Imagine this – you and a group of co-workers regularly buy lottery tickets as part of a pool. The drawing is held and the guy who buys the tickets announces that he has a winning ticket – but that it isn’t one that belongs to the group, but is instead one that he bought for himself. You and the rest of the group are out of luck.

Three hospital employees who thought they were about to split a second-place Mega Millions jackpot worth $175,000 are suing a co-worker who insists he bought the winning ticket for himself.

"I felt betrayed," said Veronica Edmondson, who is among the trio of Mount Sinai Medical Center office workers suing John Piccolo, the office's regular designated lottery ticket buyer. "We trusted him with our money."

Edmondson, 30, of the Bronx, said joy turned to anger when Piccolo called in late for work on Nov. 3 - a day after the drawing.

"Don't be mad at me, but I just won the Mega Million second prize," he told her, according to court papers.

"I exclaimed: 'We won, John!' to which Mr. Piccolo responded: 'No, I won,'" Edmondson said in an affidavit.

Edmondson told the Daily News yesterday that Piccolo offered to give her a Mega Millions umbrella that officials handed him when he picked up his check.
"He said, 'There is nothing you can do. The courts won't take it.' He even had the nerve to come to work and show us the receipt for the money with the taxes taken out of it," she added.

Guess what – Piccolo was dead wrong. The courts will take such suits – and have so far ruled in favor of the co-workers.

In a decision made public yesterday, Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Marylin Diamond said his co-workers have a convincing case.

She refused to throw out the lawsuit and froze $81,750 of the $109,000 Piccolo collected after taxes.

Piccolo offered each person in the pool $1,000 - but later halved it to $500 saying he needed money for a down payment on a house. "He offered some money because he thought it was the right thing to do," said his lawyer, Thomas Weiss.

No, Mr. Weiss, the right thing for your client to have done would have been to not rip off his co-workers. I’m hoping that by the time he is done paying damages, attorney’s fees, and court costs, he ends up deep in a financial hole – maybe to the tune of $175,000.