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Forty-three-year-old Misty Morano of Cortlandt Manor never dreamed that she would hit the lottery. Morano was visiting her father and decided to stop at the Madaba Deli & Grocery at 694 Saw Mill River Road in Ardsley, to pick up a few items.
While she was in the store she bought a Quick Pick ticket for that night’s CASH4LIFE drawing. Her ticket matched all six numbers drawn on March 19 earning the call center customer service representative the guaranteed $7,000,000 jackpot.
“It’s a lot of money, but I’ll get used to it,” Morano explained. “I got what I needed and said, ‘give me one of those’ as he was ringing me out. That’s all there was to it.”
Morano opted to receive her prize as a one-time lump sum payment. She will receive a net check totaling $4,702,600 after required withholdings.
Her plans for the cash include buying a house and taking care of her teenaged sons and extended family.
Gabriel Rosado, 24, of Yonkers picked up his winning ticket after watching a coworker scratching a Set for Life ticket and decided to go out and buy one for himself. Rosado stopped at Mi Favorita Food at 392 East 201st Street in the Bronx, for a ticket on the way home from work and sat in his car as he scratched it, revealing a match on the number 14 with the word LIFE printed below earning him the $5,000,000 jackpot prize.
“The two of us were talking about what we would do if we ever won that kind of money. It made me want to go out and get one of my own,” said Rosado. “I feel both blessed and lucky. Blessed because I put in 16 hours a day, six days a week and I think it’s like payback for being a hard worker. I feel lucky because it could have been someone else.”
Rosado decided to split his prize with his close friend, Juan Aldama Mendez, also from Yonkers. Each will receive a net check totaling $1,272,547 after required withholdings.
Rosado plans to use his portion of the prize to multiply his winnings: "I want to be an entrepreneur,” he said. As for short-term plans, Rosado said he would like to move out of the home he currently shares with his mom. “I want to buy a condo for me and a new home for my mom,” he said.
Elizabeth Aprile, 48, of Elmsford won the $1,000,000 second prize from the April 10 Mega Millions drawing. Aprile said she wouldn’t have known she was a winner if an employee from the store, V&D Food & Gas at 24 Marble Avenue in Pleasantville, hadn’t told her to check her ticket.
“An employee from the gas station told me that I should check my ticket because they sold a million dollar winner,” explained Aprile. “She made sure to tell me because she knows I let my tickets pile up before I check them!”
Aprile will receive a net check totaling $671,800 after required withholdings.
“I will use the winnings to help out my children and save for retirement. I’ll also treat myself to an extra trip or two to the spa each year,” said Aprile.
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