Frank C. Kilcoyne, CSSC

Hey, You Never Know!

As I write this, the Mega Millions Jackpot stands at $309 million. Imagine being one of the lucky few who becomes instantly rich beyond your wildest dreams, as if by magic. In the blink of an eye, anything your heart desires is suddenly within easy reach. With such wealth you would never need to worry about money again… right? Right?

Enter David Lee Edwards of Ashland, Kentucky. Mr. Lee was born on January 5, 1955 and dropped out of high school before going to prison for robbing a gas station in 1981. On Saturday, the 25th of August 2001, he shared a third of the largest Powerball jackpot in American history. His share of the prize: $41.4 million. Naturally [forehead smack], he elected to take his share in a single lump sum and netted $27 million after taxes.

On the day he accepted his winning check David Lee was quoted as saying: “You know a lot of people they’re out of work. Don’t have hardly anything. And so I didn’t want to accept this money saying I’m going to get mansions and I’m going to get cars, I’m going to do this and that. I would like to accept it with humility. I want this money to last, for me, for my future wife, for my daughter and future generations.” He then promptly traveled to Las Vegas and lost $200,000 in six days.

Upon returning home, he did try to do the right thing: he hired a financial adviser and a lawyer to look after his assets. Shortly thereafter, the financial advisor had put $16 million of his winnings into extremely safe bonds and annuities in order to protect him from himself. Unfortunately, those assets can be sold just as easily as they can be purchased.

David Lee bought a house, a nice 6,000-square-footer in Palm Beach, Florida ($1.5 million). Then he bought a gold and diamond wristwatch ($78,000) and nifty new bracelet ($159,000). He also bought a home in Palm Springs for a family member ($600,000) and a home in West Virginia for his Ex Wife ($250,000). Travel can be an issue in West Virginia so he bought himself a Chevrolet camper van – and Lamborghini Diablo and private jet ($1.9 million). Within just a few months of buying that lottery ticket, he had more than a million dollars’ worth of cars sitting in front of his Palm Beach home. Neighbors complained that his place looked like a car dealership.

According to his daughter Tiffani: “He received begging letters every day and fell for many of them. And he was bilked out of hundreds of thousands in dubious business deals.”  Every month Tiffani would board the private jet and fly to see her mother. She said: “It was just normal to me to have that jet on standby. We were friends with the pilot; we would go on his yacht. That was the way it was. I can look back now on that time and say it was a great experience. It was crazy, but my dad took care of me.”

For her thirteenth birthday, David Lee flew Tiffani back to Ashland where many of her friends still lived and rented out the presidential suite of the Ashland Plaza Hotel for a slumber party. But no matter how much he wanted to care for his daughter, David Lee was spending money at an unsustainable rate - and it only accelerated.

After a while, Tiffani noticed that things started disappearing from the house – her father’s Rolex, his Bentley, and her own jewelry. David Lee became more absent from his daughter’s life. Tiffani said “At first we were still looked after by the nannies and butlers and what have you but then they left because they weren’t getting paid and it just went downhill from there”.

An auction was held to start selling David Lee’s furniture and fixtures from what used to be his $1.5 million home in Palm Beach, itself already auctioned off for $400,000. By 2006 everything was gone.

Imagine: $27 million, gone in just five years.

On November 30, 2013 Mr. Edwards died. He was thousands of dollars in debt, and was cremated because they could not afford to bury him. Tiffani keeps his ashes in a simple box with his picture stuck on the side because she cannot even afford an urn.

David Lee had the opportunity to change his life forever but failed spectacularly. Given the chance of a lifetime, he squandered it. In 2007 the financial advisor David Lee had originally hired told the Broward-Palm Beach New Times: “If he followed my advice, he’d be pulling in about $85,000 a month for the rest of his life.” But Mr. Lee cashed out at the first opportunity.

This is a sad story, no doubt. And yet, David Lee was an able-bodied man. He had no debilitating medical conditions or any other hindrance which would have prevented his being able to feed and care for himself and his family. From time to time over the course of my career, I have seen some plaintiffs with horrific debilitating injuries pass up the security of a guaranteed tax-free income. Off they sail, out into the blue with no experience whatsoever and no plan for how to manage their settlement proceeds. Way too many have found their way down David Lee’s road. Now that is truly disturbing.

Do you have a case with claimants who would do better not walking a mile in David Lee’s shoes? Call Frank C. Kilcoyne, CSSC at 800-544-5533 I am here to help.


Sources:
- http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2574188/Tiffanis-father-won-27m-Powerball-jackpot-11-A-decade-later-died-broke-blowing-Lear-jet-fast-cars-bad-deals-drugs-Here-tells-RELIEF-wild-ride-over.html#ixzz2vaTTEu9m
- http://www.capitalbay.com/news/482751-david-lee-edwards-won-27m-powerball-jackpot-a-decade-later-he-died-broke.html
− http://scallywagandvagabond.com/2013/12/david-lee-edwards-powerball-winner-blew-winnings-dies-alone-hospital/
− http://www.nndb.com/people/691/000119334/