Unlikely Suspect in Theft of $520K Lottery Ticket

A woman had a stroke of luck when she bought a winning lottery ticket worth $520,000 in Florida. She didn't cash it in right way, instead showing it to her uncle. A few days later, her luck turned bad: She reported the ticket stolen to police in Northampton, Mass., who in turned informed authorities in Florida. Sure enough, someone showed up in Tallahassee and tried to cash it in, with a story about receiving it as a gift from someone whose name he couldn't provide, reports the Tallahassee Democrat. It was none other than the woman's uncle, Michael Royston, 49, who has been charged with grand theft and fraud. The kicker: He is, or was, the chairman of the police commission back home in Windsor Locks, Conn.

"I adamantly deny any wrong doing in which I have been accused," he says in a statement to the Hartford Courant. "I do not want this to [a]ffect the Commission or The Windsor Locks Police Department while I exonerate my name, therefore I have resigned from the Windsor Locks Police Commission. It has been an honor and a privilege serving the citizens of Windsor Locks." (More weird crimes stories.)