Tonda Dickerson – A Life Destroyed by Winning the Lottery

01-09-24

Episode Transcription

Made by robots for robots. Only read if you’re werid.

Hey man, what's up? Have you ever heard of Tappy new Year? Oh gosh, I can't believe it. It's the we're into January, which means we're just that much closer to my show in February. Uh and also my show in April in uh Chicken Cordon Blue, Idaho. However, you say that town? What did I say? Chore? Look at I'm probably you soon, hopefully. Have you ever heard of Tonda Dickerson. Tonda, Tonda's a real name, Tonda Dickerson, Tonda, Tondadadada, And then I want to watch it quit And then they see it on TV collecting lottery winning and they're like, he's just coming in tomorrow. This does not seem like a jury of your peers, the joy of your enemies. Oh raise a in a jury Miami. Things I learned last night Sondada. Yes, her parents were like, we like to name Ronda and Tnka Trucks. Let's just Donda Tonda. Yep, Tonda a woman. It's a woman. That's a woman. Okay, you know Dickerson Dickerson, Hey, buckle up, because this is your favorite kind of episode? Is it? Is it a heist? No? All right? What do you think it is. I know what it is. It's aliens. No, it's a waffle house episode. Oh for real, Wait for real, for real, this is a waffle episode. Tonda. She sounds like she works at the waffle house. I love it, dude. She sounds like she's back there, bare hand on the grill, just chilling, you know what I'm saying. Like she does it for heat, like my hands are cold, my hands. Have you seen I saw this video yesterday about them explaining their uh there's them, okay, was explaining the way they set their plates for their cooks. Have you ever seen this? It's the most insane thing I've ever seen. You need to look up a video of this. When they so they call out the order, right, yell the order. And I've always been curious, and I'm sure you are too. How do these chefs remember all of this because they get just yelled at NonStop what to make? Yeah, but that's a lot of stuff that's just yelled at them. Well, what they do They yell the order at them. And while they're yelling it, I don't know if you've ever noticed, they're putting a plate down and they're setting stuff on the plate and the position and the items that they set on the plate is the order. And so if they put a packet of face down on the bottom of the plate, it's a standard wafaffle. If they flip it over, then it's like a vanilla waffle. If they put a chocolate chip on it, it's a chocolate chip. And so it's like but if they put the butter at the top, it's scrambled eggs. And so it's like everywhere they place things on the plate is a different symbol for what it is. It's like it's kind of like if they wrote it down code, it's insane. Look it up, look up the by don't they just write it down? I don't know, right, It is very cool and also also it ensures that just no one can just get back there and run the grill. It's true, no one gets Yeah, you can't just put anybody back there. Kyle Kanane is a comedian who's a really funny bit about being Freaky Friday. Uh, because he's like, you know, someone gets you, like if he gets Freaky Friday, and like with with one of those you know, Benny Hannah chefs, He's like, I'm stuck into Benny Hannah trying to figure out a grill. But that guy is on a stage somewhere with just a list of words because like my my my set list, just as podcast Biff young ghosts like that, I know what those mean, but they don't. He doesn't know. But if you got Freaky Friday with a waffle house chef, they're like, don't look like, did you not see that? The butter had a chocolate ship on it? And you're like, there's a tomato and next to the tomato is half a slice of cheese. You don't know. I'm dumb. Sorry, it's the craziest thing I've ever seen. Sorry, I didn't know that your secret language. I told him what to cook on the grill and no one knew. So tada. She was a waffle house waitress. Bro, Should we get should we work at waffle house? Should we go get hired at waffle house? That's a pretty funny bit. It's a really funny bit to have a normal job. Yeah, we sound really out of touch right now. Roll that theme song. Support us on Patreon. Yeah, man, what do you do? You know? I'm just myself here myself. I'm really kind of doing my own thing. Any waits. My shift starts in five minutes. I love it here. My hands feel so much better now. So there's the B twelve's got my skin looking green. I think your skin looks green because you're sticking your hands all over that stove. You wouldn't get it. Yeah, waffle house employees are the only ones to get this. So it's ninety nine, nineteen ninety nine, okay, not eighteen ninety nine. Sure, nineteen ninety nine. She's working at a waffle house in Mobile, Alabama. Oh yeah, I remember Mobile, And there is a they have a regular by the name of Edward Seward. Edward had this little quirk about him where he didn't tip in cash. Instead, he didn't tip in cash. Yeah, instead he tipped with lottery tickets. And this was a big deal because one it's weird obviously. Two the lottery is illegal in Mobile, Alabama, well in all of Alabama, at least in ninety nine. And so he and it was also he's coming over from like Louisiana side then well he was going he was driving to Florida, and so he was driving