Bankrupt Man Claims $113 Million Powerball Jackpot

IOWA – As reported by the Des Moines Register: "Call it the miracle on 34th Street. When Hugh Allen Hawkins filed for bankruptcy last summer, he and his wife had $250 in cash left in bank accounts and $87,000 in credit card debt.

"And now today we have a big pile of money,' he said Tuesday after an Iowa Lottery official handed him a check for $113.2 million, the largest prize ever won in the state.

"Hawkins, owner of a modest home on 34th Street in Des Moines, is the mystery winner of the Dec. 14 Powerball jackpot. His 19-day silence prompted people to suspiciously ask friends in the Beaverdale neighborhood, where the ticket was purchased, 'Is it you?'

"…Since the Powerball drawing, Hawkins, who is a real estate developer, has hired a team of legal, financial and public relations experts. Their advice included waiting until after Jan. 1 to claim the lump-sum payment of $54.8 million, thus postponing the $16.4 million tax bill until December 2006.

"Hawkins laughingly said he expects people to bombard him with requests for money, but long-lost relatives and friends shouldn't bother to show up at the door of his $125,000 house.

"The one-and-a-half-story Beaverdale brick is empty, still trimmed with Christmas lights and a wreath. Hawkins and his family — wife Cindy Schumacher, their daughter, Katie, 3, and son Alex, 6, and his son from a previous marriage, Colby, 12 — are living elsewhere.

"…Hawkins said he's still trying to deal with' "a rainbow of emotion's" himself. But he's certain of one thing: 'I will not own an alarm clock from this day forward,' he said."