Convicted sex offender wins $500,000 raffle

[Guest Smues]

I mentioned this in one of the CTDWAT threads, but as the story keeps getting better and better I thought it could use it's own thread.

 

So a non-profit organization up here in Alaska that helps sexual abuse victims called STAR (Standing Together Against Rape) put on a $500,000 lotto/raffle to raise money for their cause. See, up in Alaska only non-profit organizations can run any kind of gambling. So we have bingo and pull tabs, and that's about it. STAR decided that a lotto would be different and be a good way to raise money. It was an instant hit, tickets sold like mad all over the state, and they even postponed the drawing a week to wait for stubs to continue to come in from the bush.

 

Lotto tickets selling like mad

 

So what could possible go wrong?

 

Lotto winner is convicted sex offender

(CNN) -- An Alaska lottery held to raise money for a group that helps sexual abuse victims had a surprise winner: a convicted sex offender.

 

 

Alec Ahsoak in an undated photograph.

 

Alec Ahsoak, who according to the state sex offender registry was convicted in 1993 and 2000 for sexual abuse of a minor, came forward Saturday with the winning ticket for the $500,000 Lucky Time Pull Tabs jackpot.

 

Proceeds of the lottery help Standing Together Against Rape in Anchorage, a nonprofit group that offers support to sexual assault victims among other services.

 

"It's not how we had envisioned the story going," Nancy Haag, the group's executive director, told CNN Radio.

 

Alaska has the highest per capita number of rape cases in the United States, according to FBI statistics.

 

"With a ranking that high, it's ironic that the person who wins is a convicted sex offender," Haag added.

 

Ahsoak's past was first revealed by KTUU-TV in Anchorage on Sunday. His attorney, Lance Wells, did not immediately return a call Monday from CNN.

 

Efforts to reach lottery organizer Abe Spicola, who owns Lucky Times Pull Tabs, were unsuccessful late Monday. But Spicola told the Anchorage Daily News that Ahsoak "was going to buy a house and said he was going to donate part of it to God, and, you know, charity."

 

Well, given the number of sex offenders in this state they had to have seen this coming. Especially considering that a lot of the sex offenders live in the villages, and the villagers love gambling.

 

But wait, there's more!

Lotto winner attacked

Lottery winner attacked; one man taken into custody

IN CUSTODY: 20-year-old man from Los Angeles has been charged with assault.

 

By JAMES HALPIN

[email protected]

 

Published: January 14th, 2009 12:38 AM

Last Modified: January 14th, 2009 12:55 AM

 

The winner of the state's first half-million-dollar lottery was seriously beaten on a downtown street Tuesday afternoon by a man wielding a tire iron or metal pipe, according to Anchorage police.

 

Alec Ahsoak, winner of the $500,000 lottery recently, was attacked in downtown Anchorage on Tuesday.

 

A California man was arrested later Tuesday evening on a felony assault charge in connection with the attack, which occurred near the 5th Avenue Mall at about 3:30 p.m. and sent Alec Ahsoak, 53, to a local hospital with serious head injuries.

 

Just before Ahsoak was assaulted, the attacker, accompanied by two women, approached him to ask if he was the person who won the $500,000 jackpot, according to police.

 

Whether the attack was motivated by Ahsoak's winning the lottery, which was held to benefit an advocacy group for sexual-abuse victims, or by the widely distributed reports that Ahsoak is a three-time convicted sex-offender, was unclear.

 

"I've never known of anybody to beat somebody up because of their winning a lottery," police Lt. Dave Parker said. "There was no apparent attempt at robbery. He was struck eight to 10 times, and then he threw his Pepsi at the assailant and he ran for Phyllis' Cafe and the assailant ran off."

 

By Tuesday evening, Ahsoak had been discharged from the hospital with cuts on the back of his head that had been stapled closed and another on his temple that had received stitches, Parker said.

 

Los Angeles resident Brandon J. Hughes, 20, was arrested on charges of second-degree assault and tampering with evidence for allegedly taking the weapon with him while fleeing the scene. He was booked at the Anchorage jail on those charges with bail set at $90,000.

 

Hughes was also wanted in California on a no-bail felony weapons warrant issued last Wednesday, Parker said.

 

"Which means he didn't have very much time to get up here and create mischief here," he said.

 

Parker said Hughes did "make admissions" regarding the attack on Ahsoak, but police did not release what the motivation might have been. Police had identified one of the two women and were treating her as a witness, Parker said.

 

Ahsoak told officers he had been stopped by his attacker as he entered the 5th Avenue Mall. When the stranger asked if he was the lottery winner, Ahsoak said he was and went into the mall.

