Mike on Crime (20 page)

Shewchuk rejected claims from Tessier's lawyer, John Scurfield, that she was holding a grudge against her former friend because Tessier stopped taking her phone calls after her lottery win and never offered her money.

Jean Tessier's former grocery delivery man—who had first come forward to the
Free Press
earlier in the year—also testified how the elderly woman told him about her lottery ticket arrangement with Macatula. Mark Singh said Tessier told him she and Macatula “were such good friends, if we ever win we'll split it half.”

Scurfield questioned his motives for staying silent so long and even had a private investigator dig into his past, which included allegations of theft from a Main Street grocery store he once worked at.

“You're on Cora's side, aren't you?” asked Scurfield.

“I just want the truth to come out,” Singh said.

A former co-worker of Larry Tessier at Winnipeg Transit also took the stand, claiming he once spoke of his mother's deal with Macatula to purchase lottery tickets. “One time we were talking and he wondered if the home-care worker was going to buy the ticket [for an upcoming draw],” said Brian Brouillette, who worked as a mechanic but was on sick leave after recently suffering a heart attack. “He mentioned they would share if they ever got any winning.”

Brouillette said he congratulated Larry Tessier after his mother learned she'd won the jackpot— but said his co-worker never mentioned having any stake in the ticket.

WEDNESDAY NOVEMBER 28, 2001

Jean Tessier was on the proverbial hot seat. The elderly woman took the witness stand, repeatedly denying a deal with Corazon Macatula to buy lottery tickets together and split winnings, despite accusations to the contrary and intense cross-examination from Macatula's lawyer. The senior also rejected earlier testimony from several witnesses who claimed she wasn't being truthful. “I am not too happy over this. It's not true,” said Tessier, who was in poor health and confined to a wheelchair.

With one of her sons, a paramedic, at her side in court to monitor her high blood pressure, Tessier said she no longer liked Macatula, a woman she once considered a “good friend.” “I am still mad at her for what she has done to me,” she said. In fact, Tessier said Macatula immediately asked for a handout when she told her she and her son Larry had won the lottery three days after their numbers came up. “I said ‘Cora, Larry and I won the big pot'. She said ‘mother, do I get a million?' I said ‘I don't think so, I have lots of children,'” said Tessier.

At one point, Tessier was asked by Macatula's lawyer why she didn't tell Macatula about her lottery win the first time she saw her, which was only hours after she checked her numbers in the newspaper and found a match. “We didn't know at the time who won, Cora or us,” she replied.

Following a brief pause, Tessier explained she wasn't sure if the winner was a ticket bought by Macatula or another ticket bought by her son, Larry. She admitted her son was occasionally unable to buy the ticket for an upcoming draw so she would ask Macatula to pick it up for her. “I told her I didn't want to her to go out of her way, but she used to tell me ‘Jean, don't worry, I'll get you the ticket, my husband and I play Lotto 6/49,'” said Tessier.

Another former Winnipeg Transit employee, Allan Lescoe, told court he overheard Larry Tessier tell his mother “don't tell Cora” when she informed him at work they'd won the lottery. But Jean Tessier insisted she had no such conversation with her son.

Macatula's lawyer, Bill Olson, took Tessier to task for several inconsistencies in her testimony in comparison with statements she provided lawyers months earlier during a pre-trial examination. Tessier previously told lawyers she didn't know Macatula very well. But while on the stand, she claimed they were once very close. She previously told lawyers that Macatula never referred to her as “mother.” On the stand, she admitted she did. Tessier said the erroneous testimony in the past was caused by her intense anger at the time for Macatula.

THURSDAY NOVEMBER 29, 2001

Larry and Helen Tessier were about to face the music. And the pair started with explaining their web of lies—admitting they deceived the public and lottery officials, but insisting there were no sinister motives. “I had no reason to hide anything. I said things just to protect my mother,” Larry Tessier told court.

He repeatedly faltered under intense cross-examination, often contradicting previous testimony. He responded with “I don't recall” and “it's possible” to many questions, prompting Queen's Bench Justice Sid Schwartz to level a warning at the new multimillionaire: “If he asks you a question, you are bound to give an answer. Sliding off the question is not appropriate. It makes me think you don't want to answer the question.”

