DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) -- Investigators have expanded their inquiry into a lottery tampering scheme to determine if a former Iowa national lottery official may have rigged jackpots in more games than presently known.
Eddie Tipton, former security director of the Iowa-based Multi-State Lottery Association, was convicted in July of fraud after buying a winning lottery ticket in Des Moines in 2010. He was accused of rigging lottery computers to allow him to determine the winning number in advance.
Tipton is also accused of rigging jackpots in Colorado, Wisconsin and Oklahoma, which use computers or code provided by the multi-state lottery.
State lotteries in Colorado, Wisconsin, and Oklahoma have confirmed they paid jackpots worth $8 million to Tipton associates, including his old college roommate, Robert Rhodes. Investigators are looking at payouts in the other 37 states and U.S. territories that used random-number generators from the Iowa-based association, which administers games and distributes prizes for the lottery consortium.
Tipton, 52, was convicted in July of fraud in the attempt to claim a $16.5 million jackpot in Iowa. He was sentenced to 10 years but is free pending appeal. He is also charged with ongoing criminal conduct and money laundering involving the other three state lotteries. Rhodes, a businessman from Sugar Land, Texas, is charged with fraud in connection with the Iowa jackpot, and is under investigation in Wisconsin.
In the Wisconsin case, authorities said, Rhodes hired a law firm to claim a $2 million Megabucks jackpot for him in 2008, and took legal action so the $783,000 cash payout could go to his limited liability corporation instead of him. Wisconsin Lottery spokeswoman Stephanie Marquis said nothing seemed suspicious and that other winners have done the same.
