MONTREAL - After five years of legal proceedings and the honesty of a convenience store owner, a taxi driver has finally been able to claim his portion of a $1 million winning lottery prize.

The saga started in 2004 when Raymond Alfred joined a group of lottery ticket-buyers organized by Francesco Lapara, the owner of the R.P. convenience store in Anjou, Que.

Alfred chipped in $10, along with nine others, towards the $100 Mega Millions Loto-Qubec ticket.

The ticket ended up winning, and the 10 participants were called and asked to come to the Loto-Quebec offices to claim their prize of $100,000 each.

However, Alfred was not among the group that claimed the cash.

Shocked to find out that his ticket had won and even more surprised to find out that it had already been claimed, Alfred immediately called Lapara.

“He thought that I was dishonest,” said Lapara, who explained that there had been an error in filling out the list of names of the ticket buyers and a second name was added on the same line as Alfred’s.

“His name was barely visible,” said the store owner. “Even Loto-Quebec, who had the ticket in hand for two hours, never saw it. In fact, there were 11 names on the list.” Without hesitation, Lapara showed Alfred the list.

“Right away I gave him a photocopy of the list where you could (with

difficulty) see his name and I made him an appointment with Loto-Quebec for the following day to straighten this out.” Lapara said he spoke to all of the other winners and got six of them to sign off on an agreement to share the winnings with Alfred.

“The others didn’t sign,” he said.

The issue made its way to Superior Court, which ruled a few weeks ago in Alfred’s favour. The ruling stipulated that each of the winners had to pay him $9,000.

Lapara said Wednesday that he found it unfortunate that it wasn’t easier to reach an agreement after noticing the mistake.

“I have often had to explain myself to customers about what happened,” said Lapara. “And in the end, with the lawyer fees and interest over four years, Alfred’s portion cost each (winner) more.” Judge Pierre Jasmin congratulated Lapara in his ruling for his honest handling of the situation.

“Lapara was honest enough to give (Alfred) a photocopy of the original list of participants, which he easily could have destroyed after each of the 10 defendants had received their $100,000,” said the judge.

The judge said he didn’t understand why some of the winners, in the weeks following the discovery of the mistake, didn’t realize their good fortune and agree to give Alfred less than 10% of their winnings.

The judge said that the way the group acted forced them to go to court and pay up for avoidable legal fees.