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Registered User
Join Date: Mar 2003
Location: New Brunswick
Posts: 2,325
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Why wait a year to claim $30 million lottery prize?
I'm sure most of you guys haven't heard this story, but I think it's hilarious.
Actually, after reading the entire article, I change my opinion, it's downright pathetic and sad.
He told her to keep the change
By PETER CHENEY
From Thursday's Globe and Mail
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The secretive lottery winner and the women he married
$30-million lottery winner waited 11 months to step up
Nynna Ionson's engagement ring came from a bankruptcy sale at Consumers Distributing, marked down from $99.95 to $49.95. On Valentine's Day, 2004, her husband came up with yet another jewellery bargain, a tiny blue sapphire from Wal-Mart.
Even after winning $30-million, Ms. Ionson says, Raymond Sobeski wasn't a man to throw his cash around. Not that Ms. Ionson knew he had it: When they spent last Thursday night together at the Quality Inn in Woodstock, Ont., she says, Mr. Sobeski didn't bother to mention that he had picked up the biggest lottery jackpot in Canadian history earlier that day.
Instead, their evening followed its usual course: small talk, dinner and, later, sex. Ms. Ionson says she did notice one thing: When Mr. Sobeski sent her out for Chinese food, he let her keep the change.
"That was weird," she says. "He always asked for the change back. I should have known something was up."
Few lottery stories have been more intriguing than that of Mr. Sobeski, a 47-year-old computer programmer who learned last April that he had won $30-million in the Super 7, but who waited almost a year to come forward.
Mr. Sobeski has said he delayed collecting the money because he "didn't want to do anything rash." Among the options that he explored during his consultation with experts over the past 12 months was the prospect of having someone else claim his prize.
A number of people have a potential interest in Mr. Sobeski's newfound wealth. Among them is Ms. Ionson, who married him in 1998 and says she is still legally his wife. Although a judge may be the final arbiter in the matter, it's clear that Mr. Sobeski and Ms. Ionson's relationship continued, at least in some form, as late as last week, when they spent the night together. Ms. Ionson has been in a state of shock ever since she learned that the man she married won $30-million, yet kept it a secret.
"It's like Ray's testing me," she says. "He wants to see if I'm going to go after his money or not. Well, if it'll make him hate me, I don't want it."
According to Ms. Ionson's story, she was one of the last to learn of Mr. Sobeski's win. She says she got a call from him last Thursday, not long after he picked up his winnings. There was no mention of the money. Instead, he told her to meet him at 9 p.m. at JP Variety in Woodstock. "Don't be late," she recalls him saying. "I'm not waiting."
She says Mr. Sobeski rented a hotel room, then sent her to pick up Chinese food at the Bamboo restaurant on Norwalk Road. Ms. Sobeski noted a few oddities: Mr. Sobeski made several calls from a pay phone, and was driving a new Lincoln Navigator.
Ms. Ionson says she was somewhat curious about these unusual expenditures, but the thought that he might be concealing millions from her never crossed her mind. Earlier that day, someone had mentioned hearing that a man with the same name as her husband had won $30-million but had waited nearly a year to collect it.
"Maybe it's him," the person said.
"It couldn't be," Ms. Ionson replied. "He would have mentioned it."
After waking up at the hotel on Friday morning, Ms. Ionson says Mr. Sobeski dropped her off at her house. He gave her $150 in cash and told her that $500 more had been deposited into an account that she had access to. Then he told her: "I have a secret. We'll celebrate later."
Mr. Sobeski told her he was going away for a week but would return on April 8, she said. When she asked him where he was going, she says he refused to say. "Trust me," he told her. "I'll take care of you."
She says that later that morning, someone came over to her home with a newspaper. Mr. Sobeski was on the front page. She was stunned. She says she called Mr. Sobeski's cellphone. Crying, she says, she asked him why he hadn't told her about the money.
"I didn't know how you'd take it," she recalls him saying.
Ms. Ionson's history has been something of a country song come to life. She has four children by two different men, neither of whom is currently in her life. For the past 20 years, she has lived in a weather-beaten three-bedroom house owned by the Woodstock housing authority.
She and Mr. Sobeski met on Dec. 10, 1994. It has been rumoured that Ms. Ionson was a dancer in a local club, and that Mr. Sobeski was a client. Ms. Ionson refuses to elaborate, except to say that their meeting was "memorable."
They were married on Dec. 10, 1998, in a chapel in London, Ont. There were no guests, and no fanfare. "We eloped," Ms. Ionson says. "That was my dream."
In the first few years, Ms. Ionson would spend almost every night at Mr. Sobeski's house in nearby Princeton.Their relationship was a stormy, love-hate affair. Mr. Sobeski sent her love notes, which she pasted into a scrapbook.Ms. Ionson kept long, detailed accounts of their time together, recording what she wore each time they met, what they ate and how often they had sex, noting each act with an asterisk in her diaries. In 2002, she recorded the details of a fruitless hunt for Mr. Sobeski when he failed to appear for a scheduled date. "Trying to find my husband," she wrote. "Eight and a half years of my life, gone!"
Ms. Ionson says she was always made to feel like a bit of a guest in his home. She kept some clothes in the closet, but returned to her house in Woodstock each morning.
Despite his comparative financial comfort, Ms. Ionson says, Mr. Sobeski made no ongoing commitments to her. Instead, he gave her occasional gifts of cash to help out with groceries or other expenses. She says her lifestyle was clearly several rungs below his. She spent long periods without a car, a television or even a telephone. To feed her children, she says, she visited local food banks.
"What kind of marriage was it?" she asks. "A one-sided one, I guess."
The relationship appeared to cool over the past couple of years. At some point, Mr. Sobeski served her with divorce papers. Although they're dated 2002, Ms. Ionson says they were delivered this spring, and that she never signed them.The great question now is whether Mr. Sobeski will reappear today, as promised. Ms. Ionson is trying to keep the faith.
"Is he going to come back? I've got to believe that he's going to. But we'll wait and see."
Last edited by claude; April-8th-2004 at 11:58 AM.
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