“A hulking sexual predator has hit the Florida jackpot, winning the Sunshine State’s $14 million lottery, officials said. A lawyer for 6-foot-5, 240-pound Edward Robert Cowal quietly picked up a check for more than $7.8 million, taking a one-time lump sum before taxes. Cowal, 47, was convicted on Feb. 2, 1998, in Martin, Fla., for lewd and lascivious acts on a child younger than 16 years old, earning a 20-month prison sentence. The gender of the child was not listed.” — New York Post (US)

Here is the picture of Mr. Cowal from his entry on Florida’s sex offender registry. Newspaper accounts talk about how Mr. Cowal has been lying low: “could not be reached for comment, and telephone service to his residence — a one-bedroom mobile home — has been disconnected.” His entry on the sex offender registry seems to give the reason, as it lists his current place of residence as “Rio Dejanerio,” evidently a misspelling of Rio de Janeiro. After all, if you were a sex offender who had suddenly struck it rich, where else would you go? Ahem.

People commenting on this story have basically seen it as an inversion of the “good guys finish last” principle. In this case, a bad guy finishes first. Weirdly, this is not the first time this has happened. Two years ago a British sex offender won a lottery, and PervScan said: “What are the odds this could happen again?” It was a different scenario, though, since in the British case the offender did not seem well poised to enjoy his winnings. In this case, it’s quite possible Mr. Cowal could be enjoying his winnings very much — and in a way Florida would certainly not want him to.

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