Arkansas store clerk accused of telling lottery player winning ticket was worthless

Robert Daniel Shaw
Robert Daniel Shaw

FORT SMITH -- A convenience store clerk faces a lottery fraud charge over accusations that he told a customer that her lottery ticket was worthless, then cashed in the $500 winning ticket himself.

Robert Daniel Shaw, 25, of Alma is scheduled to go before a Sebastian County Circuit Court judge Wednesday to answer the felony charge. He was being held in the county jail without bail Monday on drug court sanctions, according to jail records.

A Fort Smith police report dated Feb. 2 said a customer told the manager of the Pic N Tote store at 5114 Rye Hill Road that she thought one of the four or five lottery tickets she purchased was a winning ticket. She had scanned the tickets with a personal scanner the store provided.

But when she went into the store Jan. 11, the report said, she had Shaw scan the tickets and he informed her that none of the tickets were winners. She threw the tickets into a trash can and left, the report said.

The manager went through surveillance videos that showed Shaw retrieving one of the tickets from the trash can and cashing it himself, the report said.

The detective working the case interviewed Shaw, and, according to the report, Shaw admitted to double-scanning one of the losing tickets in order to conceal the winning ticket from the customer.

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He told the detectives that he tricked the customer because he needed money to pay his bills, the report said.

In an unrelated case, court records showed that Shaw was charged in August 2015 with felony theft. A police report said a friend said he allowed Shaw to sleep at his home but awoke the next morning to find Shaw and several of his possessions gone.

According to the report, Shaw admitted to taking the property and told the friend that he had a drug problem and had a relapse.

His theft case was transferred to drug court in August 2016. Court records showed that the prosecutor's office is filing a petition to revoke Shaw's six-year suspended sentence on the theft charge.

Metro on 02/07/2017

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