Feuding pair won’t get Pepsi-prize interest

Bill Gang

Tuesday, Jan. 5, 1999 | 10:24 a.m.

Nearly two years have passed since the $1 million prize-winning Pepsi Cola bottle cap was found by an employee of a Las Vegas health food store.

Another year and a half will tick by before a trial determines which of two employees is the rightful owner.

In the meantime, the prize money sits in a corporate bank account, and the company is left without a lucky winner to prove it pays to drink Pepsi.

Assuming that tens of thousands of dollars in interest is slipping through their clients' fingers, the frustrated lawyers for the feuding parties asked District Judge Gene Porter on Monday to order the funds placed in an interest-bearing bank account.

But Pepsi attorney Bruce Young explained that the prize is paid through an annuity at $50,000 per year for 20 years, not in a lump sum. Complicating matters, the annuity must be purchased in the winner's name, and that can't be done until Pepsi knows who the winner is -- Judy Richardson or Sindy Allen.

In the end, Porter agreed with Pepsi and ordered the money to stay where it is, unused and unpaid.

Richardson purchased the Pepsi on March 17, 1997, from a convenience store next to the Wild Oats health food store at Flamingo and Pecos roads where she and Allen worked.

But Allen opened the bottle the following morning and found the $1 million winner in the Pepsi Cola Globe Buck Contest.

The lawsuit filed by Richardson claims she never had a chance to drink the Pepsi because the store became busy and she left it unopened on a counter where she "normally places her possessions."

Allen, according to the lawsuit, refused Richardson's demand to surrender the winning cap.

Affidavits in the case allege Allen knew the million-dollar cap belonged to Richardson and fabricated stories to justify her keeping the prize for herself.

While Allen is claiming the Pepsi and prize money, there is no claim that she actually purchased the winning drink. Her father, Guy Allen, conceded last year that he knew his daughter, then 18, didn't buy the Pepsi because she drank Sprite.