A sentenced sex offender hit the 3 million dollar lottery prize in Florida and is allowed to retain his gaining. Timothy Poole, who is 43, won the prize with a $20 ticket bought from a 7-Eleven store in Mount Dora, Florida.
Pool works as a taxi driver in a small family company. Since there are no laws counteracting anybody declared guilty and who has carried out a sentence from winning the lottery, Pool can keep the recent jackpot. He decided to cash his winnings in one single payment of $2,219,807.90.
The chances of winning a $3 million top prize in the Super Millions scratch-off game are 1-in-1,680,000, as indicated by Florida Lottery.
According to local television, Poole was originally taken in police custody in 1999 and charged for sexually battering a 9-year-old boy. Poole never accepted the allegations but he pleaded guilty in court and he was sentenced.
Poole declared himself guilty of having tried to sexually assault a child victim under the age of 12, as is recorded in Florida’s Department of Law Enforcement Files. The events happened more than ten years ago in 2002. He was condemned to 13 months’ time served and 10 years’ probation. Since he had already spent time in custody until his sentence was given he was able to stay on probation. However, in 2003 he did not attend the therapy sessions imposed by the court and his probation was cancelled. The next three years he spent in jail. He was out of prison in 2006.
In an October report by a CBS- associated station based in Orando, WKMG-TV, Timothy Poole declared he was in fact wrongfully accused of being a sexual offender. He said that even if it is hard to accept it, there are cases and circumstances leading to a person being accused of some crime he or she did not commit.
Poole is still registered on a website created by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement as a sexual predator.
This is not the only crime he has been accused of. Ten years prior to the sexual battering case, law enforcement officers took him in for apparently stealing $20,000 in food stamps. Overall the men has been arrested a dozen times in the state of Florida on various accusations like counterfeiting a check or plain theft. He spent time in jail at least two times. Now luck hit him.