Man who won £13m on lottery blew entire fortune within a year after brother tried to have him killed

A man who won a staggering £13 million jackpot, branded it a ‘lottery of death’ after he blew through the lot in a matter of months, spent time behind bars, and even survived an assassination attempt from his own brother.

His landlady, who was also his on-off partner, Ann Karpik bought an additional 20 entries and one of those 60 tickets turned out to be the jackpot winner.

Post scooped a whopping $16.2million (£13m) and took the option to have it paid out annually, in instalments of $498,000 (£401,253).

According to reports at the time, Post managed to burn his way through $300,000 (£241,719) of his first payout ‘within weeks’ of receiving it.

And if you’re wondering how he managed to do that, well, despite not owning a pilot's licence, Post splashed out on a twin-engine plane for himself and bought businesses for his siblings.

In the words of his bankruptcy lawyer John Lacher: “He did everything you would expect of a guy who became a millionaire overnight.”

Unbelievably, just three months after being given his $498,000, he was $500,000 (£402,865) in debt and, when his second instalment landed in his bank account, rather than pay what he owned, he bought a $395,000 (£318,263) mansion - leaving his debts to mount.

His money problems weren’t his only worries - his brother Jeffery hired a hitman to try and kill Post and his sixth wife, in a botched attempt to claim an inheritance.

With his debts mounting, Post sold his mansion and auctioned off the rest of his annual lottery payouts.

What was left of his cash prize, around $2.6 million (£2.09m) , was soon frittered away, too.

But Post’s bad luck wasn’t over yet - in 1998 he was arrested for an assault conviction from six years previous. Post had been convicted after firing a gun at a debt collector who turned up at his home.

Post served his time and came out to a very different way of life - living off just $450 (£362) a month disability payment. He died penniless in 2006 aged just 66.

Talking about the dark side of his win in 1993, Post said: "Everybody dreams of winning money, but nobody realises the nightmares that come out of the woodwork, or the problems, I was much happier when I was broke.”