Larry Tessier also changed his testimony on when he realized the winning ticket wasn't one he'd purchased, how he planned to split his winnings, how he learned from his mother they'd won and what was said in the conversation. Later in the day, lawyer Bill Olson asked Helen Tessier if the couple ever considered telling the truth at their news conference and simply asking the media to leave Jean Tessier out of the spotlight.

“No,” she said flatly, adding they didn't believe the media would have listened. “It was an awful circus. We were terrified. There's no way Larry's mom could have come forward as part owner of that ticket,” she said. Helen Tessier admitted she invented several things, including references to finding the winning ticket lying around their home. Larry Tessier earlier told the public he bought the ticket from a Notre Dame Avenue gas station, but he now admitted he learned the ticket was purchased at the gas station only when a lotteries official mentioned it to him minutes before the news conference began.

Larry Tessier said he'd played Lotto 6/49 with his mother since his father died in 1990. They tried to buy two $5 tickets for every Wednesday and Saturday draw, with Larry usually picking up the tickets and giving them to his mother to check, he told court. “It gives her something to do in the morning, I tried to keep her occupied and she enjoys checking the numbers,” he said. “We had a long-standing agreement that if we ever won, we'd share with our families.” Helen Tessier said she saw her husband and mother-in-law playing the lottery together “many, many, many times.”

Larry Tessier said he knew Macatula was asked by his mother to pick up tickets on “five or six” occasions when he couldn't, but said Macatula had no joint financial interest in the tickets. He denied ever telling his former co-workers at Winnipeg Transit that Macatula and his mother played the lottery together, as some of them testified earlier in the week

“Why would I say, ‘Never tell Cora?'” he asked Olson.

“It's a good question,” the lawyer replied.

MONDAY DECEMBER 10, 2001

The hotly contested Lotto 6/49 trial ended with stinging accusations as lawyers on both sides of the dispute took turns pleading their case. Nearly seven hours of intense closing arguments left Queen's Bench Justice Sid Schwartz offering his own two cents on the testimony he'd heard throughout the week-long case. “Both parties have given evidence which isn't substantiated, and I don't believe both parties have been totally candid with me,” said Schwarz. He reserved his verdict, saying he hoped to have it ready in a few months. He said the complex case boiled down to a simple issue that he must decide—who was telling the $11.4-million lie? “One of these two have to be correct. I'm inclined to the view that neither of them is, but that doesn't help solve the case,” Schwartz said at the conclusion of closing arguments.

Macatula's lawyer, Bill Olson, said the evidence was clear the Tessiers had robbed his client of her share of the winnings. “Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive,” said Olson, quoting Sir Walter Scott in describing the actions of the Tessier family. “In many ways this is a troubling case, in that it shows what effect money may have on people. The [Tessier family] commenced weaving, and eventually got so tangled in their web,” he said. “It is discomforting to see how comfortable Larry and Helen Tessier were in telling these lies.”

He described the entire Tessier clan as “unreliable and untruthful” and said their testimony should be disregarded. “There is powerful evidence of convenient vagueness or denial. The Tessiers are all over the map. There is no internal harmony. That's what happens when one weaves a web,” said Olson. He cited testimony from several witnesses who supported Macatula's claim to have regularly bought lottery tickets with Jean Tessier. “These are people with a sense of justice and morality, who are prepared to come forward and indicated what they know, even though there's nothing in it for them other than having their integrity or motives questioned,” said Olson.

The Tessier's lawyer, John Scurfield, wasn't as kind. He called the witnesses who supported Macatula as a “team” and said they had more sinister motives for coming forward with false stories, such as jealousy and spite. He described Macatula as a “calculating type of person who's capable of tailoring her evidence” for her own personal gain and noted she waited eight months after the Tessiers claimed the lottery prize before filing a lawsuit. “There was a struggle in the conscious, ultimately forming a plan and then giving in to greed,” said Scurfield. “Her actions are not consistent with someone who believes they were cheated out of $5.7-million, but more consistent with someone planning how to exploit that money. It is a tangled web, but her tangles are the material ones.”

