James Farthing was arrested early Sunday in Georgetown, Kentucky, after deputies found him asleep inside a running Ford Mustang in a Walmart parking lot and charged him with alcohol intoxication in a public place. It was his fifth arrest since he won a $167.3 million jackpot in 2025.
Deputies were called around 2:57 a.m. after a citizen reported a white Ford Mustang with a temporary tag stopped in the middle of an intersection. By the time deputies found it, the car had moved to the Walmart lot and stopped near electric vehicle charging stations. Farthing, who was alone in the passenger seat, was taken into custody around 4:04 a.m. ET and later booked into the Scott County Detention Center.
The arrest matters now because Farthing is not just any defendant in Scott County. He and his mother were announced as the winners of Kentucky's largest-ever Powerball jackpot in April 2025, and this latest case adds to a string of run-ins with law enforcement that has followed the win. He is scheduled to be arraigned Tuesday, Sept. 22, in Scott County District Court.
Deputies said the arresting deputy saw bloodshot and watery eyes, slurred speech, difficulty keeping his balance and the smell of alcohol and marijuana, and described him as manifestly under the influence of alcohol. Farthing told deputies that a woman drove him to the Walmart and left him there, but surveillance footage reviewed by another deputy showed the Mustang arriving at the parking lot without anyone getting out before deputies arrived. That gap is at the center of the case: he was charged with public intoxication, but the footage and the deputy's account suggest he may have remained in control of a running car he could have driven while impaired.
The pending charge is less serious than some of his earlier cases, but it fits a pattern. Days after the jackpot win, he was arrested in Florida after an altercation at TradeWinds Resort in St. Pete Beach. In February, he was arrested in Kentucky on a charge of intimidation of a participant in the legal process. In March, he was arrested on burglary and marijuana possession charges in a Fayette County case that was later dismissed. In July, he was arrested in Scott County after an alleged domestic violence incident and charged with first-degree strangulation and fourth-degree assault, then ordered to have no contact with the alleged victim while wearing a monitoring device. The public intoxication case remains pending, and what happens at the arraignment may decide whether this latest arrest becomes another short-lived charge or part of a longer record.
