COLORADO SPRINGS — Colorado Lottery police officers joke that they get no respect because so few people know of their existence, but since 2010, they’ve busted 24 people who officers say tried to claim someone else’s winning lottery ticket as their own, 9News learned after an undercover investigation.
“We help track tickets and catch suspects,” said Jack Chism, Colorado Lottery supervisory investigator.
The lottery police took 9Wants to Know undercover as they tested store employees.
An undercover lottery employee was armed with mock winning scratch-off lottery tickets on June 30 and Aug. 18. She went into stores and asked employees whether any of her tickets was a winner.
The scratch-off tickets cause lottery computers inside stores to act like the tickets are winners. The tracking numbers are specially designed to alert lottery investigators whenever they are scanned.
The fake tickets show winnings of $599 to $10,000. Prizes that large must be claimed in person at a lottery office and cannot be paid out at convenience stores.
9News followed state investigators around for two nights. Most clerks were honest. Some were not.
The first night, one clerk told the undercover lottery employee that her tickets were not winners. The undercover lottery employee handed clerk Sarah Jane Moss, 23, of Colorado Springs, three tickets. One ticket was printed to tell lottery computers it was a winner and also notify lottery investigators when it was scanned.
Moss kept all three tickets and told the undercover employee that none was a winner. Moss worked at the Farmcrest convenience store at 2105 W. Colorado Ave. in Colorado Springs.
Lottery security cameras were rolling the next day — July 1 -— as Moss took the winning scratch-off ticket to the lottery office in Pueblo and signed paperwork claiming the ticket as her own. Lottery investigators asked her to step into another room to answer questions.
“Sarah explained that she oftentimes collects tickets from the trash when people throw them away, and she re-checks them to see if they are winners,” according to Moss’ arrest affidavit, filed in El Paso County District Court.
Moss stuck to her story at first, but her demeanor began to change, a lottery investigator wrote in the court document.
“When Sarah was trying to explain the events, she was becoming nervous and also appeared to be getting confused on her story,” investigator Marcus Woodward wrote.
He then told her he knew she wasn’t telling the truth.
“I know different, I know where this ticket came from. I know exactly when you got it. I know you got it because I was there,” the investigator said he told Moss.
He said Moss then confessed.
“Yeah, some girl came and turned in a couple of tickets, and I feel really guilty about it; I’m sorry,” Moss allegedly told the investigator.
The El Paso County district attorney’s office charged Moss with theft over $1,000 and forgery of lottery tickets. Both are felony charges. She has not entered a plea.