an hour to Pensacola picking up a literal like booklet of lottery tickets and he would just hold onto those from Oh he lives in Mobile though, yeah, he lives in Mobile, Okay. And then he would he would order and then he would have a lottery ticket, would have a level up. He'd leave an envelope and lady is on your side. Yeah, you get of this, and that's generous of me. Generous of me. Yeah, So he would write their name on it. It'd be even more psychotic if you were like, at the end of the meal, you were like, thank you, here's exact change from a meal, and uh, would you just stand right there for a second. It's a scratch you getting. You didn't want anything today? Sorry? Nothing today? Yeah, your coworker got a Yeah. You never know what's gonna happen. So do you Begela Panga or whatever? Ton Congo. Yeah, he calls her Tanka because he's a jerk. Hey, Tako, name's Tanda. Uh say something to me. So he writes their name on an envelope and has the uh, the lottery ticket in there, and every time he orders, he does it for the whole the whole stepstrum. Everybody gets a lottery ticket, not just one of them. It's so risky because when someone does, everyone at the restaurant wants to cut. Yeah. Yeah, so I know where the story is going. So one Dayanda wins. One day, Tanda is his regular waitress. Normally he goes in, he requests Tanda, someone else gone, and so yeah, one day Tanda's not there, and so he he tips and he's like, he's like, where's Honda. And they're like, oh, she's not in today, and he's like, well, I'll hold on to one for her and I'll give it to her tomorrow. It's the next day. She's in and he gives her the ticket. She serves them, does a whole shift whatever. The end of the shift, she goes some checks because now the lottery was last night, so the winner is already drawn for this. It's a winner ten million dollar jackpot. She won it, and she calls her dad and it's like, hey, I need you. What was the lottery win yesterday? He confirms it and she's like, oh my gosh, I want ten million dollars. And so she and her dad talked it through and they call a financial planner and they set up an LLC called nine mil just kind of sick nine mil LLC, yeah, which is pretty sick. Did you take the LLC out of our Spotify name? I don't know. I did. I did good. I was messing with you and I said when I was why did you put it on to begin with? Well, that was in like cause when you sign up for an account and ask you for all your business information, I just did it like it just added that. I didn't think I was going to add that. It was like, what's the business name? And I put the business name in and then LLC at the end. Yeah. I want to to know we'll be in business. I want to know we meean LLC. We I ain't ll joking Galorean Media company LLC LLC. But Laurie isn't a media company's is it no corporate idio? Yeah? Anyways, none of this is important will cool. And the reason she set up this LLC is she would own forty nine and a half percent of the LC and her family. She split up the other forty nine and a half, so her husband, her parents, her siblings all got cuts of what the company owned, and she collected the lottery innings through the LC. So nine mil got the lottery winnings. Okay, the idea here is everybody can get it and it's not a gift. It's their owners of a company that got it, which is clever. Uh. So she wins this, she goes and collects and everyone else is like, man, tonic quick, can you believe to quit? And then like, I wonder watch she quit and then they see her on TV collecting the lottery winnings and they're like, oh, They're like, oh, she won the She's just coming in tomorrow. They're like, They're like, that's do you give a two weeks notice if you win the lottery? Do you know if you win the lottery, do you still go, Hey, I'm out in two weeks or do you just go you know what, No, I'm gonna It depends who you are, It depends who your boss is, and it depends how much you like your job. I think if if you're like just a super noble person, you probably do it no matter what. If your boss sucks, you're not doing it. But if you love your boss, you're doing it sure. And then if you hate your job, you're not doing it. If you love your job, you might stick around for a couple of weeks. Who knows. It just depends on the situation. Would you do I would stick around for a while. You're just saying that because you know they listen like I, I appreciate my team. I appreciate I want to put them on a spot like that, and I would. I would stick around as long as they need to be on there. You go, there's your LinkedIn. I'll stick around as long as you need me put that on a LinkedIn. Oh I love my team, really grateful for I think that I I can't be in another meeting with you not you could call out I h man, Jared doesn't like it that I'm professional. No, no one likes it that you're professional. Dude. You hang up sometimes I stay back in some of these calls. You hang up, like, guys, that was stupid, wasn't it? And they're all like, yeah, what a freak was that about? Talk like that? And then finally everyone pulls out there freaking they're taking shots and they're like, whoa, Okay, this is a video call. Guys is They're like, they're like, are over, Let's get going, you know, and and then some other guys like you, guys, you want