Divorces can be quite messy at times, but more often than not, there is an amicable split, but this wasn’t quite the case for an extremely (un)lucky Michigan man. Rewind to 2013, Richard ‘Dick’ Zelasko beat the odds to net a whopping $80 million Mega Million lottery jackpot. Understandably, he was elated, but that was soon deflated when an arbitrator instructed him to give half of his huge cash winning to his soon-to-be ex-wife!
Let’s go back even further now to when the romance started. Dick and Mary Beth tied the knot in 2004 and started a family. Before splitting for two years during the time he won the lottery, he had fathered three children with his wife. A Michigan appeals court has ruled in the favour of his ex-wife, whom he shares children with and many years of marriage. This means half of his lottery winnings will be awarded to Mary, with the judge ruling the divorce was not yet final.
Facts and Figures:
In July 2013, Dick won $80 million, but took home less than half of this after all taxes and deductions were applied; nevertheless, $38,873,628 is a healthy sum of money for anyone to win in a numbers game. John Mills, the arbitrator, was instructed by both parties (Dick and Mary) to make some decisions and this delivered a devastating impact to the lottery winner, what with deeming that his winnings were ‘part of the marital estate’ and it was likely that this wasn’t the first ticket he had purchased.
Mary Beth was awarded $15 million after their divorce was finalised in 2018. Scott H Bassett, Dick’s attorney, argued that “Rich was lucky, but it was his luck, not Mary’s, that produced the lottery proceeds.” But the appeals court was having none of it and ruled in favour of Mary. An appeal has been filed by Bassett to reconsider the notion and should they fail to comply, they plan to take this all the way to the Michigan Supreme Court. In an interview, Bassett said:
“An equal split of an asset acquired so long after separation, and in this case after the conclusion of the divorce arbitration hearing, is extremely unusual. We believe the arbitrator violated controlling Michigan law when he awarded Mrs. Zelasko half of the $30 million net lottery proceeds.”
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Comments (1)
JaniceJ 07/07/19, 12:07:12 PM
Pretty unlucky for Dick but what if it had been about debt! In the two years the couple had split; if he had run up $38million in debt would the wife own half the debt? No, she wouldn’t, so why should she own half the winnings?
