Lawyer for lottery winners: ‘The state is violating the Illinois lottery law’

Lottery officials said they were still able to pay amounts of $25,000 or less.

Rasche and more than two-dozen other recent Illinois lottery winners are now plaintiffs in the class-action lawsuit that seeks winnings totaling a combined $288 million.

The plaintiffs are two of the at least 29 people in the state who were set to collect winnings before the budget freeze. The bad news is, you might not receive your winnings until Illinois’ budget situation is worked out, just as one Illinois couple discovered.

A lottery spokesman didn’t return a message seeking comment. “Currently, winners may claim prizes under $600 at any of our 8,000 retail locations, and prizes under $25,000 may be claimed at any Lottery claims center, found at illinoislottery.com”.

“They’ve known since July1 that they are not going to pay, and that’s a fraud”, said plaintiff attorney Thomas Zimmerman, Jr. Further, while the lottery was withholding payment to winners, itcontinued to pay wages – including the $142,000 salary of acting Lottery Director B.R. Lane – and money owed to the agency’s troubled private management company, Northstar Lottery Group, the suit alleged. “So rather than filing a court order, perhaps they should call their legislator and ask them to work on getting a budget in place”, Munger said.

Last month the state comptroller’s office said that without a budget for the July 1 fiscal year, there wasn’t authority to write checks over $25,000 and payments would be delayed.

Meanwhile, state Rep. Jack Franks, D-Marengo, said he would soon file legislation to allow the state comptroller to cut checks to prize winners despite the ongoing budget fight.