The brutal dispute that destroyed the family of the winner of the $1.35 billion Maine lottery has been laid bare in a new wave of legal action as he fights to keep his name a secret.
The man, named in court documents as John Doe, won the fourth-largest lottery prize in U.S. history when he won the Mega Millions jackpot in January of last year.
But his ex-partner has accused him of “terrorizing” her with hired surveillance when she refused to resume their relationship, of trying to kidnap her little daughter, crushing her with litigation and descending “into the gutter.”
Doe accused her of leaking details about his identity and described the idea that he asked to get back with a woman who had cheated on him as “made for television.”
But his father backed up his claims and accused the lottery winner of trying to separate him from his granddaughter, telling him: “You are not the son I knew.”
Grocer Fred Cotreau was delighted after selling the winning ticket for the $1.35 million Mega Millions jackpot at his Hometown Gas and Grill store in Lebanon, Maine, in January of last year.
The jackpot was the fourth largest in US history and amounted to a lump sum of $723 million.
Now the attorneys are in charge with Doe’s attorney, Peter Brann, facing off against Smith’s attorney, Louise Aponte, in U.S. District Court in Portland, Maine.
“(Doe) may be embarrassed – and should be embarrassed – for the public to learn that his own father has effectively called him a liar,” his attorney Louise Aponte told a district court last week.
‘He filed this lawsuit because he didn’t want his own family to know that he won the lottery, that he was motivated to punish the mother of his son after she rejected him despite his billion-dollar lottery winnings.’
“That he attempted to purchase custody of his daughter from the defendant and, failing in that regard, used his wealth to try to overwhelm the defendant in this Stalingrad litigation and thus extort concessions from him in the ongoing family dispute over his daughter.”
The woman, who has been named by the U.S. District Court in Portland, Maine, as Sara Smith, met Doe in 2007 and they had a daughter together in June 2014.
They separated in 2020 and Doe claims she had been in a relationship with a new partner for a year when she bought her winning lottery ticket at Hometown Gas and Grill in Lebanon, Maine, in January 2023.
He opted to receive his money in a lump sum of $723,564,144, which is equivalent to about $500 million after taxes.
He said his new partner was with him when they told his ex about their win days later, and that Smith agreed in February last year to sign a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) that would keep the news secret until his daughter turned 18. in 2032. .
The lottery winner asks his ex-partner for $100,000 in compensation
A customer shops at Hometown Gas & Grill, where the ticket was sold in Lebanon, Maine.
Doe claims his former partner is desperate to have their names leaked to the public
They met via Zoom on February 8 with Smith’s new partner and Doe’s newly hired “security advisor” to discuss how to adapt to the “new normal.”
Doe says his advisor recommended that he and his daughter “disappear” from the area for a few weeks before it became known that the lottery ticket had been claimed.
“(Smith) expressed excitement about the new opportunities and experiences that would be available to his daughter,” said Doe’s attorney, Peter Brann.
‘(Smith) had no problem with (Doe) traveling with her daughter until negotiations for her and her boyfriend to have an all-expenses-paid ‘dream vacation’ to Disney World at (Doe’s) expense fell through.
Smith called the police claiming her ex had kidnapped her daughter, cut off the girl’s GPS watch and mailed it back to her, forbade them from speaking, and “offered to buy custody.”
As their relationship deteriorated further, Smith said Doe hired surveillance teams to spy on her at her home and at the hospital where she worked, following her in unmarked cars and recording visitors to her home in Dracut, Massachusetts.
“I often hear a clicking sound when I’m on calls, including calls with my attorneys, and have had several unexplained calls cut off,” his latest statement states. “This has been going on for months.”
In November of last year, Doe sued her for $100,000, alleging she violated their confidentiality agreement by telling her father, stepmother and sister about the lottery win.
And her lawyer summoned her from the emergency room of the hospital where she worked as a nurse to deliver the papers.
“Then (Doe’s) attorney sent her a text telling her she was illegally parked at the hospital, and another text later telling her he could see she was now home,” her attorney told the court.
“All of which he found terrifying, invasive, intimidating and downright creepy.”
Doe, who still lives in Maine, admitted this month that he had, in fact, told his father within weeks what he had won in the lottery, but insisted he did not elaborate.
“I made the mistake of telling my father that I had won the lottery without him signing a confidentiality agreement,” she wrote.
‘Our relationship deteriorated rapidly thereafter. I didn’t tell her what I was doing with my money, how it was going to benefit my daughter, or any information other than the simple fact that she had won.’
In the latest court papers, Smith says Doe himself told his father and stepmother about his lottery win, which his attorneys say “destroys the remaining fragments of this lawsuit.”
Doe’s father offered damning testimony in support of his ex-partner
Smith claims her ex-partner has been “terrorizing” her with hired surveillance, trying to kidnap her young daughter, crushing her with litigation and descending “into the gutter.”
But his father, a retired police chief, categorically rejected the account in a scathing affidavit on behalf of his son’s ex-partner.
“In February or March 2023, my son came to my house and informed me and my wife that he had won a large amount of money in the Maine State Lottery,” he wrote.
He said Doe ‘told me a number of things he planned to do with his money’ and was prodigious in his promises to his parents.
“He told me he was going to build me a garage and buy me some cars to fix them up,” he wrote.
‘He knew that I used to enjoy working repairing old cars.
‘He also told me that he wanted to buy us the house he had lived in with me and his mother (my previous wife) when he was young.
“He said, ‘Find out what they want for it and I’ll pay you double,’ or words to that effect. This is not something my current wife and I would want to do.”
Doe also allegedly promised 24-hour home care for her parents if needed and a $1 million trust fund to provide a regular income.
“As a retired police chief in my 70s, I didn’t see the need for a trust fund at my age,” Doe’s father wrote.
“He got upset and told me to contact his accountant.”
Doe accused Smith of cheating on her father and blamed her for the collapse of their relationship, but her father strongly denied the claim.
“It was my son who insisted that neither I nor my wife had any communication or contact with (Smith),” he wrote.
‘(Smith) is the mother of our grandson and we have had a good relationship with her over the years.
‘I thought she was a good mother and we didn’t want to turn our backs on him like he insisted.
‘I told him ‘You’re not the son I knew.’
‘He got angry and called me a ‘dictator’ and an ‘imbecile.’
“I haven’t heard from my son since and he hasn’t done anything he promised.”
Doe and Smith are now fighting over custody of their daughter and he claims she wants their names out so she can win in the “court of public opinion.”
He claims he was left to raise their daughter alone for 18 months after she left.
She says they agreed he would take temporary nursing jobs in Wyoming and Florida to pay the bills after he was laid off during the pandemic.
‘Although (Doe) repeatedly defames (Smith) in her statement, (she) does not go down the drain to respond.’
Doe warned the court that her attorneys hope to benefit from the ‘Streisand Effect’, named for a series of legal actions aimed at keeping the singer’s Malibu home secret, only served to draw attention to it.
“No good mother would want her child to be exposed to the kind of publicity generated by the efforts of the defendant’s attorney,” her attorneys wrote.
“Equally false, irrelevant and made-for-TV is (Smith’s) ridiculous and false claim that Doe asked her to ‘get back with him,'” they added.
‘(Smith) was a toxic relationship: she cheated on him and abandoned him to raise their daughter alone.
‘The idea that he would have tried to continue their relationship is as far-fetched as the idea that he would have kidnapped his daughter.
“(Doe) had a partner he loved, with whom he had literally and not just figuratively won the lottery.”
