Store owners, employees admit taking $100,000 lottery ticket

Tuesday, Nov. 23, 2004 | 9:11 a.m.

GRETNA, La. -- The owners of a convenience store and two employees have pleaded guilty to scheming to trick a customer out of his $100,000 Powerball ticket.

None of them got any jail time for the crime of altering a lottery ticket.

Judge Jo Ellen Grant suspended the two-year terms she gave Quick General Mini Mart owners Hang T. Nguyen, 43, and Ngoc P. Tran, 46, both of Amelia, and put both on probation.

Nguyen's sister, Nhat Nguyen, 26, of New Orleans, and Hoang Nguyen, 21, of Amelia, were put in a program which would dismiss the charge if they get through probation without getting into any more problems with the law.

Charles Stone of Morgan City bought the Powerball ticket at a Houma store.

Although prizes of more than $600 are paid at Louisiana Lottery Corp. offices, he took it to the Mini Mart in his home town to see if it was a winner.

Store employees allegedly told him it wasn't, then scratched out his signature and replaced it with one of their own.

Investigators were able to decipher Stone's signature and find him. He got his money in February, shortly after the four were arrested.