Powerball winner losing home in auction
Thursday, May 04, 2006 posted 12:30 PM EDT
It's a rags-to-riches-to-rags tale, north county style.
David Lee Edwards, a laid-off laborer in 2001 when he won $42 million from a $295 million Powerball drawing in Kentucky and moved to Palm Beach Gardens, appears to have the kind of financial problems that he never should have faced again.
The $1.2 million home Edwards bought in swanky BallenIsles within weeks of his big win — he paid cash, of course — is scheduled to be auctioned on the county courthouse steps May 22.
According to records, Edwards, 51, quit paying the quarterly maintenance fees for the 6,000-square-foot golf course home more than a year ago. Now, the homeowners association is trying to recoup $8,642.75, and force the foreclosure of the residence.
"Everybody in the neighborhood has been talking about this," said Robert Frein, former president of the BallenIsles Community Association. The association's members include BallenIsles residents Serena and Venus Williams.
"At one point, the guy was buying everything in sight. It's a nice house. Probably worth $1.5 million by now."
The association's lawyers didn't comment. Several local phone numbers assigned to Edwards were disconnected, and he couldn't be contacted.
County records show the foreclosure comes shortly after Edwards received another infusion of cash. He took a $500,000 equity line on the home two years ago and sold a small home in downtown WPB for $180,000 in January.
When he first blew into town, Edwards was known for his fleet of sports cars, including a Bentley, a Ferrari and a Lamborghini Diablo, and generosity to charities. But he and his much-younger wife, Shawna, have fallen on hard times — filing for divorce, then both getting nabbed on cocaine charges last year. The cases are pending.
"I have no knowledge that he is going broke," said Edwards' criminal lawyer, Ken Lemoine.
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