Woman forced to hand over seven-figure lottery winnings after divorcing ex

A secret millionaire who filed for divorce from her husband had her net worth nearly extinguished after authorities forced her to hand over her lottery winnings.

Denise Rossi lost $1.3million (£1million) of lottery winnings to her husband in 1999 after she was ruled to have breached declaration laws when she secretly claimed her prize in 1996.

Ms Rossi had decided to divorce her husband of 25 years 11 days after netting the sum, which would be worth £1.02million in 2023.

Her husband Thomas only discovered her life-changing winnings after their divorce in a letter addressed to the California native.

Her lawyer claimed that a judge overseeing a case “got mad and gave it all to him” when he ruled she should pay him back in annual five-figure instalments.

Ms Rossi won the lottery in 1996 alongside several work friends, but her husband didn’t find out until years later.

He received a letter addressed to his wife from a firm that pays lump sum lottery winnings in 1999, declaring it had “helped hundreds of lottery winners like you”.

A US court heard that she had had the cheque sent to her mother’s home, concealing the winnings from her husband.

She decided to keep them secret during their divorce hearing, where Ms Rossi, then 49, had claimed she “wanted to get out of [their] relationship for years”.

READ MORE: National Lottery winner scoops £11.6million with single Lotto ticket

But Thomas told PEOPLE Magazine he was blindsided by her divorce request, saying she wanted him to “move out of the house very fast”.

The court ultimately ruled that she had violated laws demanding she disclose assets during divorce proceedings.

She was told to pay Thomas 20 annual instalments of $66,800 (then £52,276.34).

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The sum ultimately meant she handed over the entirety of her winnings to her ex-husband.

Connolly Oyler, her lawyer, said she may have had a chance to hold onto her millions had she disclosed them to the court.

He said he could have “argued successfully that it was her separate property”.

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