to break free from the rat race? You ever think about what it all? Just rats racing around this little tunken for some cheese. Man, you guys could play the lottery shirt. But the password way to wealth is to use these energy drinks excess, baby jeez. This broadcast is sponsored by Amway. Would you like your life ruined and none of your dreams to actually come true? Would you like to be bait and switched for the next ten years? Would you like to be constantly chasing a carrot? Yeah? And if you're successful, good news, you get to do the bait and switching. Would you like to abuse people? It's all the fun of the toxic church without the spiritual harm. Oh God, be in a youth group without all that god stuff. Amway is a toxic church system without all the gods. So you can follow Jesus and feel good about manipulating others. Yeah, anyway, that's great winds. And then the coworkers are like, hey, like we deserve some of that. Well, they're like, what the heck? Allegedly there's some disagreement, but they're like, allegedly, we had a deal. If any of us won, we would split it across all of us. Because they've been doing this for a while, Like he's been he's a regular. He does this all the time. So they've talked about it and they've all been like, yeah, we went we'll split it. We'll split it with everybody, which sounds like a likely scenario. But Tana was like, I was never part of that deal. Is like, no, I wasn't gonna be a picture of WHOA looks like, yeah, yeah, yeah, I can show you. Oh I forgot to put it in my in my presenter, although I've got them all downloaded. But yeah, Tanda was like, I'm I was never gonna do that's She's like, you guys, Tanda is like the you know, week twelve of Big Brother, and she's like, yeah, I mean like that was an alliance, but like it wasn't my final too. That wasn't my for real for real. So this is Tanda. This is a I love it is that Tanda's mom. Is that mam da mom. I'm real listening. Go look it up even to see it. I don't know why this is the picture that they used, but yeah, Tanda is sitting in her dining room, I'm assuming, and that's her son in the background. This is the house she bought after her winnings. I think this is the how she had before. Well, I'm gonna be honest, I don't think she ever got around of buying a house, which we can cover in a second. We'll get into So they the rest of the coworkers are like, we were, we want our piece. So they take her to court. They say, we had a verbal agreement that part of this was our So four of them took her to court and like we all need our share. I mean, they split it five ways. She can have her fifth, we all get our fifth. And this goes to court and they do this whole hearing. It's a long preceding. Her attorney in on record calls them rats, which they cut are these are some waffle house rats? These are just rats. Yeah, so he calls them. He calls them rats, uh, and they go doesn't that doesn't go well with a judge? Well, he said, he said, he said, all of her coworkers are. His direct quote is the rats coming out of the woodwork. And so they do the whole hearing. Whatever it takes the jury forty five minutes to the side that she does need to give them each of their fifths. Oh, I'd be so mad because they had a verbal agreement's so stupid, and so she calls up a different lawyer and she's like, hey, do you think we can get this overturn? We appeal this. Yeah, and he was like, he's like, oh, absolutely, I got you covered. And so he's like, a take is four fifths of what you've learned, and so he he he puts together an appeal and uh, and their appeal what he says is he says, no verbal agreement between any parties is valid when it comes to lottery because the lottery is illegal in Alabama, so that is not valid. And so they don't just discounts her winnings. Well, they said that they don't have any stick to the claim off of her, and she doesn't either though. Defense they ruled okay, yeah, you're right, and so she got to keep the full thing after this. Okay, because of this hearing, I should say too, this is a very important detail. She did not elect to receive the lump sum. She chose the thirty year annuity, which was three hundred seventy five thousand dollars a year, which is not the way to do it. I know some people might say that's the more finance like financial planners will say, Okay, it's stupid. Take the lump sum. It's less money up front, but you do not count you can multiply. Yeah, do not count on the government to pay you at any point. The United States is fall and you're okay, out of your cash. So you're saying, put the lump sum in a high yield savings account. Yeah, yeah, you would get more. Let yourself decide, and yeah, you invest that. You you turn it into more and with a lump sum, if you do the right things with it, you'll end up with way more money in the long run. Anyways, if you take the if you take just that three seventy five a year, you're not you're not taking as that much. Sure, don't, don't do the annuity. It's tempting. That's why they do it, because they can, because they can just stop. Yeah one day. Yeah. Uh so. Anyways, so she's still getting paid on this though she's supposed to still getting paid on this. So this whole thing goes through, they overturn it, and then the original guy who bought the