A routine lottery ticket check at a DeLand Walmart turned into a felony case after deputies say a cashier quietly kept an elderly customer's $2,700 winning ticket and handed him only a useless receipt. According to an arrest affidavit and store surveillance footage, the employee kept the winning stub and returned it only after investigators confronted her the next day. The cashier, identified in arrest records as 40-year-old Tameka Lashon Hall, was booked on a grand theft charge and later released on bond.
According to WPEC, the incident happened on June 14 at the Walmart Neighborhood Market on South Woodland Boulevard, where the man had brought several lottery tickets to be checked. Store management told deputies it reviewed video that appears to show Hall pick up the winning ticket after the customer walked away, fold it, and slip it into the pocket of her uniform vest.
Deputies say Hall later acknowledged she had verified the ticket as a winner but claimed she became distracted, put it in her pocket while helping another customer, and then left work still carrying it. When investigators interviewed her the next morning, she walked them to her vehicle and produced the ticket, which deputies took into evidence and arranged to return to its rightful owner, as reported by LiveNOW from FOX.
What the law says
Under Florida law, stealing property worth $750 or more is considered grand theft, and a theft in the $750 to $4,999 range is treated as third-degree grand theft, a felony offense. The state's theft statute F.S. 812.014, spells out those value thresholds and ties them to sentencing guidelines that apply in cases like this.
Investigators see a pattern
Detectives say retailer surveillance and Florida Lottery compliance checks have become key tools for spotting employees who might be skimming or hiding winning tickets. In one recent undercover compliance operation in Panama City, a clerk was arrested after being accused of selling or withholding a winning test ticket, a result that highlighted why these stings exist in the first place, according to LotteryUSA.
How winners can protect themselves
Lottery officials and law enforcement repeatedly stress a few simple precautions for players. Winners are urged to sign the back of their tickets, snap a photo of the stub, hang on to any store validation receipts, and stay at the counter until the ticket is safely back in their own hands. Retailers can only pay out smaller prizes on site, while larger winnings have to be claimed at a lottery district office, so keeping both the ticket and the receipt intact is crucial, a point underscored in coverage of the DeLand case and state lottery guidance cited by LiveNOW from FOX.
