Poisoned Lotto Winner Altered Estate to Benefit Wife

Urooj Khan signed agreement to give her his business share
By Matt Cantor,  Newser Staff
Posted Feb 8, 2013 2:20 AM CST
Updated Feb 8, 2013 7:55 AM CST
Wife Due Most of Poisoned Lotto Winner's Estate: Lawyer
This undated file photo provided by the Illinois Lottery shows Urooj Khan, 46.   (AP Photo/Illinois Lottery, File)

More twists in the case of the poisoned lottery winner: Just weeks before his big win and subsequent death, Urooj Khan altered his finances so that, should he die, his wife would receive his share in a dry cleaning business, the Chicago Tribune reports. The news comes as his family battles over his estate; now, instead of a court dividing the dry cleaning assets, half the business and its property will go to widow Shabana Ansari, her lawyer says.

That leaves just $680,000 to be shared among Khan's heirs. "I just think he wanted to make sure his wife had a business and had attachment to the commercial property if something happened to him," lawyer Al-Haroon Husain says. Khan also provided Ansari with sole ownership of their home, Husain adds. He has now filed court papers dropping the estate's value to $680,000—as opposed to the $2 million earlier estimated. But Khan's brother has cried foul, dubbing the operating agreement, which Khan and his business partner signed on May 2, "baseless and nonsense," reports the Sun-Times. "Why would he [sign an agreement] to transfer everything to his wife? Did he know that he was going to die? Did he know [someone] was going to kill him?" (More Urooj Khan stories.)

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