William ‘Bud’ Post — $16 Million, a Brother’s Hitman, and Food Stamps

Summary

William "Bud" Post III had bounced through life as a cook, a truck driver, and a carnival worker, and in February 1988 he had about $2.46 in the bank when he pawned a ring to buy Pennsylvania Lottery tickets. One of them won $16.2 million, paid as an annuity of 26 annual installments of about $497,953. Within roughly three months he was reportedly some $500,000 in debt; within a few years the fortune was effectively gone.

The money detonated his relationships. A former landlady and onetime romantic acquaintance, Ann Karpik, sued him claiming they had agreed to share any winnings, and a court awarded her a substantial portion of the jackpot. Post's own brother, Jeffrey, hoping to inherit, hired someone to kill Post and his wife — a plot that was uncovered and led to the brother's arrest. Post spent heavily and badly, sinking money into a used-car lot, a restaurant or lease venture, an airplane, and property, much of it with relatives.

The legal and financial wreckage compounded. Post was convicted of assault after firing a shotgun at a debt collector who came to his mansion, and he eventually declared bankruptcy. The annuity that might have provided a steady income for life had been borrowed against, litigated over, and squandered, and he ended up living on Social Security and food stamps — the man who had won $16.2 million reduced again to public assistance.

William Post died on January 15, 2006, at age 66, of respiratory failure, in the Pittsburgh area. He had said more than once that he was happier when he was broke. His case became one of the foundational "lottery curse" stories in American journalism precisely because nearly every failure mode arrived at once: predatory litigation, a murderous relative, reckless spending, and a slow slide back into poverty.

The Win

William "Bud" Post III had lived a hardscrabble, itinerant life — working at various points as a cook, a truck driver, and a traveling carnival worker — and had little to show for it. By his own account, at the time of his win his bank balance was about $2.46, and he raised the money for lottery tickets by pawning a ring for a small sum. He was, in other words, exactly the kind of struggling person for whom a jackpot seems like deliverance.

In 1988 one of those tickets won a Pennsylvania Lottery jackpot of $16.2 million. Unlike many later winners, Post received the money as an annuity — 26 annual payments of about $497,953 — rather than a single lump sum. In principle that structure should have been protective, metering the fortune out over decades and limiting how much he could lose at once.

In practice the annuity offered little protection, because the threats to Post came faster than the payments. Within days and weeks he began spending heavily, and within months he was reported to be deep in debt — a sign that the problem was never the payment schedule but the spending, the lawsuits, and the people the money drew toward him.

The Spending

Post spent fast and unwisely. He bought property and went into business ventures, including a used-car lot and a restaurant or lease arrangement, in several cases entangling relatives in the deals. He acquired a twin-engine airplane despite not being a licensed pilot, and the next year bought a mansion in Oil City, Pennsylvania, for $395,000. Reports from the period describe more than $300,000 spent within about two weeks of his first payment and debts of around half a million dollars within roughly three months — a velocity of loss that an annuity's annual payments could not keep pace with.

The relationships around him curdled almost immediately. Ann Karpik, a former landlady and onetime girlfriend who had given him cash to buy the tickets, sued him in 1989, claiming they had agreed to split any lottery proceeds. After about three years of litigation, a judge ruled that Post owed her one-third of all the proceeds — a judgment that carved a major piece out of the fortune before he could even stabilize.

The most chilling pressure came from inside his own family. Post's brother Jeffrey, hoping to inherit a portion of the money, hired someone to kill Post and his wife. The murder-for-hire plot was discovered and the brother was arrested, but the episode laid bare what the windfall had done: it had turned a sibling into a would-be murderer and made Post a target within his own bloodline.

The Unraveling

As the money drained and the debts mounted, Post's life grew volatile. In one confrontation connected to his debts, he fired a shotgun at a debt collector who had come to his mansion, and he was convicted of assault as a result — a criminal conviction (for which he was later, in 1998, ordered to serve a six-to-twenty-four-month sentence) layered atop the civil judgments and the murder plot. The legal system, which had first delivered Karpik's share against him, now processed him as a defendant.

The financial end came through bankruptcy. Post had borrowed against and dissipated his future annuity payments, and with the Karpik judgment, the failed businesses, and the spending, there was nothing durable left. The annuity that could have paid him a comfortable income for the rest of his life had been mortgaged away and consumed.

By the later 1990s and into the 2000s, the man who had won $16.2 million was reduced to food stamps and about $450 a month in benefits — back on public assistance, only now with a wrecked family, a criminal record, and a string of lawsuits behind him. The fortune had not lifted him out of poverty so much as taken him on an expensive, ruinous detour back into it.

What Went Wrong

After

William "Bud" Post III spent his final years far from the fortune that had briefly made headlines. After the lawsuits, the failed businesses, the assault conviction, his brother's murder plot, and bankruptcy, he was living on food stamps and about $450 a month — a return to the kind of poverty he had known before 1988, now shadowed by the wreckage the money had caused. He summed it up bluntly, saying he was happier when he was broke.

Post died on January 15, 2006, at age 66, of respiratory failure at a hospital in the Pittsburgh area. Obituaries, including one in The Washington Post, framed his life around the cruel irony of his win: a jackpot that brought, as one account put it, debt, despair, and heartache rather than security.

His story endures as one of the canonical American "lottery curse" cases, cited for decades whenever a new jackpot is announced. What makes it so durable is its completeness: Post's downfall combined nearly every documented hazard of sudden wealth — a litigious claimant, a murderous relative, reckless spending, the squandering of a protective annuity, and a slide back onto public assistance — compressed into the life of one unprepared man.

Lessons

References

• William Post (lottery winner) Wikipedia
• William 'Bud' Post III; Unhappy Lottery Winner The Washington Post
• Biggest Lottery Losers: William 'Bud' Post III Lotto Analyst