Two friends from Lakeland are at odds over a winning Florida Lottery ticket.
John Rhoades says he bought two lottery tickets. One of them was a winner.
Rhoades says he didn’t have a driver's license to get the money for the ticket, so he asked his friend, Tyler Scott, to cash it in for him in exchange for $10,000.
Rhoades claims Scott agreed to turn the ticket in, but misled Rhoades, telling him he’d won $100,000.
Rhoades didn’t sign the ticket; Scott did.
The issue is Rhoades says the ticket wasn’t worth $100,000. It was actually worth $1 million.
Rhoades says he didn’t realize that until he noticed Scott spending a lot of money.
Rhoades says he asked Scott for half of the money, but when Scott didn’t agree to that, he got a lawyer.
Now Rhoades is suing, claiming he’s entitled to all of the money.
"I'm going to get my money," Rhoades said. "A blind man can see it. That's my money."
An attorney for Scott, on the other hand, says Rhoades isn’t entitled to anything, because he claims it was Scott's money that Rhoades used to purchase the tickets.
"I am not going to give you my $100,000 ticket, and say, 'Hey, drive to Tallahassee, collect my money and bring it back,'" Scott's attorney, Paul Reed, said. "No one would do that."
It will likely be up to a jury to decide who gets the money.
It’s already moving through the court system, but no matter the jury's decision, it looks like their friendship is over.
"He was a good friend," Rhoades said. "That's what bothers me the most."
