Tuesday, April 21, 1998 | 9:59 a.m.
Contentions that the disputed $1 million dollar prize winning Pepsi Cola bottle cap was going to be spitefully destroyed fizzled before a scheduled court hearing, although someone forgot to tell the judge.
The cap, in reality, is safely in the hands of the soft drink manufacturer -- as is the prize money.
District Judge Gene Porter was being asked Monday to issue an injunction preventing the father of one of the two women claiming ownership of the prize winning bottle cap from destroying it before a trial can determine the true winner.
That father, Guy Allen, denied ever threatening the bottle cap or having even spoken to the store manager who claimed he had.
"I'm not stupid enough to make that kind of statement. I'm not going to destroy a million dollars belonging to my daughter," he said Monday. He said his daughter, Sindy Allen, had turned over the cap to Pepsi a month ago.
He fumed that the attempt to snatch what he believes is rightfully his daughter's winnings "seems like some kind of conspiracy against my daughter" that he predicted will be exposed in court.
Monday's court hearing on the motion filed by attorney Lane Kay never materialized because nobody but the judge, the court staff and the media were there.
Kay said later it was unnecessary for Porter to rule on that issue or a second motion to keep the payoff from being handed out before the court case is resolved. He said there is an agreement to let Pepsi keep the prize -- to be paid off over 20 years -- until its rightful owner is determined.
The dispute that escalated to a District Court lawsuit centers over a bottle of Pepsi that Judy Richardson said she purchased on March 17 from a convenience store next to the Wild Oats health food store at Flamingo and Pecos roads where she worked.
The bottle's cap was the $1 million winner in the Pepsi Cola Globe Buck Contest, although it was found by Richardson's co-worker Sindy Allen the next morning.
The lawsuit claims that Richardson never had a chance to drink the Pepsi because the store got busy and she left it unopened on a counter where she "normally places her possessions."
Allen, according to the lawsuit, opened the bottle to discover the winning cap but refused Richardson's demand to surrender it.
Affidavits that accompanied Kay's court motion allege Allen knew the million dollar cap belonged to Richardson and fabricated stories to justify her keeping the prize for herself.
Store manager Carol Gaskill stated that she had seen Richardson's Pepsi sitting throughout March 17 on a shelf out of the sight of health-conscious shoppers.
After Allen opened the bottle to discover the winning cap, Gaskill recalled that "Sindy told me it was her women's intuition that told her to open the bottle and see if they won."
In her affidavit, Gaskill said Allen "told me she was going to say she found the bottle of Pepsi in the trash so it would belong to her." Gaskill stated that Allen then indicated she had asked other employees who owned the Pepsi and only took it when nobody claimed it.
Guy Allen concedes the Pepsi wasn't purchased by his 18-year-old daughter. That was simple -- she doesn't drink Pepsi, she drinks Sprite.
But he said she legitimately obtained the cap while discarding the Pepsi as part of her clean-up duties. He noted that soft drinks aren't allowed in the health food store unless hidden in a generic cup.
He said Gaskill and Richardson are close friends and hinted that promises of payoffs may have been made to draw other employees to Richardson's side.
Allen said that if Richardson actually left a Pepsi bottle in the store over night, it likely wasn't the one found by Sindy Allen since the story about where she found the bottle differed from where Richardson said she left hers.
"There are so many innuendos and lies," Guy Allen said, fuming that store employees siding with Richardson are "constantly blaming Sindy for stealing."
"They've done what they could to destroy my daughter's character," he said. "They're making her life a living hell."
He vowed to return the favor as a matter of principle through lawsuits he plans to file after his daughter has one her court case.
"I'm a mean, mad father whose daughter has been attacked," he said. "I'm going to make their lives a living hell, as long as it's within the limits of the law."
He flatly disputed Gaskill's statement that on March 19 she received a telephone call from him vowing he was going to destroy the cap because "if Sindy could not have the money then nobody can."
The fight now, he said, is about more than money.
Allen said there originally was an offer by his daughter to split the winnings with Richardson, but that offer was taken off the table when the affidavits surfaced contending Sindy Allen had stolen the cap.
Guy Allen said he knows a huge portion of the money is going to be eaten up in attorneys fees, court costs and taxes.
At best, he said, when the leftover money is doled out over 20 years, it will be "nice" but not enough for her to live on. It will let the UNLV theatre major complete her education at a San Diego university, which is not possible now because of finances.
Although the outcome of the court fight likely won't be decided for more than a year, he said his daughter already considers herself a winner for having beaten the 450,000,000-to-one odds by finding the winning bottle cap.
In an ironic twist, Gaskill became a witness to the million dollar events rather than the winner because of her taste.
She told how Richardson had asked if she could bring something back from the convenience store for her.
Gaskill asked for a Coke.
Had she asked for a bottle of Pepsi, there would have been a 50 percent chance that she would have ended up with the winning bottle cap.
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