When one wins the lottery, a common pieces of advice is to avoid making poor short-term investments.
Georgia man Ronnie Music Jr. ignored that tip and invested most of his $3 million jackpot … in crystal meth.
After cashing in on a 100X The Money scratch ticket in early 2015, the 45-year-old used a sizable portions of his winnings to buy up large quantities of meth for resale. In September, some of Music’s runners were scooped up attempting to sell 11 pounds of crystal (street value: more than $500,000) and he was identified as the source.
Investigators then seized “over $1 million worth of methamphetamine, a large cache of firearms, thousands of rounds of ammunition, multiple vehicles, and over $600,000 in cash” from Music.
“Defendant Music decided to test his luck by sinking millions of dollars of lottery winnings into the purchase and sale of crystal meth,” according to U.S. Attorney Ed Tarver. “As a result of his unsound investment strategy, Music now faces decades in a federal prison.”
The perp pleaded guilty to federal drug trafficking and firearm charges last week, and now faces a max sentence of life in prison.
After collecting his winnings last year, Music said: “I couldn’t believe it, and I still don’t believe it yet.”
Sadly, that’s probably still the case.
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