Unless you live under a rock, you probably recall the recent Powerball jackpot that totaled around $1.6 billion dollars, to be split between three big winners.  One of those winning tickets originated at a 7-Eleven in our own Chino Hills, California, but to whom that ticket was sold remains a mystery.

Treacherous Trickery in Chino

Right after the numbers were announced, there was the 62-year-old nurse, whose wretched, awful, NOT funny son played a mean trick on her, and convinced her that she had the winning ticket when in fact, she did not.  The nurse’s boss, owner of the Park Avenue Health Care and Wellness Center in Pomona, had purchased some 18,000 tickets for each of his employees.  He called the son’s trickery “despicable,” and in consideration, gave the nurse and her family an all-expense vacation to a destination of their choice.

Since then, no one else has come forward to claim the Chino winnings, but according to some experts, the delay is no surprise.  In fact, the last big California lottery winner took six weeks to come forward and made a big dramatic spectacle of it when he did finally claim his $425 million jackpot.  Susan Bradley, expert and founder of the Sudden Money Institute of Palm Beach, said it can take at least two months to prepare a winner psychologically and emotionally for the fortune and obstacles ahead.

When in Doubt, Sue 'Em!

Today, Los Angeleno Brandy Milliner sued the Lottery Commission, claiming to have purchased a winning ticket for the SuperLotto Plus from a 7-Eleven in Chatsworth.  The jackpot for this case was $63 million, and the deadline to claim it expired today at 5 p.m.  Milliner allegedly sent in the winning ticket within the period and even received a letter from the Lottery Commission congratulating him on the win.  Later, the Commission reneged on the award and claimed the ticket was “too damaged to be reconstructed.”  The Commission has also refused to return the ticket to him, claims Milliner. 

What Happens to Lost Loot?

So, what happens if no one can prove legal claim to lottery winnings?  The money goes into an “unclaimed funds” account that is eventually given to the California Department of Education to help fund schools within the State.   The process is slow, but eventually, many Californian kids will be much better off as a result of the Lost Lotto Loot!

If you’re like me, you first heard of this story last week, as the tragic tale of a mother of four being ruthlessly gunned down after a road rage run-in with a suspect still at large. Tammy Meyers had been teaching her teenage daughter how to drive just minutes from their home when she was shot and killed as a result of road rage. (Enter sad violins…) A reward was offered by the family of the deceased, and her children were giving statements to the media about what a good mom she was. What a sad story.

This week, however, the whole truth (or at least more of it) has come out. After leaving the school parking lot with her daughter around 11 p.m. at night (an odd time for a driving lesson), Tammy Meyers was cut off by the alleged shooter. She then drove home, dropped off her teenage daughter, and picked up her 22-year-old son and his gun. The two set out to find the traffic terrorist, driving around the neighborhood in search of him. They found him and began to follow his car for a while, before supposedly turning around to go back home. According to police, the subject then followed them home and was the first shooter in the exchange between the driver and Tammy’s son that ultimately resulted in Tammy’s death.

So to recap, this wasn’t just a heart-wrenching tragedy where an innocent mother was ruthlessly gunned down – this woman went out of her way to hunt down the offensive driver, bringing her ARMED TEENAGE SON with her! For what, back-up? What was she planning to do when the two set off, weapon in hand?! And way to put your young son in danger!

Smells bad. Totally stinks, in fact.



Today, after a stand-off with Vegas Police (along with the husband of the deceased and every media outlet in town), 19-year-old Erich Nowsch was taken into custody as the alleged suspect in the shooting.

Meanwhile it has been reported that the Meyers family knew Erich from around the neighborhood and they are already on a smear campaign to paint Erich as being a bad guy. According to NBC News, Tammy’s husband Robert Meyers said of Erich, “he knew where I live. We knew how bad he was but we didn’t know he was this bad.” (Huh? He knew how bad but he didn’t know he was this bad? I’m confused…) Mr. Meyers went on to say that his wife Tammy had “spent countless hours at that park consoling this boy," that she gave him food and money, and told him to “pull his pants up and to be a man, more times than I can count.” (More sad violins…) So the shooter is a sinner and the victim is a saint – even though SHE was the one who pursued HIM in quite the calculated manner.

I’m not saying it’s okay to go around shooting people, but it seems to me like there’s blame to share between both the victim and shooter. I guess only time will tell how the story plays out, but I am personally on Team Erich – at least for now. Stay tuned for updates!

Last night around 6:15 p.m. PST, the Ferguson prosecutor Mr. Robert McCulloch, made an incredibly drawn out announcement to the world that police officer Darren Wilson would not be charged after shooting and killing unarmed teenager, Michael Brown. The grand jury took just over 3 months to come to the conclusion that not only was there not enough evidence to put Officer Wilson on trial for first degree murder, but there was not even enough to try him for involuntary manslaughter, essentially exonerating Wilson for the killing.

