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WORLD / Newsmaker
Powerball win: Fantasy or nightmare?
(Agencies)
Updated: 2007-09-14 15:19
But winning the Powerball was a different kind of wealth that brought
instant celebrity status.
Whittaker's struggles with drinking, gambling and philandering became
public, and tales of his transgressions were retold with relish.
His home and car were repeatedly burglarized. At a strip club, thieves
broke into his Lincoln Navigator and stole a briefcase stuffed with
$245,000 in $100 bills and three $100,000 cashiers checks. The briefcase
was later found, with the money.
Whittaker was charged twice with driving while under the influence and
sued repeatedly, once by three female casino employees who accused him of
assault.
In all, Whittaker says, he's been involved in 460 legal actions since
winning. He recently settled a lawsuit that alleged his bank failed to
catch $50,000 in counterfeit checks cashed from his accounts.
Whittaker believes he has been unfairly demonized by the media, which he
says exaggerated his problems and helped drive his wife away.
Jack fell in love with Jewell when he was in eighth grade and she was in
seventh. The couple filed divorce papers three years ago but have yet to
sign them.
"I don't know any normal person who could have a marriage with everything
that's been written about me that's not true," Whittaker said.
The couple's daughter, Ginger McMahan, has battled cancer for years. The
disease is in remission, though she remains in poor health. Before
Powerball, Whittaker and his wife went to church together. These days, he
seldom does.
"It's just aggravating, you know. People come up and ask you for money
all the time, tell you some kind of a sob story."
Whittaker says he hasn't been stingy. The Jack Whittaker Foundation has
spent $23 million building two churches. His family donates food,
clothing and college scholarships to local students, "but all the big
work with the foundation is completed," he said.
Whittaker is also done with boozing -- which, on his worst days, involved
a fifth of vodka. He says he drank in part because he was worried about
granddaughter Brandi Bragg, who shared his independent, headstrong
personality and knew from a young age she wanted to run her Paw Paw's
businesses.
"She was going to inherit everything," Whittaker said. "Everything that
we have was built in a way that it went to her on her 21st birthday."
She never saw that day, dying at 17 after struggling with drug addiction.
Only 14 when Whittaker hit the Powerball, Bragg was in rehab a year later
for Oxycontin addiction. Whittaker blames her problems on a kidnapping
threat, which led to home schooling, and her decision to run with an
older crowd.
He says he hired sheriff's deputies to track Bragg, personally hunted
down and reported her drug dealers, and repeatedly sent her to rehab.
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