FYI BOX

Protect Your Lottery Ticket

The California Lottery offers the following tips to ensure you’re not ripped off:

* Sign it: Always sign the back of your ticket and write your address after you purchase it. If it’s a winner, that will be extra protection against fraud.

* Know how to use Check-A-Ticket: The automated scanners are common at Lottery retailers. For instructions, go to calottery.com.

* Use official California Lottery results: Get them online after the drawing at calottery.com.

The numbers came to Mario Colin in a dream.

But when they finally came up a winner in the California State Lottery, Colin almost lost out.

Now, the Roseville 7-Eleven clerk who allegedly gave Colin $4 in return for a $555,000 winning ticket two years ago is facing a September trial and up to four years behind bars.

The clerk, Rajinder Kaur of Sacramento, is answering charges of grand theft with an enhancement for the high-dollar amount. She has pleaded not guilty.

“The lady – the lady didn’t say, ‘You won this amount’ or anything,” Colin, a Spanish speaker, said through a translator during a preliminary hearing, according to a transcript. “She just handed the $4 and (did) not even look at me. Just like that. Hand it to me.”

It took less than a week for California Lottery investigators to determine Kaur had defrauded Colin and stashed the ticket under some religious artifacts in her home.

This week, prosecutors and defense attorneys will huddle to hammer out a trial date, expected to take place next month.

The case has dragged on since the August 2007 arrest partly because instances like it are so rare, according to court documents.

In ruling against a defense motion to lower charges last year, Placer County Superior Court Judge Colleen Nichols wrote that the case is “unique and no California case is directly on point.”

Still, some facts surrounding the case are clear.

According to court records, Colin, a Sacramento landscaper, would often stop at a convenience store on the way to work and purchase a Red Bull energy drink and a couple of Mega Millions lottery tickets.

That’s just what he did on Aug. 14, 2007, when he entered the 7-Eleven on Douglas Boulevard in Roseville.

The day after purchasing the ticket, Colin had trouble using the automatic ticket scanner at the same 7-11, though he knew he had won something. He returned the next day, and asked Kaur to check it for him, according to testimony at the hearing.

Colin accepted the $4 and left. A couple of days later, while purchasing a ticket using the same numbers at another convenience store, that clerk noticed five of Colin’s numbers had recently come up. That’s when Colin contacted the lottery.

“Sometimes I play the Quick Pick. But sometimes I play the numbers, the set numbers that I already have, because I dreamt about these numbers, and those are, like, my lucky numbers,” Colin, who would have won $22 million had he chosen the correct mega number, said in his testimony.

Lottery law-enforcement officers were immediately dispatched to investigate, closing down the store to examine surveillance footage.

The same day, an agent spoke to the defendant on the phone. She stated she had the ticket and would bring it to the store.

Kaur, of Sacramento, was booked into the Placer County Jail and released on $50,000 bail. Colin received the money, and an employee at the 7-Eleven last week said Kaur was no longer employed there.

Kaur’s defense attorney, Thomas Leupp, argued in court last year that because Kaur never tried to redeem the ticket, the theft was only attempted – not completed. He also claimed that the ticket itself had little value – less than $400, the threshold for grand theft.

“The people have shown no evidence that this is something that could be readily cashed,” Leupp argued. What’s more, he said, “There has been no loss. The man got his money.”

But Nichols ruled that Kaur was eligible for the more serious charge.

“Between the times defendant took the ticket from the defendant and when the lottery completed its investigation and awarded Mr. Colin his winnings, he was deprived of both the ticket and the ultimate $555,000 winnings,” she wrote in an opinion.

In an interview last week, California Lottery spokesman Alex Traverso said the system contains strong safeguards to protect players’ confidence in the system.

Since the Kaur incident, the Lottery has instituted a retailer sting operation in which investigators attempt to redeem decoy tickets with clerks; those who attempt to defraud the investigator are arrested.

“Our players have to trust that when they when they turn their ticket in they’re going to be treated fairly,” he said. “Nobody wants to play the game, win money, and then not be able to collect it.”