 

When he walked out minutes later carrying a Pepsi, the man approached him, saying nothing more, and began hitting him on the head with the weapon, police said.

 

"Oh my God, I was so afraid something was going to happen to him," said Nancy Haag, executive director of Standing Together Against Rape, the nonprofit that benefited from the lottery. "I'm just very sorry to hear that this has happened. ... Nobody deserves to be a victim of any kind of violence, and that's our stand."

 

The lottery, billed as the first of its kind, was conducted by Lucky Times Pull Tabs under an Alaska law that allows games of chance that benefit a charity. The charity must get at least 10 percent of what's left after the prize is paid out, and organizers have estimated the nonprofit STAR stands to get between $2,000 and $20,000.

 

On Saturday, Ahsoak claimed about $350,000 in prize money after taxes were taken out and pledged to give $100,000 of it to STAR, the owner of Lucky Times, Abe Spicola, has said. Spicola did not return calls seeking comment Tuesday.

 

Reports that Ahsoak is a convicted sex offender were publicized soon after he came forward, first by KTUU Channel 2 News and then other outlets, including the Daily News. By Monday, Ahsoak's victims were telling reporters they thought Ahsoak should not benefit from the lottery that was helping a group advocating for victims of sexual assault.

 

Asked whether the media should have publicized that Ahsoak was a convicted sex offender, Haag said, "I think it put him, obviously, at greater risk because there are people who like to take justice into their own hands."

 

Ahsoak was convicted in 1993 of molesting two girls under the age of 13 and sentenced to four years in prison, according to court records.

 

Police arrested him again in March 2000 for molesting a different young girl he was baby-sitting. He was sentenced to six years in prison on a single count of sexual abuse of a minor in a plea deal that took another sex-abuse charge and a charge of failing to register as a sex offender off the table.

 

Ahsoak has finished his time in prison and is now on probation, but he is registered as a sex offender on a state-run public database that includes information on individual cases and pictures of offenders. He told KTUU on Saturday that he's worked hard to turn his life around and has been in treatment for the past year.

 

A message left on the cell phone of Ahsoak's attorney was not returned Tuesday.

 

Some of Ahsoak's victims and their parents have expressed an interest in suing him since he won the lottery, saying the money should go to his victims instead of benefiting a convicted sex offender.

 

One victim, who was molested in the early 1990s while Ahsoak, a family friend, was staying at her home, said Tuesday she thinks Ahsoak should not have gotten the money. But it was out of her hands and she doesn't think she'll sue, said the woman, who is not being identified because she is the victim of sexual abuse.

 

"I'm in shock that happened. That's terrible," she said upon hearing of the attack. "I don't wish that on anybody. The only thing I wished for him is that he would get better. ... I just think it's crazy the way that everything happened."

 

So, some questions out of all of this. Should a convicted sex offender have to pay his lotto winnings to his victims? Should the news outlets have reported that he was a convicted sex offender, and report his name and photo?

 

My take, sex offenders are generally scum, and this guy seems no different and he probably spent more time in jail than he did. However, once he's served his time I think that should be that and that money should be his. And I really don't see the need for the media to say HEY A SICKO CHILD MOLESTER JUST WON HALF A MILLION BUCKS! Again, I think the guy is probably scum, but he served his time, and he still has to live as a registered sex offender where anyone with an internet connection can find out where he lives and what he did. He won the money, leave him be. And he said he was going to give $100,000 to STAR, something he has no obligation to do.

[2GOLD 0]

 

Proof once again that if God does exist, they have a morbid sense of humor.

[snuffbox 0]

I am not aware of any law that says prior convicts can't earn money after serving their time (even if it is by highly ironic means).

[The Ghost of bps21 0]

"Alaska has the highest per capita number of rape cases in the United States, according to FBI statistics.

 

"With a ranking that high, it's ironic that the person who wins is a convicted sex offender," Haag added."

 

...

 

No.

 

...

 

Is everyone from Alaska retarded?

[Guest Smues]

No, just most of us.

[snuffbox 0]

Was the idea of making victims pay for their own rape-kits intended to help with this probalem?

[Obi Chris Kenobi 0]

If this was the UK the Sex Offender would have been outed by The Sun, forced to give all his money to his victims and the guy who attacked him would have had a full page spread pushing for a Knighthood.

[Guest Smues]

So apparantly before beating up the lotto winning molester the guy called his friend on his cell phone and told him that he had spotted the lotto guy and was going to beat him senseless. Yeah, this kids a winner.

[bob_barron 0]

Nancy Haag must hate her life.