McDonald's employees sue co-worker Mirland Wilson for alleged lottery fraud

(CBS/AP) BALTIMORE - A group of 14 McDonald's employees are suing their co-worker, a Baltimore woman who claimed to have Maryland's winning Mega Millions ticket in March and later said she lost it, the Baltimore Sun reports.

The group claims Mirlande Wilson defrauded the Maryland Lottery to avoid sharing the winnings with them despite lottery officials saying she never won in the first place, according to the newspaper.

Wilson's coworkers said the Maryland woman was part of their office lottery pool for the record-breaking $656 million prize and that she's involved in an elaborate scheme to keep most of the money. Wilson claims she bought the alleged ticket separately.

Three public school educators calling themselves "The Three Amigos" stepped forward in April with winning Maryland ticket, which was sold at a 7-Eleven in Milford Mill. The other two winning tickets were sold in Kansas and Illinois.

According to the Sun, the McDonald's employee's lawsuit alleges Wilson bought the winning ticket and then recruited the educators to trick the Maryland Lottery into believing they had won rather than Wilson.

Dominique Gourdet, one of the McDonald's employees who says in an affidavit that he was Wilson's live-in boyfriend at the time of the March 30 drawing, reportedly says he saw pictures of the winning ticket on Wilson's phone and claims Wilson told him the winners would be paid $1 million for helping in the scam.

Wilson denied the accusations, telling the Sun the lawsuit was baseless. A Maryland Lottery spokesperson told the paper that "The Three Amigos" had been verified as winners, and said the lawsuit sounded like "wishful thinking."