by Brian Mahany
The registered trademark of the Illinois Lottery is the slogan, “Anything’s Possible.” Apparently that includes murder. This story comes courtesy of today’s Chicago Tribune.
Cops in Chicago exhumed the body of Urooj Khan, a recent million dollar lottery winner. The medical examiner’s office originally ruled in July that Khan die of hardening of the arteries. Now suspicions are that Khan may have been poisoned with cyanide. Whether the body is too decomposed to properly test remains to be seen.
Khan apparently won a million dollars in a scratch off game but never lived long enough to collect his prize. He died a short time later. Although the body may be badly decomposed, the medical examiner is now ruling the death a homicide.
The new question becomes, “Who Did It?”
Apparently there are many suspects and according to press reports, all family members.
Khan’s widow prepared his last meal, the one he ate just before he died of a lethal dose of cyanide. She has hired a criminal defense lawyer. Khan’s father lived in the family home and has massive debt problems including tax liens. That gives him motive. And his brother has been fighting with the widow in probate court over the lottery winnings.
None of the family members have been formally implicated or charged.
Unfortunately, money often brings out the worst in some families. Whether or not one of Khan’s family members poisoned him, inheritance fraud takes place daily all across the United States. Typically it doesn’t lead to cyanide poisoning, however.
Common types of probate and inheritance fraud include fraudulently coercing an elderly or incapacitated person to sign a different will, forging or replacing pages of a will and even tearing up an original if that means that state law will give certain family members a larger cut of the pie.
If you are the victim of an estate fraud or believe that someone has wrongfully coerced a loved one to change their will, we can help. The key in inheritance fraud cases is to move quickly. Often we can freeze funds before they are distributed or at least keep the fraudsters from spending the money while the claims are being resolved in court.
If you believe that a loved one was coerced into changing their will, give us a call. Our fraud lawyers have helped people from Maine to California get back their hard earned money.
For more information, contact attorney Brian Mahany by email at or by telephone at (direct). All inquiries are protected by the attorney – client privilege and kept in strict confidence.
Mahany & Ertl – America’s Fraud Lawyers. Offices in Milwaukee, Wisconsin; Detroit, Michigan; Portland, Maine; Minneapolis, Minnesota and coming soon San Francisco, California. Fraud recovery available in many jurisdictions.
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