I was looking online and saw this article and I knew I had to post this! Read more on www.bossip.com.
Last week, Rikers Island Correctional Officer Garina Fearon bought a Powerball ticket in Brooklyn, as she’s prone to do every so often. On Monday, she realized she’d made the best mistake of her life.
Fearon had accidentally picked up a Mega Million ticket instead. But she definitely picked the right numbers, changing a life that, until this week, had been harsh to say the least.
The 34-year-old single mom from East New York, Brooklyn, who has endured a lifetime of hardship and poverty, told The Post she’s the mystery winner of last Friday’s Mega Millions drawing.“I wanted a better life. I was struggling as a single parent,” a beaming Fearon said yesterday. “I’ve really come back from nothing.”
She never imagined such joy was possible when she was down to her last $25 six years ago and forced to file for bankruptcy.Hard times struck again two years later, when burglars robbed her apartment while she was at work guarding dangerous inmates.Fearon, who spent part of her youth in a homeless shelter with no stable family, went on to endure sickening abuse from the monsters in her care.“She’s had feces thrown in her face and on her uniform in the years that she’s been there,” said a fellow jail guard. “She’s a tough young lady.”
Despite all that she’s been through, in life in general and at work, Fearon only plans on taking a short break from her responsibilities at Rikers.
The first thing on her “to-do” list was to talk to supervisors at the Correction Department. She said she feels too loyal to the job to let it go, even with all that money coming her way.“I’m going to go to my job to get some days off,” Fearon said. “I don’t want to resign.”
Fearon said it was her correction career that rescued her from her financial ruin.
Fearon has chosen to receive Friday’s $54 million jackpot in one lump sum, which will come out to $30 million before taxes. Sharing her good fortune are her 16-year-old son, her 14-year-old daughter, and her ailing mother in Jamaica.
Congratulations!