ticket, Edwards Seward comes forward and it's like, well, hey, wait, hold on, hold on a second, I bought that ticket. He's like he's like, he's like, we had a deal that if if you won the lottery, you'd buy me a new gray pickup truck with a strike down the middle of it. And and I wrote that down. Actually I didn't write it down. I had a plate with a little butter upside down and that meant gray truck, one strike. Everyone else, everybody, everybody, he knows that what that means, what that means. Ask any waffle house chef and they will tell you that's what that means. And so she goes to this, she goes, what a jury full of waffle house chefs gotta take a lot of smoke breaks in the middle of every fifteen minutes, every fifteen minutes of court. We're gonna take the judges like again again, really, yeah, yeah I didn't. Last time I was a part of the last smoke was why didn't you well wa in a verbal agreement. Sorry, we're all we're all sharing this pack of marble reds. Yeah, she wouldn't split with us, and now we're all This does not seem like a jury of your peers, the journey of your enemies. That sounds like I think, hold on, hold on, patent pending oh, ray is a high in a Jersey Miami. No, here's patent pending. Great show, game show, cool where I'm on board already. The entire jurny is your biggest enemies you have to win in court against. I like this idea. We can call it a court of thorn and roses. This is we're onto something near pat pat pending tranmark. No, we can call it. Uh, you know, Reagan and I want to go on divorce Court. We'll get divorced, but it's all actors. Yeah, yeah, that's pretty fun, and we will go on divorce court. Now that we're living out in LA We're going to be that physics home in Mount Vernon and everyone's like, I'm sorry, so sorry about the divorce. Yeah, because they all watch Divorce Court. They keep up with it. Dude, everyone a mount and it is just like the TV are it every day? They DVR it now they're they're taking VHS tapes of it. They recorded it on VHS and they watch reruns of Divorcer. They are actually a couple of seasons behind too. Right now they haven't caught up on Deforced. Did you record Divorce Court? Now I'm trying to think of what you'd call that show. I don't know. I don't have any ideas yet. Well I have the brainstorm it, but I like the concept. Hey, thanks for checking out our show. If you like it and you want to support be a part of what we're doing here, you can do that by becoming a patron. What happens there is you get to be in the community. We have a discord with our hosted producers. We have a lot of fun. We're super active in there. Every day. You get access to add free content a week before everybody else, and we have a zoom every month with our patrons. We hang out, we eat pizza, we get to know you a little bit better. It's a blast, and there's a ton of other different bete f It's like merch discounts, birthday messages, things like that that are super cool. If you want to be in that, you can just text Tillan to six six eight sixty six uh and that'll get you right in there. If not, we're just super glad that you're here and thanks for watching our show. Okay, anyways, so Tanda is she goes to court with Edward and then or was that his name? Edward Seward. Edward Seward. That's right. Edward just wants his truck. And so they go to court. They go to court over this, and again she wins. They're like, he does, I don't know you, and you gifted you gifted it to her. There's no like written agreement. It was in Alabama. It's illegal anyways there so this is invalid. So now she's got a lot of enemies and perfect candidate for our show. Hey, remember all the courts you were in. You know who also a perfect candidate for our show. The manager at my apartment cop. I love to put him on the stand. I like I like the idea. I like the idea that people the contestants do not know that is going to be their enemy. Like the contestants come on and then they're like, all right, no lawyers, your verbal argument, yeah, but you're against a real lawyer and the lawyer's good lawyers. Okay. By the end of it, you think you're the Yeah, you're like, shoot, man, I suck. But then then the judge is like, all rise, and then everybody rises in the back like please welcome the jury. And the jury walks in from backstage with the fireworks and everything is that what I've never been to court? And they walk out and then there's the big reveal be called court fronted, court fronted, I like that, or confront court or but anyways, and that's the moment you realize who is the jury? Like, they don't know that they're facing their enemies until that moment. Oh my gosh. I like a spin off of The Bachelor where it's it's all the girls you sent home. You know, that's a good way to spin this show. Yeah, I like that. I like that, and are you looking for love? For you? It's it's still court, but it's all there, the jury, the divorce that you're having from the girl that you chose, and you get to take home. Yeah, it changes the game because now when you're the Bachelor, you got to think about jury management and hold on, what if at the end of The Bachelor, all the girls you send home get to vote on which girl you choose from the final they decide decide they think is the best. Oh my gosh, dude, we