A Mountain Home woman accused of hitting the jackpot in the Arkansas State Lottery illegally was due to go on trial this week but it was announced in Baxter County Circuit Court/Criminal Division Monday that she intended to enter a plea to the charges against her on May 11.
Deputy Prosecutor Kerry Chism said an agreement reached between the state and 35-year-old Mary Olivieri called for her to pay victim restitution of $8,000 by May 11. She will then enter a plea and be required to repay the balance of the money allegedly obtained by cashing unpaid for lottery tickets during her time on probation.
Circuit Judge Andrew Bailey also reset the trial and other pre-trial appearance dates in case the repayment agreement did not work out. Olivieri is to reappear April 27 with a new attorney, a pre-trial hearing will be held July 6 and, if necessary, a jury trial on August 10.
Olivieri’s case was filed in circuit court two and a half years ago.
Since the case was set up, she has fired two attorneys. In a document she filed acting as her own attorney on March 16 titled “Affidavit of Innocence” she accused Judge Andrew Bailey and the office of the prosecuting attorney with “swaying” one prospective lawyer away from handling her case and asked for a new judge to preside over her trial.
The last filing Olivieri made in her case was on March 19, about four days before her trial was scheduled to begin.
Judge Bailey took the matter of that accusation up during Olivieri’s appearance. He said that her statement regarding an alleged contact between her prospective lawyer and the judge was totally unfounded and untrue. The judge said “that sort of thing did not happen and will never happen and I will not stand for that type of false allegation” to be made against the court.
Judge Bailey said there was no reason for him to recuse and he would be handling Olivieri’s case whether it ends in a plea or jury trial.
At one point, Olivieri spoke up only to be told by the judge, “ma’am, this is not a conversation. I am responding to the charges you have made against the court.”
ATTORNEYS COME AND GO
Her first private attorney asked the court for permission to withdraw from the case saying he could not reach an agreement with Olivieri on trial strategy. She was then approved for an attorney from the public defender’s office but she asked that he be replaced because she felt he was carrying too heavy a caseload to give her case the attention she felt it needed.
Olivieri said she believed her previous attorneys were trying to take the “easy way out” rather than work to prove her innocence.
Throughout the process, Olivieri has proclaimed that she is not guilty of the charges against her and has written that she has “never done anything wrong in my entire life.”
According to the probable cause affidavit, Olivieri worked in an area convenience store and is accused of activating books of lottery “scratch off” tickets without paying for them.
She is alleged to have taken winning tickets from the unpaid for books to various local retailers and cashed them. The majority of the tickets were cashed out at the Mountain Home Walmart.
An investigator with the State Lottery Commission provided information allowing local authorities to calculate the extent of the alleged theft.
Olivieri told investigators she paid for the tickets and “could not understand where the money was going.”
According to court records, loss prevention personnel at Walmart obtained video from surveillance cameras showing Olivieri’s husband cashing tickets from an activated but unpaid for ticket book.
Olivieri has been free on $50,000 bond.
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