Not surprisingly, the announcement sparked a huge uproar, from Ferguson, Missouri, to Figueroa Street, Los Angeles, where protestors hit the pavement to express great upset in the grand jury’s decision. According to the LA Times, 61 people were arrested in Ferguson last night, and at least a dozen buildings were set on fire during the protests.


No. The United States Justice Department is conducting its own federal investigation into this incident and is also investigating the practices of the Ferguson Police Department as a whole. And thank goodness for that.

A Couple of Interesting Facts You Might Not Know

1. The prosecutor in this case, Robert McCulloch, was accused of bias and asked to step down from his handling of the matter due to his own personal experience: his father was a police officer who was shot to death while in pursuit of a suspect. (Sound familiar?)

2. Officer Wilson has stayed out of the public eye during the grand jury deliberations, but his life was not put on hold by any means – in fact, he got married at the end of last month. Nice to see he isn’t letting the death of an unarmed teenager get in the way of his nuptials.


From what the prosecutor said, Michael Brown had turned around and began to run towards Officer Wilson when Wilson fatally shot him “several times.” Brown was unarmed; Wilson was a trained police officer. So my question is, shouldn’t a police officer have some skill or tool OTHER to fatally shoot an unarmed young person who comes toward him? Why not use his Taser? Or a police baton? Or his own police-trained fists. It is my belief that cops should be trained on how to deal with people in ways that do not involve shooting them and if Officer Wilson had been properly trained, he should have been able to quell any threat presented by Michael Brown without killing him in his tracks.

If Brown had pulled a gun on Officer Wilson, then absolutely, shoot to kill. Or if there had been 10 Michael Browns surrounding Officer Wilson, then okay, probably a good idea to pull your gun. Or, if it was ME who Michael Brown was aggressively approaching in a secluded alleyway, then fine, I would probably feel scared and threatened enough to pull a firearm. But an officer of the law should know better – he should know how to deal with an UNARMED person without using his damn gun.

A recent case from the California Court of Appeals caught my attention because it involved a defendant here in California, and a “victim” in my home state of Indiana. In the matter of People v. Shapiro (2014) Cal.App.4th, the court affirmed the conviction of 59-year-old Mark Irving Shapiro (hereafter “Old Shapiro”), who had a 2+ year online relationship with a young Hoosier girl (hereafter “Hoosier Jane Doe”), who was 14-years-old at the onset of their communication.

Shapiro pretended to be young lad in Huntington Beach, California, when he began talking to Hoosier Jane Doe in chat rooms just before her 15th birthday. He claimed that he was only a few years older than her and even sent her pictures of a teenage boy to represent himself. After a while, their occasional chats turned into constant contact, to the extent that Hoosier Jane Doe began to shut out her real life friends and family in favor of Old Shapiro, and even claimed to be “in love” with him. When Hoosier Jane Doe was 16, the relationship turned sexual. Old Shapiro began encouraging her to masturbate and sending her links to pornographic videos and exchanging naked pictures of his teenage alter ego for naked pictures of her. He also convinced her to penetrate herself with the handle of a hairbrush in order to achieve orgasm.

Eventually Hoosier Jane Doe’s parents became worried about the dramatic changes in her behavior and they hired a private investigator to do a background check on their daughter’s long-distance love. After installing a keystroke logger on her computer, they were able to track down Old Shapiro’s true identity and the subject case ensued.

Old Shapiro was convicted of violating California Penal Code section 288.3(a), and sentenced to 5 years of formal probation and 240 days in jail. On appeal, Old Shapiro put forth several failing arguments, including a defense that the trial court had rejected based on Indiana’s definition of a “minor.”

The defendant was convicted of violating a statute that prohibits contact with a minor with intent to commit one of the target crimes; the target crime in this case was California Penal Code section 289(h), which prohibits “participation in an act of sexual penetration with another person who is under 18 years of age.” For purposes of the statute, “sexual penetration” is defined as “the act of causing penetration, however slight…by any foreign object, substance, instrument or device, or by any unknown object.”

I included the text of the statute here for a reason: Old Shapiro argued that he had the mistaken belief that he was not violating Penal Code 288.3, which prohibits contact with a minor – because in Indiana, the age of consent is 16. However, the argument fails because the target crime here specifically prohibits participating in penetration of someone who is “under 18 years of age,” and does not use the term “minor.”

Shapiro also claimed it was a violation of his right to privacy and free speech, claiming that since Hoosier Jane Doe was an adult under Indiana law, the two had the right, as consenting adults, to discuss sex. The court disagreed. Another part of Old Shapiro’s argument was that California’s law was intended only to protect California minors, but the court was equally unpersuaded by this contention, especially since the statute in question makes no mention of the minor’s location.

The point of this discussion is just to point out that when you are charged with a particular offense in one state, you should expect the laws of that state to apply – and not rely on another state’s definition or loophole to provide you with some sort of defense. Although we are all entitled to Equal Protection under the law, alleged violations of that principle are subject to tough scrutiny under the law and will rarely be cause for exoneration.