Family From Ohio Claims Big Powerball Prize

INDIANAPOLIS -- A family of three from Ohio came forward on Monday to claim a massive $314.3 million Powerball jackpot from a drawing more than two weeks ago.

David Coterel, 65, a retired auto worker, and his two children, David Coterel Jr., 42, and Lynn Hiles, 46, bought the winning ticket. They plan to take the cash option, worth $146 million. After taxes, that would be about $105 million.

Coterel Sr. said he is retired from General Motors. Family members drive each week from the Dayton, Ohio area just to buy tickets.

I lost it," he said of learning he had the winning ticket. "I'm an emotional person, but I really lost it ... I know the world is going to turn upside down."

Hiles said she quit her postal worker job in Dayton, while her brother recently took a buy-out from his job at a Delphi auto parts plants.

Neither of them have any children, and their mother, Dorothy, died of cancer three years ago.

"The drive from Dayton takes about 45 minutes," Coterel Sr. said. "I'm not even going to answer the phone now unless the right signal comes across the caller ID."

The single winning ticket for the Aug. 25 drawing was sold at a Speedway convenience store in Richmond, along the Indiana-Ohio state line, about 70 miles east of Indianapolis.

The store where the winning ticket was sold is about 3 miles on U.S. 40 from another Speedway store that sold the winning ticket for a $295.7 million Powerball jackpot to a group of 13 co-workers from a factory in suburban Columbus, Ohio, in July 1998.

The 1998 jackpot was the largest of its kind to that point. Last month's jackpot is the fourth-largest in the 22-year history of the multistate Powerball game.

Powerball is played in 29 states, Washington, D.C., and the U.S. Virgin Islands. The record jackpot was $365 million won by eight workers at a Nebraska meatpacking plant in February 2006.

Speculation over the past two weeks was that the winners might be from Ohio. Numerous Ohio residents pour over the border to buy tickets in Richmond.

Indiana leads the nation in Powerball winners with 34. Two Powerball winning tickets have been sold in Richmond.

Powerball is played in Arizona, Connecticut, Colorado, the District of Columbia, Delaware, Indiana, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Vermont, the Virginia Islands, Wisconsin and West Virginia.