should be scummy better. Anyways, patent pending on all of that. Yeah, you can't steal any of that or verbal agreement and that we'll sue your brains out in front of a jury of your enemies. And it's legal in the state of Missouri. So you can't you can't find it, you know, you know it's legal in the state of Missouri. Murder le Basically they went for They were like, you know what, why are actually why are we pretended? We all love it? We forget love it. I'll show you. Come over here, let me show you. You know, my favorite crime is okay, all right, So she's making enemies wherever she goes. Yeah, so, uh, well, it's a bunch of people who want her money, for sure. Yeah. So now as if the money more problems. This is like a two year long thing. She's racked up a lot of uh, lawyer bills, legal bills, and here's the thing. She took to a newity. So she's making three hundred fifty thousand, fifty seven thousand a year. Now she owns and now she owes a lot of money. And that got tied up for a second. So she's still working because she's not at Yeah, she's well, she's working. Interviewed and they're putting plates out with the butter on the left side, and she goes, that's the middle finger. Yeah, you can't. I can't say that out loud. You gotta blurr if you took a picture of it. We got one, We got one. Now they it's like a two year long thing. And there they thought they won the lottery and they're still living like they have n't, yeah, because they're paying so much legal debt. And so the stress of the whole ordeal leads to her and her husband splitting up. Here they are after their divorce court shoot, and uh, what's he doing in this photo? He's okay. It's like, hey, guys, hello, I'm the husband that's leaving. And this is the year ninety. This is two thousand and one. Yeah, so they split up and he in the divorce. He's already had such a rough year. Yeah, in two thousand and one. Look at his hat Chevrolet racing. What happened to two and one in Chevrolet racing. That's a rough year for that guy, because not only is his money tied up, you know, from one lottery d'l Earnhardt died. Did he died in two thousand and one? Bro? One of my buddies here in Kansas City, Dustin Slint's a very funny comedian has a really good joke. Okay, so I mean like they're having a rough time. Yeah. So they get this divorce and he ends up taking half of the winnings. Remember it's an annuity, so that's like one hundred and fifty one thousand a year. Okay, now what he's like one hundred but he's not in the Dutch to the lawyers, No, yeah, no, she is shooting. So now she's making she's bringing in half of what she was bringing in, which is still a very good salary. But it's the salary. It's not this is not a million millions of dollars, right, And uh, it got worse because then the I R S said, oh, hey, remember when you won the lottery and you gifted your family a bunch of money. You didn't pay gift tax on that, so you als two million dollars. So the LLC did not work. Yeah, the IRS figured it out and they're like, you os gift tax on that. And so they're like, that's two million dollars at you os. She has not made two million dollars. And so she goes to court with the I R S and now was paying legal fees for that is trying to figure out, Okay, I can't pay gift tax and we set this up like their owners. They're not it wasn't a gift whatever. That's not a financial advisor though, right, because that's bad advising. That's interesting. I don't know that's the defense I would have taken. It's like you just took the advice of a financial advisor. Yeah, that's an interesting point. I don't know. I don't know what I should contact her and be like, hey, hey, you want to do another lawsuit. We you know, remember the courts that you were what if the jury? What if what if the jury was your ex husband and the judge was that and the judge was Steve Harvey unqualified? But he has a judge. He has a judge show. Is he a judge? He's got a judge show? Is he a judge on the show. He's a judge. But is he allowed to like is he a real judge? So when you go on those shows, you're oh, go ahead, I was talking about staying there. Actors, you like you understand that. I'm saying, like, so judge judy right, Yah, those are real cases sometimes most of the time. Yeah, what they typically do they do is for Doctor Phil as well is like, so we went to the taping of Doctor Phil. Yeah, they filmed two episodes much like what we're doing today. Uh, and one of them is serious and one of us Uh. Okay, anyway, I was honestly I expected you not to notice that. I thought it'd be funny if I just progressively got smaller you didn't notice. I was trying to see that. So anyway, were you at the top earlier? Yeah? Yeah, I thought I was gonna get away with that, all right, So anyway from up here top of Mount Vernon over here. No, So they'll do one episode that's like a serious episode, yeah, and they'll do one that's like this is clickbait you know. Oh yeah yeah yeah. So uh, when you go on Judge Judy with a serious case, you're signing a waiver that is basically like whatever she determines is like, you're giving her whatever that that right is to to make the call on your on your case. Yeah, you're you're settling it even though she's not a judge. She's not a judge. Yeah, so you're you're