Mates fall out over $17m Lotto win

Eugene James Te Pairi. Photo / Herald Sun

A New Zealander is embroiled in a court battle in Melbourne with two of his former mates to split a $17 million lottery win.

The feud has not only cost the men their friendship, but also $2 million in legal fees from their Australian Lotto winnings.

The $17 million win was a quarter share of a $67 million Oz Lotto megadraw in July 2008, which was a record amount then.

Hawkes-Bay born Eugene James Te Pairi said in court documents that he had pooled funds with Garry John Garlick and Brett Pretty to buy the winning Lotto ticket.

But they are now in dispute over how to split the winnings and Mr Te Pairi and Mr Garlick are suing Mr Pretty, who split the winnings via a series of gifts and money held in a "party fund".

Mr Te Pairi and Mr Pretty had been friends for 20 years, and shared a Melbourne house before the Lotto feud.

He said the three had pooled $440 on the day of the Oz Lotto draw and had an "impromptu party" at Mr Pretty's home, and had spent $34 of the money to buy a 24-game quickpick ticket in the draw.

According to the Herald-Sun in Melbourne, Mr Te Pairi and Mr Garlick said in their statement of claims that they had an implied "joint venture agreement" with Mr Pretty to share the rights to the ticket. Both claimed they were each entitled to $5.6 million - a third of the prize money.

They claim the ticket was bought by Mr Pretty and Mr Garlick, registered to Mr Garlick and then given to Mr Te Pairi.

But they also say there should have been a proportionate distribution of the prize based on the amount each of them contributed to the pool money on the day.

This would have made Mr Te Pairi the biggest winner with more than $9 million because he contributed 54.41 per cent, while Mr Garlick contributed only 23.53 per cent and Mr Pretty 22.06.

Meanwhile, Mr Pretty has counter-claimed $45,000 from Mr Te Pairi, which he says was a loan.

They said the dispute between them started within a day of the lottery draw, when Mr Pretty had asserted that Mr Garlick had no right to a share of the winning.

Their squabbles have left the trio with little to show of their multi-million-dollar win.

Most of the disputed money has been frozen by the court and a civil trial is set for April 19 in the Victoria Supreme Court.

Mr Te Pairi said he was still paying off the mortgage on a new house, and Mr Pretty said he had bought a new car and campervan.

Mr Garlick is still living in a modest, rented house and said he had bought a trailer, television and new clothes, which he would need to wear in court.

He also bought a HSV Clubsport sedan after the windfall, but it was badly damaged and off the road.

Mr Garlick told the Herald-Sun that he would buy his own home "if I ever win Tatts again".

LOTTERY DISASTERS

* After winning $22 million, American William Post was sued by a former girlfriend for a share of his winnings, his brother arrested for hiring a hit man to kill him so he could inherit a share of the winnings, and another sibling convinced him to invest in businesses that failed. He found himself $1 million in debt within a year, and was forced to declare bankruptcy.

* The biggest single lottery winner in American history, Andrew Whittaker, had his life turned upside down after winning US$314.9 million in the multistate Powerball lottery in 2002. He was robbed numerous times, on one occasion of more than US$500,000. He took to heavy drinking, divorced his wife, and his granddaughter, to whom he was very close and for whom he bought four cars, was found dead of a drug overdose - funded with the $2100 weekly allowance he gave her.

* After investing his winnings in a profitable business, Jeffrey Dampier bought generous gifts for his family and took them on holiday. But seven years after his win, he was found shot dead in the back of a van. His sister-in-law Victoria Jackson and her boyfriend were arrested for kidnapping and murdering him for the money.