Retired N.J. couple latest winners to surface in $330M jackpot

Saturday, September 08, 2007 posted 12:00 PM EDT

LAWRENCEVILLE, N.J. - A disabled veteran let his wife sleep in after learning they will share a multimillion lottery prize. Then he bought himself a new pair of pants.

"It's amazing what can happen when you stop to pick up a newspaper and a few tickets," John Belawsky said Friday when he and his wife, Sandra, were introduced among the latest winners in the multistate game.

The retired Cape May County couple had one of four winning tickets from last week's $330 million Mega Millions jackpot _ the second largest in the game's history. Elwood "Bunky" Bartlett, who teaches Wicca in Maryland, said Sunday he, too, was a winner.

The other winning tickets were sold in Texas and Virginia, but those winners haven't come forward.

Belawsky, 59, said his surprise at learning he had the winning ticket was overwhelming. He first saw the winning numbers in the newspaper, but went to get a lottery print out to make sure they were correct. He came back home in shock, but opted to let his wife sleep in.

"I tried to read the paper, I tried to watch the television, I tried to read a book," he said of the time he spent waiting for his wife.

Once she finally woke up though, she didn't believe him.

"I thought he was fooling me, honestly, he had done that before," Sandra Belawsky said.

She explained that she and her husband have won a few thousand dollars in the lottery before. But given the size of the Mega Millions prize, they went into hiding this time, going so far as to lie to their neighbors and even one of Sandra's children when asked if they had won.

"We haven't been sleeping, haven't been eating, (we've been) hiding out, stayed low key," John Belawsky said.

Opting to take the one-time cash option, the Belawskys will receive about $48.6 million before paying a 25 percent federal withholding tax, lottery officials said.

So, what was the first thing John Belawsky did with the winnings? Buy a new pair of pants to wear to Friday's news conference.

Other than that, Belawsky said he and his wife don't have concrete plans on how they'll spend the money. They are thinking about a dream house in Florida and plan to share their good fortune with their family; the couple have six grown children from their previous marriages.

John Belawsky bought the ticket at Blitz's Villas Market in the town of Villas, one of the various stores he said he buys tickets in when he sees big jackpots.

It's the second time a winning Mega Millions ticket was purchased in Cape May County. A winning ticket for Mega Millions' biggest jackpot ever _ $390 million in March _ was sold at Campark Liquors in Woodbine.

"Their may be something happening down there," he said, "I can't say what."

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