Lottery ticket bandits arrested

Saturday, October 13, 2007 posted 07:36 PM EDT

The desire for easy money led to the arrest of two men in Tellico Plains Thursday night.

Tellico Plains Police Capt. Ron Lane said Jeremy Matthew Watson, 21, Patterson Street, Madisonville, came into Shorty’s Market around 5:30 p.m. Thursday, bought a sandwich, then left.

He allegedly returned a couple of minutes later with Joshua Lee Steele, 20, Lake Side Apartments, Vonore, and ordered some peppers. The clerk went into the back for the peppers and while she was gone, Watson grabbed the display case full of Tennessee Lottery tickets and the pair took off.

“Nobody even noticed the display was gone until about an hour later,” Lane said. “We looked at the video from earlier and saw them leaving the parking lot and put out a bulletin for their car.”

Lane and Auxiliary Officer Colby Eaton parked at the Cherohala Market to see if they could spot the two men driving back through town and around 8:30 p.m., they did just that.

“We stopped them on Highway 165, near Volunteer Federal,” Lane said, “and Steele had to climb out of his driver’s side window because the door wouldn’t open. It was exactly the same thing we’d seen on the video from store.”

Steele claimed he didn’t know anything about the theft, but a female juvenile in the car told Lane he might want to look in a backpack in the car. The backpack was filled with lottery tickets. There were also tickets scattered around the inside of the car and in Watson’s pants pockets.

“Then we opened the trunk of the car and there was the display case,” Lane said.

Tellico Plains Police Chief Bill Isbell theorized the trio had been somewhere scratching the coating off the tickets.

“They may have been up the river somewhere before coming back into town,” Isbell said. “We have no idea why there were carrying around the display case three hours later.”

The car they were in didn’t belong to Steele and had the wrong license plate on it. “I’m holding the car,” Lane said, “until I figure out what is going on with it.”

Steele is also being questioned by the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office about stolen guns while Watson is being investigated by the Madisonville Police Department concerning a stolen motorcycle.

Lane is charging Watson with theft over $10,000 and Steele with aiding and abetting in a theft over $10,000.

“That money amount could be reduced depending on how many winning tickets were in the case,” Lane said. “The lottery commission will need to figure that out. But the judge will have to reduce the charges if he sees fit.”

Lane also said there is a chance the state lottery commission could take over the investigation.

“That would make it a lot worse for these boys,” Lane said. “A federal charge is more serious than a local one.”

Chief Isbell said the cameras in the store made all the difference in the world. “The cameras are the kind that record digitally and in color,” he said. “We were able to see exactly what was going on. I wish more businesses used those types of cameras.”

The female juvenile was also taken into custody and given a delinquency charge.

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