McDonald's sued over disputed $1 million prize

from yahoo

By Nichola Groom Tue May 31, 6:37 PM ET

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The widow of a man charged with conspiring to rig a McDonald's Corp. promotional contest is suing the fast-food chain for failing to make payments on his $1 million grand prize.

According to court papers filed Friday in Illinois' Cook County Circuit Court, in 1999 Stanley Warwick won $1 million playing "Monopoly at McDonald's." McDonald's paid the first three installments of the prize, but failed to make subsequent payments beginning in 2002, the lawsuit said.

Warwick assigned his prize, to be paid in 20 annual installments of $50,000, to his wife, Naomi Warwick.

The suit seeks the remaining $850,000 in prize money, $1.3 million in damages, and reimbursement for legal costs.

In 2001, Stanley Warwick was indicted on charges of conspiring to commit mail fraud in a nationwide scheme to steal the winnings of McDonald's Monopoly sweepstakes. The case against him was never brought to trial, and he died in 2003.

More than 50 people were indicted in the high-profile case, which involved the theft of winning game pieces for the chain's promotional games.

Naomi Warwick's lawsuit said her husband "complied with all of the published rules of the contest," though the Chicago Sun-Times recently reported he had pleaded guilty to the conspiracy charges -- which an attorney for the family denied.

"He never pleaded guilty and was never convicted," said Jim Ryan of Chicago law firm Ambrose & Cushing, which is representing Naomi Warwick.

The U.S. Attorney's office in Florida, where Warwick was indicted, could not immediately locate documents related to the case to clarify why it never went to trial.

A McDonald's spokeswoman said it would be inappropriate for the company to comment on pending litigation.

Jerome Jacobson, who had been head of security for Simon Marketing Inc., the firm running the Monopoly promotion, pleaded guilty in 2002 and was sentenced to over three years in prison. The sentences of four other men convicted in the scam were reversed by a federal appeals court last year.