Winner of $338M Powerball Fighting With Ex Over Cash

They were never married, but have a child together
By Evann Gastaldo,  Newser Staff
Posted Nov 11, 2013 4:30 PM CST
Winner of $338M Powerball Fighting With Ex Over Cash
Pedro Quezada, right, the winner of the Powerball jackpot, stands next to Ines Sanchez during a news conference at the New Jersey Lottery headquarters, Tuesday, March 26, 2013, in Lawrenceville, NJ.   (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)

The drama continues for Pedro Quezada, the New Jersey bodega owner who won a $338 million Powerball jackpot earlier this year. He already had to use some of his winnings to pay back child support, and now he's now battling his ex-girlfriend in court over the rest of the money, the AP reports. Quezada's lawyers say that, since he was never married to Inez Sanchez, she shouldn't get any of the winnings, and that he bought the ticket on his own. But her lawyers say the couple lived together for a decade, had a child together, shared ownership of the bodega, that they played the lottery together, and that Quezada bought the ticket based on their shared income.

On Friday, a judge refused Sanchez's request to freeze Quezada's assets, the Record reports. But she also refused to dismiss the lawsuit, and a trial will decide the outcome. Sanchez moved out of the New Jersey home Quezada purchased with $300,000 of his winnings, and has filed a domestic violence claim against him. Her attorneys say Quezada has spent much of the $152 million lump sum payment, and that $20 million of it can't be located. Readers with good memories may recall the odd way Quezada informed then-girlfriend Sanchez that he had won. (More Pedro Quezada stories.)

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