CHEERS: Jin Ok Choi yesterday celebrates the Mega Millions ticket she bought while picking up cheap Korean wine (inset) on Staten Island. (
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Looks like she’ll be able to afford better wine.
A retired Staten Island immigrant scored $85 million off a $1 lottery ticket while picking up a cheap bottle of wine at a Richmond Hill Road liquor store.
“I [was] just shocked. I can’t explain it,” said Jin Ok Choi, 54, who netted a cool $40,426,259 after taxes by opting for the lump-sum payment of nearly $65 million.
Choi bought five $1 Mega Millions tickets — including the lucky one — July 1 while picking up a $5.50 bottle of Korean wine at Empire Wine & Liquor Depot.
Choi wouldn’t divulge any personal information about herself, only saying she’d been in the country 15 years and plans to buy a condo with the money.
“Next time, I see her, I wanna tell her to give me a lucky hug,’’ said store manager Susan Chan, whose shop got $10,000 for selling the ticket. “I sold her the ticket, so I feel like we are both so lucky.”
Choi’s not the only new millionaire.
NYPD Officer William Sena, 28, of Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, can add $31,152 to his annual salary over the next 20 years thanks to winning a $1 million scratch-off ticket he bought for a buck.
He admitted that the day he won hadn’t started out so well.
“I’m walking out of the side entrance of my house, and a bird actually pooped on me,” said the beat cop from Midtown South. “Right on my arm. I was annoyed, but my mother was like, ‘That’s good luck.’ ”
Sena and his brother-in-law ran out to buy tickets while watching a soccer game at their sister’s house on Staten Island.
“I didn’t scratch them right away. I just threw them in my car. We go back to the house before the game starts, scratch it off and boom — a million dollars,” he said.
“I was in shock. No one believed me. You know, you always joke around like, ‘Hey, I won the jackpot.’ But then I showed everybody, and everyone was reading it three and four times. Then everyone believed me.”
Sena plans to put the cash toward a new house and to save up for his 2-year-old daughter’s education.
“I’m going to keep my job and still work every day,” said the six-year veteran, who makes $56,000 a year, according to city records.
“I can’t retire. It doesn’t get you far anymore.”
Additional reporting by Larry Celona