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Florida couple claims share of $1.6B Powerball jackpot

February 17, 2016

Florida Lottery Secretary Tom Delacenserie, left, presents Maureen Smith and David Kaltschmidt with their one-third share of the Jan. 13, world record Powerball jackpot Wednesday, Feb. 17, 2016, in Tallahassee, Fla. John and Lisa Robertson of Munford, Tenn., cashed in their ticket last month, also taking the lump sum. The winners in California have not publicly come forward yet. (AP Photo/Steve Cannon)

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — After cashing in a winning Powerball ticket for $327.8 million, a Florida couple has modest goals for their first purchases: a new car and a massage.

David Kaltschmidt and Maureen Smith of Melbourne Beach were introduced in a news conference Wednesday at Florida Lottery headquarters after turning in the second of three winning tickets from last month’s record $1.6 billion Powerball jackpot.

“It is scary and unknown. You think about what you want to do with the money (before actually winning it), and then all of those thoughts go out the window when it happens,” Smith said. “We are going to take care of family, but there is a lot to think about because it is all so stressful and new.”

Kaltschmidt, 55, said he will retire from his job as a manufacturing engineer at Northrop Grumman after working there for 34 years. Smith, 70, identified herself as a homemaker.

Kaltschmidt said he has lost 10 pounds in the past month because of sleepless nights but the jackpot won’t change his day-to-day life. Instead of designing airplanes, he said, he would be working for charities along with tax strategies and investments.

Smith, though, sounded less sure about the effects of winning.

“I’m afraid it will make me less friendly because of all the worrying,” she said. “You think about what is going to happen because we are no longer in a quiet place.”

The husband and wife, together since 1980, are originally from Long Island, New York, but moved to Melbourne Beach in 1991.

Both said they elected to keep quiet since the Jan. 13 drawing so they could set up security at their house and find an accountant. Kaltschmidt said they waited until last week to tell immediate family members that they’d won.

Smith said she had been using the winning numbers — 4-8-19-27-34 and the Powerball of 10 — for years but rarely played. The ticket was a $3 investment.

The couple, who claimed the prize as the Nickel 95 Trust, elected to take the one-time, lump sum payment. Florida Lottery Secretary Tom Delacenserie said they should receive the entire jackpot within two days.

The winning ticket was purchased at a Publix grocery store in Melbourne Beach. The other two winning tickets were bought in Munford, Tennessee, and Chino Hills, California.

John and Lisa Robertson of Munford, Tennessee, cashed in their ticket last month, also taking the lump sum. The winners in California have not publicly come forward yet.

Since joining Powerball in 1999, Florida has had the most winners with 11. Even though last month’s jackpot is a world record, Gloria McKenzie of Zephyrhills, Florida, still has the record for the largest jackpot ever paid to a sole winner — $590.5 million — from the drawing on May 18, 2013.