settling. You're settling right, legally, what's happening is you're settling on a court with a third party. Mediate, Okay, it's you're naming her? Yes, yeah, interesting and so so Steve Harvey can do that because it's the same thing because you're signing a waiver and being like whatever, just honor whatever she decides. So, now, Judge Judy did used to be a real judge. But on the show she's so well, yeah, but she was a real judge, so she she knows some of those judge shows that are courtis actors. You know, we should have Bellie Jane be our judge. We you know, the we cauld actually make that happen, right, Bubby Jane, you know that we could get those people on our show if we want. I think so ya, I don't think so. I know so why because I know how to do that now? Okay, anyways, I live in Hollywood. Let me let me mention this before I forget, before we move on too far. I forgot to show you I know the guy Steve Harvey's mustache every morning. Hey, thanks for checking out with this episode. If you're enjoying this, let me recommend Timothy Dexter. It's one of my favorite episodes, not just because the content's great, but because it was our live episode. We shot that in front of a live audience, just like Doctor Phil. It was awesome. You won't believe anyways, thanks for me here. It's actually there's actually two of them, two of them for each side. Yeah, well I am an understudy too. He just didn't have an understudy, you know. And he's just buyings. He gets a text at lunch. She's like, hold on, sorry, it's just my mom. I was really hoping it was Steve Harvey's assistant. He's at the birth of his child and he gets the text and he's like, honey, I gotta go. Steve needs fulls to come. He's got it in like a concealed carry holster. I'm always backing. Geez. No, I wanted to show you. I forgot to show you this, but I wanted to show you Edward Seward during the court battle. Okay, oh sorry, wrong one? What was that was? That was a picture I took earlier? Yeah, this is us? Look at that how tall I was? Anyways? Yeah, this is Edward Seward walking into his court battle, trying to get his trunk with singles. This is two thousand, the year two thousand. This is like two thousand three. Or two thousand and three. He's severely sunburn. Yeah, he goes a Florida. He's severely sonburn on his chest. And he doesn't he looks like what Alex could look like when he's old. There. He looks like he looks like the kind of guy who would dip in lottery tickets. Yeah, he's got what I would describe as the Beatles haircut. Yeah, it's definitely a Beatles haircut. And these two women next to him look like they're in one of those cult documentaries. Boy, they're like they're both married to him. Yeah, I can see that. I can see that. Anyways, that was the style in early two thousands, was just dressing like you're in a cult. Yeah, that was the thing I saw. I I was listening to a podcast fashion style is called cult Classic. I was listening to a podcast this morning where they talked about the nineties. It was a British podcast, and so they're talking about the nineties and they talked about the two thousands. But in Britain, I guess they we call it the two thousands, right, they called the yachts. He called it the knots. The Knots called the knots he said. It was a very clear end because I scrolled back because I was like, he just called it two thousands, the knots. Oh, well he's not wrong. Then the Naughties? Is that what you just did? You add that? No, because he said he did, he called it? Did he did? Because he said the nineties and then the Naughties. That's what he said. He must not admit to you said the Naughties. Anyways, say from now on it's the Naties. So the r S they she gets them the suit with the r S and the r S says you s gift gift taxi. That's two million dollars. Uh. Well, because did her family get the payouts? Yeah, they did. They're getting their newdies too. She's the one who's not getting the payout, right. Well, she did it for a minute and then well I guess nobody did. For a minute, nobody was getting it, and then she started getting it. So actually I was saying she was getting three hundred seventy five, but that was the full so she was getting forty nine percent of that, and then she split the forty nine percent with her husband after the loss. So he kept his part. Yeah, and he kept his great truck with a stripe, bought it. He bought that right after the court date and drank like Edward was like that much. I wanted that truck. That was the truck I wanted. That was my And he bought a bull guy I had, like a gray bulldozer with a white stripe. Was the words were coming out of my mouth. You stole them from me. You ripped him out from under me. And I'll never forget that. Is that why he moved to California? Are you shopping anyways? The I R S. So they go to She goes to court with the R S, and the r S uh wins. Obviously the IRS never loses in court. That's not possible. Yeah, guys on the inside. Yeah, and so they have a jury of their peers. Judge Judy also owes them money. So yeah, she she starts to do it, and then in the earpiece that they haven't planted in her brain, they said in her brain said remember what U O us right before she read her verdict. Okay, and so she changed her mind and she said, yeah, that was a gift to