Deputies arrested Tameka Hall on a felony grand theft charge after they said she hid a Florida Lottery receipt needed to claim a $2,700 prize at a DeLand Walmart. The receipt was recovered Monday morning, after the customer had already returned to the store without the paperwork he needed.
The case turned on a small piece of paper with outsized value. The Volusia Sheriff’s Office said an elderly customer went into the store Sunday morning with a winning Florida Lottery ticket, and Hall, then working as a cashier, gave him instructions on how to claim the prize. Hours later, he realized he did not have the receipt required to redeem the money and went back to management. Once the store manager reviewed surveillance video, deputies said the answer appeared to be in the footage: Hall folding the receipt and placing it in the left pocket of her uniform vest before she left work for the day.
That receipt mattered because the prize could not simply be handed over at the register. Florida Lottery rules say prizes of $599 or less may be claimed at an authorized retailer or district office, while prizes from $600 to $1 million, for games without an annual payment option, may be claimed at a Florida Lottery district office. The claim form says winners must submit the original ticket, an original Winner Claim Form and acceptable identification, and the lottery’s own checklist says players should sign the back of a winning ticket as soon as they verify it is a winner. For larger claims, the ticket, validation receipt, claim form and identification are supposed to stay together until the process is finished.
Hall told investigators she became distracted by another customer after speaking with the winner and put the receipt in her pocket because she intended to give it to a manager, but never did. Deputies said video showed something different, and they recovered the winning lottery receipt from Hall’s vehicle after meeting with her inside Walmart’s security office Monday morning. Walmart declined to comment on the incident but confirmed that Hall is no longer employed there.
Oscar Acosta’s warning fits this case exactly: a winning ticket, and anything tied to it, should not be allowed to drift out of sight. The arrest does not decide guilt, but it does put the dispute over a routine store transaction into a court setting, where the question becomes whether Hall forgot the receipt or took possession of it long enough to keep the winner from claiming money that was already his.
