LITTLE ROCK — The manager of a southwest Little Rock convenience store has been charged in connection with the theft of $1,557 in lottery scratch-off tickets, some of which were altered and are the subject of a lawsuit filed last month against the Arkansas Lottery Commission.
Alfred Walker Jr., 31 of 9 Applegate Court faces a June 6 plea and arraignment hearing in Little Rock District Court on one count of felony theft of property, a court clerk said Tuesday.
Walker, the manager of the Raceway gas station at 6425 S. University Ave. at the time of the theft, was arrested Friday. He was freed on a $1,000 bond the same day from the Pulaski County jail, a sheriff’s office spokesman said.
Walker no longer works at the store, according to the person who answered the telephone at the store Tuesday evening.
Walker’s arrest grew from an investigation triggered by a complaint to the Arkansas Lottery Commission, police said. The April 23 complaint alleged that an Arkansas Millionaires Club lottery ticket that had been purchased at the Raceway had a bonus box that had already been scratched off. A second complaint alleging the same circumstances at the same store came in an hour after the first complaint.
The complaints prompted the head of lottery security, Lance Huey, to go to the station and have Walker remove all $20 Arkansas Millionaires Club tickets from the dispenser, police said. At the same time, the store’s owner, Donnie Miller, also filed a police report.
The investigation showed that Walker was the only employee who had a key to the locked bin where “unactivated,” or unsold, lottery tickets are kept, police said. Walker also was required to keep a daily inventory of all lottery tickets and record them on a computer at work.
On April 23, police said, Walker had taken an inventory and “falsely recorded that all [174] Millionaire Club tickets were in the store. An inventory later performed by a district manager indicated the store had only [102] tickets, leaving 72 missing.
“It could not be determined which employee was scratching the tickets prior to their sale,” police said.
The investigation remains open, said Lt. Terry Hastings, a police spokesman.
“As we get more information, we could have more arrests,” he said. “The Lottery Commission would have to provide that.”
The incident isn’t the first regarding allegations that lottery tickets have been tampered with, said Julie Baldridge, the commission spokesman. Indeed, the Legislature anticipated people would try to tamper with the tickets by making such tampering a felony within the law that created the lottery, she said.
“Unfortunately, like banks get robbed, like cars get stolen, lottery tickets will be tampered with,” Baldridge said. “That’s why we have a security team. We never stop learning what people can do.
“But when it’s tampered with, it’s obvious. You can’t force people who purchase tickets to check.”
The arrest comes just over a month after a lawsuit was filed in connection with the same instant-win $20 tickets, charging that the commission knew a series of the Arkansas Millionaires Club tickets was flawed but refused to remove the tickets from sale, fearing the resulting loss of revenue.
The attorney who filed the lawsuit, state Rep. John Walker, D-Little Rock, estimated that as many as 10,000 lottery players purchased the defective tickets. He filed the lawsuit on behalf of Rick Tomboli, who Walker said discovered the flawed tickets after he bought two in April at an unidentified store.
According to the suit, the Arkansas Millionaires Club tickets are marked with a small “pin prick” that is imperceptible to most players but allows ticket sellers to determine tickets that are worth more than $50. Walker claims that lottery officials told his client that the agency was aware the tickets were flawed, then attempted to pressure Tomboli to keep quiet.
Baldridge said it is incorrect to describe the tampering as a “pinprick. I would call it a gouge.”
Earlier this month, Walker said the criminal investigation into the actions of the convenience-store employees who sold his client the tickets is an attempt to draw attention away from the responsibilities of the Arkansas Lottery Commission; the game’s maker, Scientific Games International Inc.; and other businesses that sell lottery tickets.
The instant-win tickets, which went on sale Feb. 7, can be worth $20 to $1 million. According to the lottery website, which is updated daily, two of four $1 million tickets have been redeemed. About $26.2 million remains of the roughly $45.5 million that is expected to be paid out, website figures showed.
Baldridge declined to comment on the litigation. “But we’re confident the system worked the way it should and confident that [tampering] is difficult to get away with,” she said.
Arkansas, Pages 9 on 05/30/2012