you, O gift tax but fortunately good news. Well let's take it off every year. Well, no, they said depreciation the economy is down, so it's not worth two million now, it's actually worth seven hundred and fifty thousand. So that's the only gift tax, you know. But still but still, at this point, she's earning half of half of what that was, so it would have been I mean, she's probably taken home like ninety thousand a year right now. So and she owe seven hundred fifty thousand dollars in back taxes now, yeah, for that gift tax. So she doesn't have a pretty bad spot. Uh, gets a job working in wah full house. No, we're going to say it together at the same time on three in yeah, working. Uh, it's a new city near Mobile, Alabama. We'll say it at the same time and see if we can get it sure, three two one Okay, Birmingham Now Biloxi, Mississippi a great place that we've visited. Yeah, and we've also visited Mobile. I visited Mobile too, Yeah, but we visited Biloxi together and we had crawfish and Biloxi that's right, And it was honestly, I didn't really like seafood at the time, and I liked it. The situation is rough, Yeah, bringing in about ninety thousand in this annuity, probably having to give most of that back to the irs in payments for back taxes. So she she gets a job in BOXI, Mississippi as a poker dealer at a casino out there, and one day she's She's like, well, gambling hasn't ruined my life or no, she says. She says, I'm gonna go to work today. So she walks out to her driveway, gets in her car. And she gets in her car and hiding in the back seat is not her ex husband, but her other ex husband, the ex husband before this ex husband, who is like, you never gave me any of that lottery, and she's like, I never got any lottery, and he kidnaps her and he takes her to a secluded swamp and gets into a boat and starts boating out into the swamp with her and is like, you never gave me any lottery, and I'm gonna kill you for it. What And she is trying to figure out what she's gonna do. Her phone starts ringing in her purse and she says, hey, if if I don't answer that, they're gonna know I'm missing. And they're gonna catch you, and he said, and so she's like no. He's like, no, you can't. And she's like, she's like, they're gonna they're gonna find out if I don't know, it's not like so she answered, she goes upside down butter with a chocolate chip on top, and he's like, what did you say to them? I just told them, I just told them what kind of butter plate. I just told him I would like to set my plate. No, so she reaches in her bag and doesn't grab her phone, grabs her gun. Heck, yeah, dude shoots him in the chest. O, my god, and he survives, falls into the swamp though he still lives out there. You could hear him if he's out there. He just says, lottery numbers four eight, none of them have flood You're sinking. But it's like he was. No. He falls up in the swamp. She drives back to shore and she takes him to the hospital and he ends up surviving his wounds. She us charging she takes her to the hospital. She takes him to the hospital. Okay, great, great, Tor axes she would not be in the jury because I mean attempted murder it's a big thing. Is there anybody here who has a reason for not being into this jury. I tried to kill her once jur number six. You can be dismissed. I'm in the public eye. I don't know who you are. So she but she ends up not getting in trouble herself. They wrote the self defense. They said, you're clear, you're not in trouble. I know, that's what I said, what I felt. She didn't catch any charges for that, okay, because they're like that self defense, you're clear. But yeah, the lottery absolutely ruined her life, everything that happened. So what's happened to her today? It's hard to find any information about her now. She's kind of started to live under the radar after, you know, someone try to kill her over the lottery. Sure, but uh she started getting paid out. Yeah, probably, but I mean it's a thirty year payment, so she would be receiving that still. I mean, she's coming close to the end of it, jeez man. But uh, it's not making what she could have should have took the lum sum, should have invested in. Just saying just saying does not financial advice. If you are you need to go invest that in your downstream of people, because the only way to get to the top is to have people underneath. You got to have them below you. Yeah, that's you got to pay people to be below you. Yeah. Yeah, that's how it works. Anyways, the legend says, though to this day, at that waffle house. Oh, if if you go on lottery night, lottery which nice that Wednesdays and Sundays, I think, okay, I think, I don't. I'm pretty sure, but you go on lottery nights and you go out to that specific waffle house on the jukebox while the numbers are being read on the TV. Yeah, the jukebox. It looks you can unplug it. You want unplug the jukebox. There's no stop in it and it plays a little fiddle off. Hey, thanks for checking out this episode. If you liked it, you can subscribe or watch some more episodes or some clips. But then I need to make this like twenty seconds. My producer said it has to be longer, So I'm just gonna keep talking for a little bit. And is this long enough? Connor, Okay, cool? Yeah, thanks for being here.


