Woman charged with 8 counts of lottery theft

A 48-year-old Lewiston woman was charged with eight felony counts for allegedly stealing and checking for winning lottery tickets when she worked at a Stinker station.

Hope Averill was charged with eight counts of unlawful possession/use of a state lottery ticket. The penalty for each charge is five years in prison as well as a $25,000 fine.

On Dec. 21, 2021, a sales representative from the Idaho Lottery called to report a theft of scratch tickets at the Stinker Station No. 34, 124 Thain Road in Lewiston. The investigator for the Idaho Lottery Enforcement Division called and spoke with the manager at the Stinker station, who said on Dec. 18, 2021, while he was training a new employee, a customer asked for nine Christmas Spirit scratch tickets. When the manager got to the end of the pack, ticket No. 1 was missing, which is the last ticket that is sold. He then went through the rest of the packs in the dispenser and found others missing, including tickets 1-3 of the Sapphire 7s pack, tickets 1-2 of the $1,000 Frenzy pack and tickets 1-3 of the Christmas Spirit pack, according to the Idaho Lottery Enforcement Division report that is included in the probable cause affidavit.

The investigator confirmed that one of the packs had been validated at the Stinker station. The investigator then obtained video surveillance of the ticket dispenser the day the tickets were validated, which was Dec. 12, 2021, according to the report.

Video evidence allegedly showed Hope Averill, who was a clerk at the station, take a Sugar Cookie Cashword scratch ticket pack from the dispenser, scratch off one of the tickets and scan it. When the ticket showed it wasn’t a winner, Averill allegedly placed the pack along with the unpaid ticket back in the dispenser. The video surveillance allegedly showed Averill use the same process for a pack of Sapphire 7s scratch tickets, according to the report.

The video also allegedly showed Averill use the same process to get a winning $30 ticket from a pack of Sapphire 7s, which was unpaid for. Averill allegedly threw the winning ticket away. She allegedly scratched off and scanned another $50 winning unpaid ticket and returned the rest of the pack into the dispenser, according to the report.

Averill allegedly repeated a similar process several other times with winning and not-winning tickets that were all unpaid for. She also allegedly had scratch receipts from the lottery terminal printer where winning tickets are cashed, according to the report.

The total value of the unpaid tickets was $170 and the total value of the cash from the winnings was $140, according to the report. According to Idaho code, it is a felony to withhold funds from the state lottery as well as illegally obtaining or altering a lottery ticket for payment or with the intent to defraud, falsely make, alter, forge, pass or counterfeit a lottery ticket.

The investigator then called the Lewiston Police Department for assistance in contacting Averill after other attempts to contact her had failed. The police found a lockbox on the door and the building was for sale, according to the report.

The next day the investigator spoke with Averill, who said she was fired from the Stinker station after she didn’t show up for work one day. The investigator began asking questions about the lottery tickets, but Averill later hung up. The case was then sent to the Nez Perce County Prosecutor’s Office for charges, according to the report.

A summons was issued July 11, 2021, for Averill to appear in court. It was then changed to an arrest warrant July 15, 2022, because Averill couldn’t be found. The warrant was signed by Magistrate Judge Sunil Ramalingam and given a $2,500 bond, according to court documents.

Averill was then arrested Oct. 19 and made her initial appearance Friday before Ramalingam at the Nez Perce County Courthouse. The law firm of Magyar and Rauch was appointed as public defender. Her next court appearance is set for Monday.

Brewster may be contacted at kbrewster@lmtribune.com or at (208) 848-2297.