Divorcee Out Of Luck In Court
A woman who kept $1.3 million in lottery winnings secret from her husband and then quickly got a divorce has been ordered to give him all the money
Denise Rossi violated state asset disclosure laws and acted out of fraud or malice, Superior Court Judge Richard Denner ruled Tuesday.
The judge cited a deposition in which Rossi admitted to concealing her winnings because she didn't want ex-husband Thomas Rossi "getting his hands on" them.
Correspondent Jannifer Sabih of CBS station KCBS-TV reports Ms. Rossi won the money from the California Lottery on Dec. 28, 1996, just 11 days before she filed for divorce after 25 years of marriage.
Rossi found out in May, more than two years after his divorce, when he received mail from a company that pays lump sums for lottery winnings.
The solicitation, addressed to his ex-wife, said the company had "helped hundreds of lottery winners like you around the country receive a lump sum payment for the present value of their future annual lottery payments."
"I think he scratched his head for a while, saying: 'What? This can't be,'" said Rossi's attorney, Mark Lerner.
Rossi obtained an injunction a few days later. He said his shaky finances in the aftermath of the divorce made his former wife's secret "even more despicable."
The judge ordered Ms. Rossi to pay her ex-husband 20 annual installments of $66,800.
"Moral of story: It pays to be honest from the beginning," Lerner said.
Ms. Rossi's attorney, Connolly K. Oyler, called the ruling "very punitive" and said there will be an appeal.
In court papers, Rossi, 65, said he and his ex-wife had a good relationship before the sudden divorce.
"We shared the same bathroom, and we even shared the same electric toothbrush," he said.
Ms. Rossi maintains she was unhappy for years and was looking for a way out. He was always broke and she was always working, she said.
Then she and five co-workers in a now-defunct clothing design firm pooled their money to play the Super Lotto and hit the jackpot, sharing $6.6 million, she said.
She credits luck for her lottery windfall and blames her ignorance of the law for her failure to disclose the winnings, which she had mailed to her mother's address.
Oyler said he might have had a chance during the divorce to help Ms. Rossi keep the winnings if she had told him about them. Under California's community property laws, her spouse would have been entitled to half if the winnings had been disclosed.
"I could have argued successfully that it was her separate property," he said. "Or we could have argued and we would have reached some adjustment. But the judge got mad and gave it all to him."