In 1999, Tanda Dickerson was working as a waitress at a Waffle House in Mobile, Alabama. She had a regular customer named Edward Seward who would tip her and the other waitresses lottery tickets instead of cash. This was a big deal since the lottery was illegal in Alabama at the time.

One day, Edward gave Tanda a ticket and told her to hold onto it for the next day’s drawing. When Tanda checked the numbers, she had won a $10 million jackpot! Tanda and her family set up an LLC called “9 Mil” to collect the winnings and split them between themselves to avoid gift taxes.

However, Tanda’s coworkers claimed they had a verbal agreement to split any lottery winnings evenly between all the staff. Four of them took Tanda to court demanding their share of the $10 million. During the trial, Tanda’s lawyer infamously called her coworkers “rats coming out of the woodwork.” After just 45 minutes of deliberation, the jury ruled in favor of the coworkers.

Tanda hired a new lawyer and appealed the verdict. Her lawyer argued the verbal agreement was invalid since the lottery itself was illegal in Alabama. The appeal was successful, allowing Tanda to keep the full jackpot. But the stress of the court battles caused Tanda to split up with her husband shortly after.

Next, the IRS came after Tanda saying she owed $2 million in back taxes for gifting money to her family. After another lengthy legal fight, the IRS prevailed in court as they tend to do. Between the lawyers and back taxes, Tanda’s winnings were quickly dwindling.

She took a job as a poker dealer at a Biloxi, Mississippi casino to earn extra income. But her lottery misfortunes didn’t end there. One day, Tanda was kidnapped by her ex-husband from before her lottery-winning marriage. He took her out on a boat into the swamps, threatening to kill her for not sharing the winnings.

Tanda cleverly convinced him to let her answer a call from work, pretending they would get suspicious if she didn’t pick up. When she reached in her purse, instead of grabbing her phone, she pulled out a gun. She shot him in self-defense, and he fell into the swamp but ended up surviving.

While Tanda avoided criminal charges for the shooting, the lottery win absolutely ruined her life. The money brought nothing but legal headaches and enemies coming after her. Today, not much is known about Tanda’s current whereabouts or financial situation. But her story serves as a cautionary tale that winning the lottery isn’t always the dream come true it’s made out to be.

Things I Learned Last Night is an educational comedy podcast where best friends Jaron Myers and Tim Stone talk about random topics and have fun all along the way. If you like learning and laughing a lot while you do, you’ll love TILLN. Watch or listen to this episode right now!

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Tonda Dickerson – Mirror


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