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Des Moines, IA- The mystery over the winning ticket from the December 29, 2010 Hot Lotto drawing took another turn Thursday.

Crawford Shaw, the New York attorney who signed the ticket, withdrew his claim.

The jackpot, worth more than seven million dollars, will go back into the Iowa Lottery fund.

The Iowa Office of the Attorney General's is investigating to see if anyone broke the law.

Thursday evening, Iowa Lottery officials met with local counsel from the Davis Brown Law Firm representing Hexham Investments Trust.

Following that meeting, Iowa Lottery CEO Terry Rich released the following statement: “This has been and continues to be the strangest situation that we can recall in the 26-year history of our lottery.  We were excited when the Hot Lotto jackpot-winning ticket was presented in December and we were hopeful that we’d soon be paying out the big prize to the lucky winner. That has not happened. And in fact, late this afternoon, the jackpot claim from Hexham Investments Trust of Bedford, N.Y., was withdrawn. We received confirmation of the claim withdrawal shortly after 6 p.m. today from the Davis Brown Law Firm here in Des Moines.     

" As you likely know, the winning ticket for the Hot Lotto jackpot won in December 2010 in Des Moines was turned in here at the lottery with less than two hours to go before the prize would have expired. The winning ticket was signed by a trustee on behalf of Hexham Investments Trust, but no member of the trust was present when the ticket was brought to the lottery by two lawyers on Dec. 29.  That day, and since that time, we have been requesting basic information so we could confirm that the winning ticket was legally purchased, legally possessed and legally presented. This standard information is routinely requested of jackpot winners here in Iowa as part of our security processes to comply with both Iowa law and our lottery’s game rules.

"Those details usually are received within minutes at the time a winning ticket is presented, not in weeks or months. It has been 13 months since the purchase of this ticket and the drawing in which it won the jackpot.     Those specifics in this instance were not shared with us when the ticket was brought to the lottery, and have still not been shared with us nearly a month later. We established 3 p.m. CST tomorrow as the deadline for that information to be provided so we could bring closure to the situation and move forward. 

"On Monday, we had informed the trust’s local counsel at the Davis Brown Law Firm in Des Moines of today’s deadline and specified in a letter the information we were requesting. Throughout this week, we remained in contact with lawyers at Davis Brown about our request. We received a letter from the law firm on Wednesday, specifying that if jackpot were to be paid to the trust, all of the winnings would be donated to charity. However, the specifics we sought were not provided. 

"The Lottery sent a reply to Davis Brown on Thursday, declining to pay the prize because of our concerns about the legality of the purchase, possession, and presentation of this ticket. A copy of that correspondence has been provided today.  During conversations with the lottery, Mr. Shaw specified that he is not the beneficiary of Hexham Investments Trust, only its lawyer and trustee. He also specified that he is not the person who purchased the winning ticket in Des Moines, and stated that the recipient of Hexham Investments Trust was a corporation in the country of Belize. He stated that he ultimately did not know the identity of the winner(s). Through this process, we have tried our best to remain open and transparent, while protecting the integrity of the Iowa Lottery and its games.”