A New Hampshire woman who is the winner of a $560 million lottery prize is asking for a court order that allows her to remain anonymous.
The woman, who is only identified as Jane Doe in court documents, is asking a court to allow her to keep her identity a secret, citing that announcing her name could lead to safety issues, NewHampshire.com reports.
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The New Hampshire woman says that after realizing that her ticket matched the winning numbers, she went to the lottery’s website and read the instructions on the back of the lottery ticket in order to figure out what to do. Following instructions, she printed her name on the back of the ticket, but now says that she regrets doing that after learning that she could have signed the ticket to a trust.
“She is a longtime resident of New Hampshire and is an engaged community member,” her attorney, Steve Gordon, wrote in court documents. “She wishes to continue this work and the freedom to walk into a grocery store or attend public events without being known or targeted as the winner of a half-billion dollars.”
Gordon went on to state that the winner plans to “contribute a portion of her winnings to a charitable foundation” and to then be a “silent witness to these good works”, avoiding the “misfortune that has often fallen upon other lottery winners.”
The woman won the Powerball jackpot last month after purchasing the ticket at Reed’s Ferry Market in Merrimack, New Hampshire. The win is the sixth-largest Powerball jackpot on record and the seventh-largest jackpot overall.
The New Hampshire woman isn’t the only winner of a mega jackpot in recent months. In January, a 20-year-old Florida man, Shane Missler, learned that he had won a $450 million Mega Millions jackpot. The jackpot was he fourth-largest jackpot ever won in the history of Mega Millions and the second largest jackpot won by a single person.
Missler alleged that he had won the jackpot after he purchased five quick-pick Mega Millions tickets at a 7-Eleven store in Pasco County, Florida using money that he had won from a scratch-off lottery ticket.
