Judge: $25 million lottery ticket belongs to couple

Wayne Parry

Thursday, Aug. 14, 2003 | 9:15 a.m.

HACKENSACK, N.J. -- A state judge ruled Wednesday that a $25 million lottery ticket belongs to a Bergen County couple who presented the ticket to lottery officials.

Superior Court Judge Marguerite T. Simon rejected the claim by a group of hospital workers who said the winning Mega Millions ticket really belonged to them.

The decision came after days of conflicting testimony from Cornell and Teri Davis of Englewood, and laboratory technicians from Englewood Hospital and Medical Center, who are part of a regular lottery pool.

"Cornell and Teri Davis bought the winning ticket," Simon said to a courtroom crowded with friends and relatives of the Davises, many of the hospital workers who brought the suit, and the simply curious who were captivated by the high-stakes battle. "The proceeds are theirs."

The workers said the winning ticket was supposed to have been bought for their pool, but was diverted to the Davises instead.

Teri Davis said the verdict culminates months of "hell."

"I was really frustrated when I had to sit in court and listen to lies," she said. "People at that hospital knew they were lying. I still feel they knew he didn't buy that ticket, and they knew we weren't lying."

Davis, who is due to give birth soon, said she does not know what the couple will ultimately do with their millions, but she knows where they won't be spending it.

"We're getting out of New Jersey," she said, adding they will move "somewhere down South."

The hospital workers who attended the hearing declined to speak with reporters afterward.

Judge Simon recapped the testimony of most of the witnesses who testified, finding that most of the hospital workers were not believable.

The Davises presented the winning ticket to New Jersey lottery officials March 17. They are regular customers at Circle Food Market, where the ticket was sold, and testified that Cornell Davis bought the ticket there along with a bottle of Gatorade and a cigar.

The link between the workers and Davises is Jamal Townes, a 27-year-old X-ray technician at the hospital who was in charge of buying tickets for his co-workers' pool.

After the drawing, Townes told his colleagues that their ticket didn't win, according to trial testimony. But he also knew Cornell Davis because his parents once lived next door to Davis. When he heard the Davises had won, he told people at the hospital they might see him driving a new BMW, according to trial testimony.

"There's a lot of things I regret having said," Townes said after the verdict. "I'm just glad the rightful people who legitimately won got the money."

Townes testified last week in the nonjury trial that he was checking a patient for clogged arteries at the hospital in Bergen County when the winning ticket was purchased at a nearby convenience store.

Hospital logs supported his statement, but witnesses have testified that the logs are occasionally inaccurate when it comes to X-ray technicians.

The Davises also testified, denying that Townes gave them the ticket. Judge Simon ruled there is no evidence that Davis had seen or dealt with Townes in at least a year.

A lottery official testified that the ticket was sold at the Circle Food Mart at 9:22 a.m. March 14.

A lawyer for the workers, Sheldon Liebowitz, noted during the trial that Teri Davis initially told lottery officials that she bought the ticket between 6 and 8 p.m. on March 13, citing the Lottery Commission's investigative report on the matter.

The couple later changed their story. Teri Davis said she was confused because both she and her husband buy tickets at the same store and forgot exactly when the winning ticket was bought.

Mega Millions is a multistate lottery game available in Georgia, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Virginia and Washington.