Richard Lord and his partner of 15-years Mavis Wanczyk split in 2016 and if he had just married her, he would have shared in her record-breaking $758.7 million Powerball win – which the mother-of-two, who opted to collect her winnings in the form of a lump sum, will take home around $443m after taxes. Massachusetts law states that anything purchased over the course of a marriage – including a lottery ticket – counts as a marital asset to be shared in the event of a split.
Speaking to DailyMail after her win, Richard said:
“I could have paid off the rest of the house, taken a vacation in Europe – but that’s just the way life is sometimes. But I’m happy for her. I certainly don’t hold anything against her. I hope she enjoys all that money – she’s certainly got a lot of it now. Right now I know she’s pulling her hair out with all the harassment and the soliciting phone calls.”
Richard explained that he never proposed because he lost 50 percent of everything when he divorced his ex-wife prior to meeting Wanczyk, and didn’t want to repeat the mistake.
“I was married for 20 years but that ended in one big headache. She got the kids, I used to have a gorgeous house and she got that too. After the divorce I was left with barely enough to eat. So after all of that I wasn’t in any hurry to get married again. We went our separate ways last August,’ added Lord. ‘All she said to me was “I’m moving on to a better life.” (Reuters, Daily Mail. Photo: Josh Reynolds, Reuters)