Wife's Lotto Secret Costs Years of Grief

mateomasfeo · October 15, 2007 17:16

Wife's Lotto secret costs years of grief

If you won a $28.5 million jackpot, would you tell your spouse? Bernice Heslop won -- and didn't tell. The legal fights continue 12 years later.

When Bernice Heslop opened the paper that Sunday in 1995 and saw the six Lotto numbers, her first thought must have been: ''I can't believe it. I'm RICH!'' And then, the evidence suggests, another thought formed, something like: ``Hmmmm . . . no need to tell the hubby about this.''

It was a fateful decision that has tangled three people -- Heslop, her now ex-husband and a saloon patron with exceedingly good hearing -- in a titanic 10-year tug of war. The stinking mess recently landed on Miami-Dade Judge David Miller's docket. He is expected to set a hearing date when he returns from vacation next week.

''This case has money, greed and betrayal,'' said attorney Richard Lara, whose law firm is representing the third party, the barroom bystander with rabbit ears. ``All the elements of a soap opera.''

The saga started Nov. 26, 1995. Heslop saw the lottery numbers in the paper -- 1-10-22-24-29-39 -- and knew she had become an overnight millionaire.

The $1 ticket Heslop bought at a North Miami Beach Publix won her a $28.52 million jackpot -- then one of the state's largest.

Heslop called her grown children and told them they were rich, too. But she didn't tell her husband, Ernest Moore Jr. The two married in 1984 but had been living separately for five years when Heslop won the lottery.

Instead of claiming her win right away, Heslop tucked the ticket away in a safe-deposit box and called her lawyer. She wanted a divorce, fast.

The divorce was finalized on Feb. 1, 1996. The next day, Heslop flew to Tallahassee and quietly claimed the prize for her and her kids. She was in and out of the lottery headquarters in minutes -- no posing for photographs, no press interviews.

Heslop would be paid $1,426,000 a year for 20 years.

''Basically, she was weaseling her way out of her marriage so she wouldn't have to give her husband any of the lottery money,'' said Bruce Baldwin, a lawyer at Miami's Mase & Lara who is representing the third party in the case, Marvel Rodriguez.

(At the time, Heslop legally did not have to share her financial records with Moore because she was not asking for child support. Florida has since changed that aspect of divorce law).

Moore agreed to the terms of the divorce -- no child support or alimony payments -- and the two went their separate ways.

Within weeks, Moore remarried a woman nicknamed Toots. And for the next two years, Moore had no idea his ex-wife had become a millionaire.

''Maybe he was living under a rock,'' Baldwin said.

That's where Rodriguez came in.

As the story goes in court files and published reports, Rodriguez was sitting in a bar one day in 1997. He overheard someone talking about a Miami-Dade woman who tricked her husband out of her lottery money by divorcing him before he found out.

Rodriguez -- a part-time bouncer and martial-arts instructor -- did some homework, realized the person was talking about Heslop and set out to find her ex-husband.

When Rodriguez caught up with Moore, he already had a crude contract drawn up, which states: ``I, Marvel Rodriguez, received some information concerning money owed to Mr. Earnest [sic] Moore.''

Rodriguez demanded 35 percent of any money Moore recovered.

Moore agreed to those terms in a notarized contract.

In 1997, Moore sued his ex-wife, and in 2000 they settled out of court.

In the settlement, Moore received a lump-sum payment of $300,000, plus $57,000 a year for 15 years. His ex-wife was also required to pay any taxes.

Heslop has paid $57,000 annually to Moore, who in turn has paid Rodriguez his cut: $19,950.

The settlement terms were kept confidential, but Rodriguez's attorney said his client always suspected he wasn't getting his share. In August, a judge ordered Moore's attorney to disclose the settlement agreement to Rodriguez.

Now Rodriguez says Moore owes him 35 percent of the original $300,000 windfall -- about $175,000 including interest -- plus 35 percent of the income taxes Heslop paid on Moore's behalf.

Moore's attorney, Alphonso Peets, also a defendant in the suit, declined to comment.

Heslop, 62, a Jamaican-born former nurse's aide, lives in a gated Pembroke Pines development in a two-story lakeside home valued at $670,000.

Her ex-husband, Moore, 55, rents an apartment in South Miami-Dade, near the noisy Florida's Turnpike and South Dixie Highway.

Rodriguez, 51, owns a place in North Miami-Dade with cracked windows and chipped paint near Dolphin Stadium.

None responded to interview requests.

- I'd tell my wife. Via telegram from Amsterdam...

LINK: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/miami_dade/story/271095.html

Wife's Lotto Secret Costs Years of Grief

Comments

Recent Activity