Lawsuit: Circle K employee buys lottery ticket worth millions the day after the drawing

Tonight a lottery ticket worth $12.8 million is sitting in a corporate office signed, unclaimed, and at the center of one of the strangest legal fights Arizona has seen in years.

And that is because the store manager who found it reportedly already knew that it was a winner before he bought it. 12 News journalist Kyle Semchuk is outside the store to break down this bizarre lawsuit. Well, it sounds simple enough.

A store manager at this Circle K in North Scottsdale found a winning lottery ticket the day after the drawing, but $12.8 million as a way of complicating things in tonight. Lawyers are trying to figure out who

that ticket actually belongs to. It was November 24th when a customer walked into this Circle K at Bell Road and 56th Street. They wanted to replay their lucky numbers for the pick drawing. An Arizona lottery game where six numbers stand between you and a life-changing jackpot. The cashier printed $85 worth of tickets. The customer paid for $60 worth and left. The remaining tickets sat on the counter.

That night the Arizona lottery held its drawing and somewhere in that leftover stack of tickets was a winner. Not just a winner, the winner. A jackpot worth 12.8 million dollars. The next morning store manager Robert Galitza came in to start his shift. According to a lawsuit filed this week in Maricopa County, he quickly learned a winning ticket had been printed at his store the night before. He found the leftover tickets and checked them and he

confirmed one of them matched all six numbers. What he did next is where the story takes a turn. According to the complaint, he clocked out, took off his Circle K uniform and walked back in as a customer paying $10 for the remaining tickets, including the one he already knew was worth nearly $13 million. He signed the back of the ticket, but never cashed in.

That's because Circle K found out what had happened and intervened, taking the ticket to corporate headquarters where it remains tonight. Now Circle K is suing Galitza and Arizona Lottery.

According to the complaint under Arizona Lottery rules, if a ticket is printed, refused by a customer and not resold, the retailer owns it. Which could mean Circle K itself has a claim. Now all the parties involved have until May 23rd to get this sorted out because that's when this 12.8 million dollar lotto ticket expires and

becomes a worthless piece of paper. We're in North Scottsdale tonight. Kyle Simchuk 12 news. I know I should have bought all 80

of them instead of 60 of them.

That is so bizarre. Wonder if anything like that has ever happened.

I don't know, it's just the most bizarre thing I've ever heard. It is, yeah, I mean the taking off of the uniform and the whole

just the whole thing. It'll be interesting to see It'll be interesting to see how it turns out.