbers for a $162 million Mega Millions jackpot were announced on December 30, 2003, Elecia Battle came forward to declare herself as the winner. But she faced a problem, claiming she'd lost the winning ticket .
Elecia filed a police report about the "lost" ticket, saying she'd dropped it outside a South Euclid store. Her story made headlines and Clevelanders were soon helping her to search for the valuable ticket, using flashlights to comb a snowy parking lot in search of the scrap of paper.
Police had no reason to doubt Elecia's story but the public was left shocked when another woman came forward to claim the prize. Rebecca Jemison from Ohio was declared the real winner after submitting her ticket and collecting the jackpot.
Elecia was still adamant that she'd won and filed a lawsuit against Rebecca. "My ticket was lost. I do recall all the numbers. They are all somehow family-related. No one can tell me what I did and did not play. I did it honestly and I have no doubt," Elecia said at the office of her attorney, Sheldon Starke.
"I was angry at first, but not worried at all. I knew what I possessed," Rebecca told Deseret News. Rebecca proved she was the real winner by providing a second ticket that was purchased at the same time as the winning ticket with the same numbers in another drawing.
Ohio Lottery headquarters validated Rebecca's ticket and said they were confident that she had bought it herself, not found it. In 2004 Elecia finally dropped the lawsuit as she admitted that while she had bought and lost a Mega Millions ticket, it wasn't the winning one.
"I wanted to win," Elecia said. "The numbers were so overwhelming. I did buy a ticket and I lost. I wanted to win so bad for my kids and my family. I apologize."
Elecia was later found guilty of falsifying a police report and was sentenced to 50 hours of community service. She was also put on probation for a year and had to pay a $5,500 fine to make up for the time that police searched for the missing ticket.
Elecia became known as the "lottery liar", recollecting the incident, she told Fox 8 in 2018: “I used to get threatening phone calls. I used to have to sneak out of my house, and put on wigs or hats".
She attempted to capitalize on her newfound notoriety by launching a professional boxing career, where she went by the name "Mega Battle". It later led to her starting a career as a personal trainer.
Elecia revealed she still buys Mega Millions tickets in hopes of actually winning her own jackpot one day. “If I win, no one will know,” she said.
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