The customer had proof that his ticket was a winner, but authorities said he still needed the original ticket to collect the money.
DELAND, Fla. — An elderly Florida man learned that his lottery numbers had produced a $2,700 prize, then discovered that the one document he needed to collect the money was no longer among the papers a Walmart cashier had returned to him.
The winning ticket was found the next morning in cashier Tameka Lashon Hall’s car, according to the Volusia Sheriff’s Office. Deputies arrested Hall, 40, on a felony grand theft charge after investigators said store surveillance video showed her fold the ticket and place it in her employee vest. Hall told deputies she had kept it by mistake while helping another customer and did not intend to take the winnings. The ticket was recovered, held for safekeeping and ultimately returned to its owner.
The dispute illustrates the difference between verifying a lottery win and completing a valid claim. Willie Lee Corley Jr. left the store with a printed receipt confirming that the ticket had been checked and explaining how to seek payment. Authorities said that receipt was not a substitute for the original ticket. Without the physical ticket, Corley could not establish his right to the prize through the usual claim process.
Corley had visited the Walmart Neighborhood Market on South Woodland Boulevard during the afternoon of June 14. He brought several tickets to the lottery counter and asked to have them scanned, according to an arrest affidavit reviewed by several news organizations. He told investigators that he routinely played the same sets of numbers and had returned to a familiar retail location to see whether any of his selections had won.
One ticket registered a prize of about $2,700. That amount was above what the Walmart location could pay at the counter, so Corley would need to claim it through another method, such as submitting it by mail or going to a Florida Lottery district office. Hall gave him a validation receipt with instructions but did not return the winning ticket, deputies said.
At first, Corley apparently believed he had received everything needed to collect the prize. The problem became clear only after he looked through the paperwork away from the counter and found that the ticket itself was gone. He returned to the store and told another employee that the winning ticket was missing. That employee took the concern to management. Store manager Brenda Bowman reviewed the recording of the transaction, according to reporting based on the affidavit. Investigators said the footage showed Hall take the ticket from the machine after Corley walked away, fold it and put it into the left pocket of her vest. The affidavit said Hall later left at the end of her shift without surrendering the ticket to Corley or a manager.
That sequence raised the central question in the criminal case: whether Hall’s possession of the ticket resulted from an oversight, as she maintained, or whether she knowingly kept property that belonged to someone else, as deputies alleged. The distinction matters because a theft charge requires more than proof that an item was accidentally carried away. Prosecutors must establish the intent required by Florida law.
Hall gave investigators an account that acknowledged much of the physical sequence but disputed any plan to steal. She said she had scanned the ticket and realized after Corley left that she had failed to return it. Another customer then approached for a lottery transaction, she said, and she placed Corley’s ticket in her pocket while attending to that person. She told deputies that she later completed her workday without removing the ticket from the vest. Hall said she intended to turn it over to a manager and was not familiar with all the procedures for claiming a prize, according to the affidavit. Investigators noted, however, that she did not give it to management before leaving and had not turned it in when she came back to the store the following day.
Deputies initially responded after management reported Corley’s missing ticket. They collected the surveillance recording and statements but did not immediately interview Hall. The affidavit said shift changes, other calls and difficulty obtaining an accurate address prevented investigators from contacting her that evening. Walmart asset protection personnel arranged for Hall to return the next morning.
Hall agreed to speak after being advised of her rights. When deputies asked whether she still had the ticket, she said it was in her vehicle. She accompanied them to the parking lot and retrieved it from the passenger side, where it was mixed with other papers and receipts. Walmart management confirmed that the document was Corley’s winning ticket, investigators said.
The recovery meant Corley’s prize had not been permanently lost. Deputies took custody of the ticket and contacted the Florida Lottery’s security division about the incident. The sheriff’s office later said Corley had been able to pick up the ticket. The public reports reviewed for this article did not say whether the lottery had completed payment, when any payment occurred or whether the temporary seizure of the ticket required additional verification.
Authorities did not allege that Hall tried to cash the ticket, mailed a claim or appeared at a lottery office. No report indicated that the $2,700 had been paid to her or any other unauthorized person. Instead, the charge was based on the allegation that she intentionally took control of the ticket and deprived Corley of access to it, at least until law enforcement recovered it.
The ticket’s face value determined the level of the alleged offense. Hall was charged with grand theft of property valued between $750 and $5,000. County jail records list a $2,500 bond and identify the matter as arrest case VP260012775 and court case 2026 103825 CFDL. Hall posted bond and was released on June 15, the same day she was booked.
Walmart told local news organizations that Hall was no longer employed by the company. The retailer did not publicly provide a detailed account of any internal disciplinary review or say whether it changed procedures at the store. The surveillance system and the manager’s review became important because the recording preserved how the ticket moved after Corley left the counter.
For Corley, the case began with a routine act of trust. Lottery customers commonly hand tickets to authorized retail employees so they can be scanned or validated. That brief transfer does not change ownership. Investigators said the ticket remained Corley’s property throughout the interaction, even while it was in the terminal area or Hall’s hands.
The case also depended on a narrow set of documented events rather than speculation about what might have happened later. Corley reported the ticket missing. Management located the transaction on video. Hall admitted possessing the ticket and produced it from her car. Deputies then evaluated those facts and concluded they supported probable cause for an arrest. Whether they prove criminal intent beyond a reasonable doubt is a question for the court.
No later plea or final outcome was confirmed in the sources reviewed, and an arraignment had been scheduled for July 9 in initial reports. Hall is presumed innocent, and her statement that the ticket was unintentionally retained remains part of the record. Corley, meanwhile, regained possession of the document needed to pursue the $2,700 prize.
Author note: Last updated July 19, 2026.