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	BlackChampagne -- no longer new; improvement also in question.: Lotteries and Lawsuits Monday, February 27, 2006 Lotteries and Lawsuits A couple of interesting news bits today. The first is a USA Today article about the woes that often befall big lottery winners. A quote: William "Bud" Post, who won $16.2 million in the Pennsylvania Lottery in 1988, had a brother who tried to have him killed for the inheritance. Post lost and spent all his winnings. He was living off Social Security when he died in January. Two years after winning a $31 million Texas Lottery in 1997, Billie Bob Harrell Jr. committed suicide. He had bought cars, real estate, gave money to his family, church and friends. After his death it was not clear whether there was money left for estate taxes. Victoria Zell, who shared an $11 million Powerball jackpot with her husband in 2001, is serving time in a Minnesota prison, her money gone. Zell was convicted in March 2005 in a drug and alcohol-induced collision that killed one person and paralyzed another. Evelyn Adams, who won the New Jersey Lottery twice, in 1985 and 1986, for a total $5.4 million, gambled and gave away all of her money. She was poor by 2001, and living in a trailer. Gerry Beyer, who teaches estate law at Texas Tech University, has written about people who come into sudden wealth - such as lottery winners, sports figures, actors and actresses - and how they end up losing it. Many don't realize that if they spend their money, rather than investing and living off the earnings, "there's nothing to replace it," Beyer says. I've heard it called the "Beverly Hillbillies Syndrome," and often applied to newly-famous and rich sports figures. They're much like lotto winners themselves; often kids from very poor areas, deeply-associated with no-job criminal low-life friends, and then suddenly based on their footspeed or jumpshot they're earning $50 over 6 years. Of course these new-rich don't know how to handle their money, and there are constant stories about sports agents and financial advisers who have stolen literally millions of dollars from their clients. An awful lot of people have no real financial skills, and a person making $40k a year with $50k in credit card debt isn't going to change their overspending habits just because they've suddenly got $15m in the bank. They'll just proportionally increase the level of their overspending. It's worse for lotto winners, since they have no income; they just have a bit nut that seems inexhaustible, when they start gnawing away at it with outrageous luxury purchases and horrible, get-rich-quick investments. It's a shame, since that sort of nest egg should easily last forever. As today's horribly-worded article sort of says: Under an investment plan, the Nebraska Powerball winners' $15.5 million, after accepting the lump sum and paying taxes, could produce a yearly income of about $500,000 a year. In other news, the authors of another unknown and long-forgotten book are trying to suckle from the commercial tit of Dan Brown's uber-blockbuster. LONDON -- "The Da Vinci Code" author Dan Brown was accused in Britain's High Court on Monday of taking material for his blockbuster conspiracy thriller from a 1982 book about the Holy Grail. The accusation was made in a breach of copyright lawsuit filed against "The Da Vinci Code" publisher Random House. If the lawsuit succeeds in getting an injunction barring use of the disputed material, the scheduled May 19 release of "The Da Vinci Code" film starring Tom Hanks and Ian McKellan could be threatened. Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh, authors of "The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail," sued Random House, which also published their book. Random House denies the claim. Baigent and Leigh claim Brown appropriated their ideas and themes in writing his book, which has sold more than 25 million copies worldwide since its 2003 publication. I wondered why it took them 3 years to get around to suing, until yeah... the movie's coming out. It's clearly the best time for a shakedown, with the hope that some Hollywood money will fly their way just to make them go away so they don't wreck the worldwide movie release schedule. None of this is surprising, I mean Brown's a huge cash cow target for any lawsuit, and with the thousands of books that have been written about DaVinci, the Holy Grail, Jesus' potential offspring, the Knights Templar, etc, there's bound to be substantial overlapping material in his tale and other, earlier works. So far no one has struck blood with their mosquito-like attempts, but with such a rich prize, you can bet they'll keep trying. Labels: legal issues, lottery Posted by: Flux # 9:08 AM Comments: I have also been surprised that this didn't happen earlier, since I've read articles written when the da vinci code came out saying that Brown stole this book totally. I can agree that the timing looks bad though.. #: 10:08 AM posted by Anonymous The timing may seem a bit suspect, but the lawsuit was in the headlines at least as far back as October. I am not able to find it on Yahoo's site, but I did quote the article that I read on my site back in October. That would have been after the movie was in production anyway, but if it first made headlines in October it was likely in the works long before that. Now it might just be me being cynical, but I wouldn't exclude the possibility that the film makers paid all the parties involved to postpone the litigation until closer to the movie's release. They will do anything for publicity after all. #: 3:46 PM posted by Donnie (aka Shadowtwin) You know, I had no interest in seeing this movie when I heard Tom Hanks was starring in it. But Ian Mckellan? Now I'm interested. It is unfortunate that some lottery winners squander it all. Of course, to that challenge (managing a big jackpot amount), I say bring it on. #: 3:47 PM posted by Anonymous The book lawsuit is interesting though. There is a character in the book that is suspiciously named after the two authors of the original book (first name is one of their surnames, surname is an anagram of a surname). Apparently at one point in the book one of the characters even pulls their original novel off the shelf and talks about it saying that it really did pave the way in mainstream culture for the theory of Jesus' descendants bloodline. It is a bit suspicious - they're claiming that Dan Brown was so influenced by their work that he even dropped in these references to it as a way of thanks. I think they certainly have more of a case than that crazy woman in Britain who claimed Harry Potter was stolen from her. #: 11:26 PM posted by Anonymous Post a Comment << Home Archives May 2005 June 2005 July 2005 August 2005 September 2005 October 2005 November 2005 December 2005 January 2006 February 2006 March 2006 April 2006 May 2006 June 2006 July 2006 August 2006 September 2006 October 2006 November 2006 December 2006 January 2007 February 2007 March 2007 April 2007 May 2007 June 2007 July 2007 August 2007 September 2007 October 2007 November 2007 December 2007 January 2008 February 2008 March 2008 April 2008 May 2008 June 2008 July 2008 August 2008 September 2008 October 2008 November 2008 December 2008 January 2009 February 2009 March 2009 April 2009 May 2009 June 2009 July 2009 August 2009 September 2009 October 2009 November 2012

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