MOUNT DORA, Fla. — A convicted sex offender has won $3 million in a Florida lottery.
For 12 years Timothy Poole’s mugshot has appeared on Florida’s sex offender registry indicating he’s a sexual predator. But now the state has taken a new photo of Poole holding up a $3 million dollar check after he struck it rich on a Florida lottery scratch off ticket.
Floyd Snyder is friends with the new multi-millionaire and refuses to believe allegations that Poole molested a child.
“The years I’ve known him, I’ve seen no inclination of anything like that,” Snyder said.
Back in 1999 deputies arrested a much different looking Timothy Poole after a friend of the family claimed he had molested a boy since he was nine years old.
According to the arrest warrant affidavit the child “said Tim would sleep in the same bed as him” and “sometimes Tim would wake him up from sleeping to perform a sex act.”
Poole denied the allegations.
But later he pleaded guilty to attempted sexual battery and spent nearly three years in prison.
The lottery winner has not responded to reporters. Just last month in an investigation exposing sex predators working in jobs like pizza delivery drivers, reporters found Poole employed as a cab driver at his mom’s taxi business.
“He’s a very positive person. Very kind. Giving. I think that’s why he won,” Snyder said. “Because it’s Christmas time and the dude deserves a break, man.”
