A man who was stupid enough to steal $86K in lottery tickets gets arrested

A 41-year-old man from Passaic County had a feather-brained plan to steal $86,000 worth of lottery tickets, prescription drugs, and a delivery van from a Pharmacy store. Not only was this plan dense as a rock because of the possible aftermath but because stealing Lottery tickets is by far the most idiotic thing a person can do. The missing tickets will be reported as soon as the clerk notices that they’re gone, and anyone who tries to cash the winnings will be arrested. 

It’s rather hard not to notice $86,000 worth of Lottery tickets missing from a small store like Walgreens or CVS. But hey, the man also stole prescription drugs, so chances are he was high as a kite coming up with this scheme in the first place. However, the craziest part of this story is not the choice of stolen items but the fact that this man broke into the Planes Pharmacy (Valley Ridge Shopping Center in Wayne) twice in a row in a span of two days. He was on a roll, to say the least. 

“Pharmacy management determined that numerous containers of narcotics and prescription drugs, assorted other products, cash registers, additional lottery scratch-off tickets, cash and the delivery vehicle belonging to the pharmacy were all stolen,” authorities reported. 

The single-man-heist was reported to take place on May 25 at 4:25 a.m. on the first day and an hour and some earlier the following night. Both times the burglar decided to waltz in with a dramatic entrance by smashing the front door. From the looks of it, he was living life on the edge and was being as obnoxious and uncareful as can be. 

The second time an officer arrived at the scene, he saw that the glass door was shattered yet again and was held up by a plastic folding table. A shoe or a candy box would have worked just fine, but as we’ve already discovered - the burglar is an “all or nothing” type of guy. 

Authorities found the missing van on June 3 in Philadelphia. The vehicle was abandoned. Perhaps the burglar thought he could buy a Ferrari instead with all of his stolen Lottery ticket winnings and ditched the “not-so-fancy” automobile. 

For almost a month, the man was on the loose, but he was eventually caught, arrested, and placed in Passiac County Jail. What’s more, is during that short time of freedom, he went to Clifton and burglarized another facility. Authorities also discovered that his fingerprints matched the ones they found at the initial crime scene in early July. 

The man now has two counts of burglary, four counts of theft, and two counts of criminal mischief in the Wayne crimes on his record. What’s unfortunate is that he could have gone into the Pharmacy to purchase one single Lottery ticket and potentially win a considerable sum of money, but he made a poor choice of stealing a massive stack of them and lost his freedom instead.