Community Corner
2 Farmingdale Residents Among $202 Million Powerball Winners
Carlos Torres and Geraldine Smyth were two of the Costco employees to claim the jackpot.
At Costco, everything comes in bulk. Apparently that also includes lottery winners.
Twenty employees of the Melville store officially came forward on Thursday, announced as the winners of the , the largest prize ever awarded on Long Island. New York lottery 'queen' Yolanda Vega brought the group out to meet the public outside the Costco where they work, met, and will now share millions together.
Suffice to say, luck plays a part in hitting the jackpot. In this case, a bit of absent-mindedness did as well.
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Group ticket buyer Anthony Manzolillo of Lindenhurst was on his way to the store on West Montauk Highway in Lindenhurst to buy his own tickets, when he realized something.
"He didn't have his group money on him," said fellow winner Kim Karkota of Mastic. "So he left the store, went home, got the $120, went back and bought our tickets."
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Manzolillo bought a group of Quick Pick numbers. Included was the set, 8-18-38-46-56, with 31 as the Powerball. Timing is everything, as those computer-generated numbers would turn out to be worth a fortune.
The drawing was June 1, and Ralph Green of Copiague got up the next day at 4 a.m. to go to work. He checked his copy of the group's numbers against the winning line. Euphoria.
"I went through the numbers one by one, shaking my head, clearing my eyes, couldn't believe what I was seeing," Green said. "I went to the bedroom, woke my wife up, dragged her by the computer...we won."
Green sprang into action, and began calling his fellow players. By 9 a.m. they all knew they were newly-minted millionaires, and they claimed their prize June 7 at the Lottery Claim Office in Garden City.
The group is calling themselves the "1937 Flatbush Avenue Dodgers LLC," the partnership that has claimed the prize. Manzolillo, at 73 the oldest of the winners, grew up on Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn, hence the name. The winners elected to take their winnings in a lump sum, which after taxes, will be more than $70 million.
That gives each winner a tidy $3.5 million to play with.
"It's very exciting for me and my family," Green, 61, said. "I have three children, two grandchildren, this ensures their future."
Mitul Patel, who owns Maulik & Chandni, was on hand to claim his $10,000 bonus for .
Many of the employees have continued to work at Costco, a testament to their character, according to store general manager Bart Bartoldus.
"A lot of them kept working, doing their jobs even better than they normally would do," he said. "They really stayed focused, hats off to them."
So the obvious question–what will they do with the money?
Bartoldus says only one employee has given notice so far, and many of the winners are taking things slow, and in fact say they will continue to play the lottery.
The lucky winners and what they do at Costco:
