A stone mason sued another earlier this month over $1 million in Powerball winnings and neither one will be spending any money until the courts decide whose entitled to what.
Armando Martins, of Trumbull and Nuno Nascimento, of Bridgeport, have been going in together to buy lottery tickets every week.
The trouble started on April 1 when Nascimento bought tickets and one of them hit $1 million.
The problem, according to Martins, is that he was $1 short of the $75 he gave his friend for tickets. He filed suit earlier this month.
Martins said, "We agreed that Nuno would decide how many tickets he wanted to buy and I would then give him one half of the cash and Nuno would then buy the tickets," the Connecticut Post reports, citing the lawsuit. "We agreed that we would share any winnings on a 50-50 basis."
Nascimento and his wife collected a check for $700,000 after taxes, never telling Martins about the prize, Martins said.
In court Monday, Martins decided to let the Connecticut Lottery Corp. keep hold of the winnings pending resolution of the court case on the prize, the Post reports.
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"At this point it a standstill," Martins' lawyer, Kevin Gumpper, told the Connecticut Post. "The money will be held until we end this dispute."
Nascimento and his lawyer, Thomas Kanasky, declined comment as they left the courtroom.
No new hearing has been scheduled.
