Texas Businessman To Be Sentenced For Wisconsin Lottery Scheme

7/6/17 – A businessman from Sugar Land, Texas admits using a rigged Wisconsin Lottery jackpot prize to get another 180-thousand dollars in bogus tax refunds. Robert Rhodes and Multistate Lottery security director Eddie Tipton have both pleaded guilty to rigging a 2007 Wisconsin Megabucks game which netted them 783-thousand dollars. Tipton recently struck plea deals in Wisconsin and four other states where he was accused of rigging lottery jackpots. As part of those deals, Tipton promised to tell how he did it — and recently, Rhodes gave a deposition in Iowa explaining how he used the fraudulent Wisconsin winnings to buy a fake insurance policy from offshore for a company that never did business, while he claimed the prize as a “business expense” to get his tax windfall. Tipton still awaits his sentencing, while prosecutors have asked for a total of 25 years behind bars — and Rhodes is scheduled to be sentenced August 28th in Madison on a Wisconsin conviction of modifying computer data to commit fraud.