A Man Who Won An $80 Million Jackpot Just Got SCREWED By His Ex-Wife In Court
PONTIAC, Mich. – A Michigan man who won an $80 million lottery jackpot while going through divorce proceedings will have to share with his ex.
After taxes and deductions, Rich Zelasko’s Mega Millions winnings amounted to $38,873,628, according to court documents. Despite the couple already being separated for two years when he bought the ticket in 2013, an appeals court ruled that the windfall was part of the marital estate.
Just another example of an absolute travesty within the US judicial system. Now let me be clear: I’m not going to get my ass off the couch and protest over this decision, but I will loudly say from home that it is complete bullshit. These two had been separated for two years. TWO YEARS! She literally had nothing to do with winning that money. He did all of the hard work. He should collect the entire $30 million after taxes.
And to those of you that are going to say you can’t feel bad for someone that just pocketed $15 million, yeah right. Quit lying to yourself. That’s like when people say that NBA superstars should take less than the max because they’re already rich. Not a chance. $15 million is $15 million. If you modern day Robinhoods want to distribute your own wealth to the poor, go ahead. But the difference between winning $30 million and a mere $15 million is status changing. He’s may still even have to work!
My question for this arbitrator is what in the world was he looking at? I’m not sure who said it first, maybe Big Cat, but all decisions should be settled by the majority of a bar. If you posed this situation in the middle of a Buffalo Wild Wings, there would be a 100% consensus that this money belongs the husband. And if you think that is because a Buffalo Wild Wings only consists of men, then shame on you. Women eat wings, too. But since you guys brought gender into this, I can’t help but wondering what would’ve happened if the roles were reversed here, especially seeing why the ruling went the way it did..
Rich Zelasko’s former spouse, Beth Zelasko, will now be awarded $15 million, an arbitrator decided, saying that it was probably not the first lottery ticket he had purchased and since “losses throughout the marriage were incurred jointly, so should winnings be shared jointly.”
It was “probably not the first lottery ticket he had purchased”. Is this really the evidence it was decided upon? This sounds like deflategate with the more probable than not bullshit. And why are we assuming the man was a gambler? Talk about gender stereotyping. Even if these two were truly pitching in exactly $2.50 each before each lottery ticket purchase…..back when they were together…..then that still doesn’t change the fact that they have been separated for two years. This is flat out wrong. Someone should start a GoFundMe to raise money for the guy who just lost $15 million.