Local Man Loses Big in Lottery Scam

Chip Yost | KTLA News

10:28 AM EDT, July 11, 2008

EL MONTE - On the surface, it would appear Robert Mounier is a very lucky man. In the last year, he received letters that said he had won not just one lottery, but two. In one case, he says the letter said it was from Publishers Clearing House in Canada. Later, he got a phone call.

"They called and said they were going to come the next morning ... With a bus and they wanted to accompany him to his bank and deposit the check for the two million (dollars)," said Ann Womack, Mounier's step-daughter.

Another "winning" letter was from Jamaica. The problem was, they were both scams and Mounier, a retired 89-year-old from El Monte, fell for them. But that wasn't the end of his woes. He later thought he was getting some assistance from the Jamaican government, but that turned out to be another part of the scam.

The scam works like many other lottery-related cons. Victims are sent letters with legitimate-looking checks that have the victim's name on them. They're instructed to cash them at their bank, then write a smaller check out of their personal accounts and send it to lottery officials to cover some of the lottery's costs.

While the scammer gets the victim's money, the check the victim deposits from the lottery bounces.

In Mounier's case, he lost tens of thousands of dollars - and then some more when he thought the Jamaican government had gotten involved to help him.

After getting letters that claimed to be from the Jamaican " FBI" and "Jamaica Scam Prevention Office" saying they were investigating the crime against him, he was persuaded to send more money to help the investigation and find the criminals.

Mounier was so embarrassed about the whole thing he at first didn't want to tell anyone, but his step-daughter found out and he eventually reported it to El Monte Police. Now he hopes his story will prevent others from falling into the same trap.

El Monte Police Detective Brian Glick says what happened to Mounier is just one flavor in a variety of scams involving lotteries, and Mounier isn't the only one to fall for them. In El Monte alone, they have about a dozen open cases of different lottery scams where victims have been taken for around $170,000. They think there are more victims like Mounier out there who have been too embarrassed to come forward, but they're hoping Mounier's story will convince those victims to report the crimes.

Many of the other victims fell for another popular scam, where someone claims to have a winning California Lottery ticket but can't claim it because they're in the country illegally. The scammer then convinces the victims that if they withdraw some money from their bank accounts they will give them the lottery ticket and share the winnings with them.

If you think you have been victimized by any of these lottery scams and want to report it, you can call an El Monte Police hotline at 626-258-8844. Detectives say if you have received some of these fake lottery letters in the mail, they would like to see them - especially if you haven't opened them yet.