Tonda Dickerson thought she was the luckiest woman alive, until the reality of winning the lottery hit
A woman that once won a $10,000,000 (£7.5m) underwent a lot of drama, legal action and even fired a gun following her lottery win.
The Waffle House waitress was in the middle of a shift in Grand Bay, Alabama, when a man named Edward Seward sat down for breakfast and was unknowingly about to change her life forever.
Tonda Dickerson, a divorced woman in her late 20s, was waiting on his table that day on 7 March, 1999, and was given a lottery ticket from Seward as a tip, something he did as a regular at the restaurant.
The next draw for winners wouldn’t be until the following Saturday, when the American would go through something that most people can only dream of.
The waitress had no idea what was coming when she found out she’d won the lottery (YouTube/TheCrimeZone)
Dickerson had won $10 million in the Florida Lottery through her ticket tip, with court documents filed in Mobile County showing that she agreed to take $375,000 (£285,000) over 30 years instead of all of the winnings at once.
A smart money move by all means, as Dickerson thought she would never have to work another day in her life – sadly though, that’s only what she thought, as reality was about to hit hard.
Friends and colleagues started to come at her with legal battles from all angles, while the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and even Seward tried to take their cases to court.
She’s not the first lottery winner to find that more problems than positives come from being the lucky multi-million recipient.
But the biggest obstacle that stood in the way of her receiving her cash prize was her colleagues, as court filings reveal that they claimed that any winnings from lottery ticket winnings given as tips from customers would be shared equally.
Dickerson believed it belonged to her though as it was a tip to her, and it resulted in a Mobile Circuit Court case later in 1999, as a jury ruled against the waitress in 45 minutes, who denied that she agreed to share her winnings, as he lawyer said that her co-workers were like ‘rats coming out of the woodwork’.
Tonda Dickerson had to deal with cases brought against her from her colleagues about sharing the winnings (YouTube/TheCrimeZone)
A regular couple at the Waffle House testified that Dickerson had told them about the agreement though, but she ultimately ended up turning down a settlement that would have given her just $3 million (£2.27 million) of the jackpot and left the court without comment.
The waitress would then appeal to the Alabama Supreme Court, which reversed the Circuit Court’s ruling on 18 February, 2000, ruling that any agreement with the other waitresses couldn’t be unforced under the state’s law as it ‘was founded on gambling consideration’, which is illegal in Alabama.
Seward later claimed there was agreement for Dickerson to buy him a new truck if there was a winning ticket, with the suit being thrown out by a judge in 2002.
But that same week, her ex-husband, who she split from in 1997, was shot when he tried to kidnap her, according to the Press-Register.
Stacy Martin lunged at Dickerson while she was driving in Mississippi, with the Sheriff stating at the time: “All the time they were driving, he told her that he was going to kill her.
“They drove on Highway 90 into Jackson County, where he took her to the boat launch at Bayou Heron, which is an isolated area.”
He didn’t let her answer her ringing phone at first, threatening to murder her, but eventually let her pick it up as he worried that people would start looking for her.
Dickerson shot her ex-husband when he attacked her (YouTube/TheCrimeZone)
Martin finally gave in, and Dickerson pulled out a .22-calibre handgun out of her purse and shot him in the chest as he lunged at her.
He managed to get the gun off her after the shots were fired, threatening to kill her and them himself.
Despite this, Dickerson told Martin to seek medical treatment for his wound, with police being called as they were at the hospital, and Mississippi criminal records state that he wasn’t charged or convicted following this.
If this wasn’t enough, the IRS argued about how much Dickerson was due to pay them, as in March 2012, attorneys with the Birmingham firm of Sirote & Permutt successfully argued before US Tax Court that the IRS was wrong to demand around $1 million after income tax, after she gave most of her winnings to family via a business they set up.
The court ruled that the winning lottery ticket was only worth a fraction of its value at the time it was actually taxable due to the claims for the cash from the Waffle House waitresses.
So where is Dickerson now?
The answer is no-one really knows, but her social media accounts suggest that she is a poker dealer at the Golden Nugget casino in Biloxi, Mississippi.
