New Jersey Man Who Won Millions in Powerball Lottery Is Accused of Molesting Girl

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/25/nyregion/powerball-winner-sexual-assault.html

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A New Jersey man who won $338 million in the Powerball lottery four years ago was released from jail on Monday while he awaits trial on charges of sexually abusing a young girl.

The man, Pedro Quezada, turned himself in to the authorities in Passaic County, N.J., last week after a 20-year-old woman said he had repeatedly molested her when she was between 11 and 14. Prosecutors charged Mr. Quezada, 49, with multiple counts of felony sexual assault.

At a court hearing on Monday, a judge allowed him to go free pending trial but required Mr. Quezada to wear an ankle monitor and limited his travel outside his house.

Steven Wukovits, a lawyer who is representing him, said that Mr. Quezada was innocent and that the woman had fabricated the allegations to try to claim some of his lottery winnings. She is only the latest person to try to take advantage of Mr. Quezada after he won, Mr. Wukovits said.

“The greatest day is when you win the lottery, and the saddest day is every day thereafter,” Mr. Wukovits said in an interview on Monday night. “You find out that people perhaps only love you not because of the good person you are but because of what you have now.”

The Passaic County prosecutor’s office did not respond to a request for comment on Monday night. Mr. Wukovits said the woman first told the police about the allegations in August.

In March 2013, Mr. Quezada was working 18-hour days owning and operating a bodega in Passaic when he stopped by a liquor store in town and bought a $2 Powerball ticket. On the night of March 23, his numbers were drawn — 17, 29, 31, 52, 53 and Powerball 31 — and his life changed forever. But not always in the way he had imagined.

Mr. Quezada quit his job the day he came forward to claim his prize — a lump-sum payment of $152 million after taxes. “My life has changed,” he said at the time. “It will not change my heart.”

But seven months after he won, his former girlfriend sued him for a share of the prize. She claimed they had shared earnings and shared ownership of the bodega, meaning that she deserved a slice of the $152 million.

The former girlfriend and Mr. Quezada later reconciled, his lawyer said on Monday, and she dropped the lawsuit. They now live together in Wayne, N.J., about 30 miles west of Manhattan.

But a week after she filed the lawsuit in November 2013, neighbors on the block where Mr. Quezada lived when he won told The Daily Mail that he had backed out of a promise to pay their rent. His former landlord accused him of moving out without paying $725 in his last month’s rent. And his former co-workers at the bodega said Mr. Quezada never visited the store after he quit. “He didn’t remember where he came from,” an employee told The Daily Mail.

In recent years, Mr. Quezada’s name has been used to try to dupe people in email scams claiming that he will share his earnings with the recipient. A Facebook page under his name also claims that he is giving out loans up to $1 million at 2.5 percent interest.

“It’s been very, very difficult,” Mr. Wukovits said. “They are constantly being called by people who claim to be long-lost friends and long-lost family and are in dire need of money.”