He said Macatula made no concerted efforts to contact the Tessier family in the days following the lottery win and simply went about her normal routine, which included working seven days a week at two jobs. He described as “corrupt and dishonest” the grocery store deliveryman, Mark Singh, who said he'd overheard Tessier mentioning her partnership with Macatula. And he said several of Larry Tessier's former co-workers who came forward had an axe to grind with him.

So many alleged agendas. So many questions. And one excruciating wait for everyone involved.

THURSDAY MARCH 28, 2002

The verdict was in. There would be no glass slipper for Corazon Macatula. A sombre-looking Macatula sat with her head bowed as Queen's Bench Justice Sid Schwartz ruled against her claim to have a verbal lottery agreement with the Tessier family.

Just metres to her left, an ecstatic Helen Tessier jumped out of her seat and embraced her husband, Larry, and the rest of their family. “They can't bash us anymore,” she said, tears streaming down her face. The family refused to comment on the decision, which allowed them to keep the entire prize.

Macatula's lawyer, Bill Olson, said they would likely appeal the decision. “Cora is very unhappy. They're just devastated. It's our view this is an unfair judgment,” Olson said.

Macatula left court without speaking publicly, returning to the small inner-city home she shared with her husband and two children. For her, the decision meant it was back to her old life: Two jobs as a home-care worker and nurse's aide, which took on even greater importance because her husband, Nilo, was recently laid off as a night auditor with a local hotel. To make matters worse, Schwartz ordered Macatula to pay the Tessiers' legal fees. The amount, which had yet to be worked out, would likely be several thousand dollars, said Olson.

When reached at home later in the day, Nilo Macatula said he and his wife were very upset about the ruling. “It's been very hard,” said Macatula. “But we've had a lot of support from our family and from the community.”

The Tessiers' lawyer, John Scurfield, said the family's joy of winning had been tempered by the damage done to their reputation and their portrayal by the public as the villains in this so-called fairy tale. “There have been all sorts of spins put on this story by the media and the public. This seemed to be their Cinderella story,” he said outside court. “But anyone who looked at all the inconsistencies in this case was bound to conclude the same way as Justice Schwartz.”

He said the ruling was sweet vindication for the family, despite not-so-flattering remarks from Schwartz about the way they've handled their new-found riches. “This is the end of a nightmare. It is finally a satisfying moment. They stood up for what they believed was right,” said Scurfield. “When you win $11.4-million, you're subjected to all sorts of claims. This was motivated by [Macatula's] attempts to get her five minutes of fame.”

The case came down to an issue of credibility and believability, with the onus on Macatula to show proof of a verbal lottery agreement between herself and Jean Tessier. Schwartz said she failed to meet that test. “I prefer the evidence of Jean Tessier in this claim. I reject the evidence of Corazon Macatula and find she had no interest in this winning ticket,” he said.

Schwartz said he sympathized with Macatula but couldn't base his ruling on emotion. “Cora's circumstances likely raised for many people a lot of sympathy, but there's no power in the court to distribute the prize according to sympathy, need or human impulse,” said Schwartz. “There is no second prize in this trial.”

In his decision, Schwartz told the Tessier family there was “no excuse” for lying to the public, and to lottery officials, about their win. Schwartz called Larry Tessier's conduct “dishonest and disreputable.” He admitted the popular decision would have been to cut Macatula into the winnings, but said there was no basis in law to do so. “It's not my duty to punish a person who has lied under oath by denying him or his family what is rightfully theirs,” he said. “For those who would like to see the court punish Larry and his family and give Cora part of the winnings, that would not be an appropriate thing to do.”

He cited a series of inconsistencies in Macatula's evidence, including a sworn deposition she made after filing the lawsuit in which she claimed no knowledge of what a Quick Pick ticket was. She changed her answer months later, but Schwartz said the damage was already done. He also agreed with Scurfield that she had financial motive for making the lottery claim, and questioned why she took so long to file a lawsuit against the Tessiers—about eight months—after allegedly being shut out. Schwartz also dismissed evidence from several so-called independent witnesses who came forward to testify on Macatula's behalf.