Mentally Challenged Man Spends His $403K Lottery Win in 4 Weeks

A mentally challenged man hit it big when he won the lottery prize of “$500 a week for life” in October 2013. He took the lump sum option, granting him $403,288 before taxes, and within four weeks has spent more than half of the winnings, reports Tampa Bay Times.

A diagnosed schizophrenic, Malcolm Ramsay is under the guardianship of Aging Solutions, but can come and go as he pleases. He does not take medication. A judge appointed Aging Solutions as the responsible party to pay Ramsey’s bills and monitor his care. They were not made aware of his winning the lottery until after he had spent half the winnings, and only because of his family visiting.

“It was people who were around that had never been around before,” says the director of operations at Aging Solutions, “That’s troublesome when family he’d never spoke of prior began coming around.

Ramsey was a regular lottery player, buying scratch-off tickets for $1 each frequently from Quick Pick gas station, a lottery retailer with $101 million in annual ticket sales.

Ramsey walked away with $19,678 in cash and 268 money orders, each for $1,000. Then the shopping sprees began.

Ramsey cashed 21 of the money orders on November 6, and multiple money orders were cashed every day after that. On Black Friday he got $8,000 and bought flat-screen TVs at Wal-Mart. A trip to Tyrone Square Mall, the Ellenton outlet mall and the Wagon Wheel Flea Market resulted in so many new clothes purchased he had to get plastic bins to hold them all. Ramsey also purchased about 40 Timex watches for his family, at $19.95 a piece.

Due to Ramsey’s windfall he is in jeopardy of losing his Medicaid benefits, which pays for his medical bills, and SSI, a needs-based program that covers his $1,000-a-month room and board and would cover expensive nursing care he may need in the future.

Ramsey only has one response to the entire situation: “They took my money.”

Source: Tampa Bay News