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The $1.35 Billion Lottery Winner Who Lost His Privacy Fight

Maine's $1.35B Mega Millions winner sued his ex over an NDA, then learned that courts don't do secrecy. What the Sept. 2026 ruling teaches big winners.

Jackpot Dreaming Editorial7 min read

An empty, stately wooden courtroom gallery in warm afternoon light, with a red velvet rope on brass posts stretched across the aisle in the foreground

A fourth-largest jackpot, and a winner nobody could name

On Jan. 13, 2023, the Mega Millions numbers matched a single ticket bought at Hometown Gas & Grill in Lebanon, a small town in York County, Maine. The prize was $1.35 billion, which the Associated Press described at the time as the fourth-largest jackpot in U.S. history.

The winner did everything privacy experts recommend. According to the Maine State Lottery, he claimed the prize through a limited liability company, LaKoma Island Investments LLC, and took the lump-sum cash option of $723,564,144 before taxes. "I understand why someone would want to remain anonymous with this kind of money," a Maine lottery official told the AP.

According to the federal appeals court that later heard his case, he also hired what he called a "highly respected security firm," which advised property security, surveillance and ongoing threat assessments.

Then, the next month, he did one more thing: he had the mother of his young daughter sign a nondisclosure agreement.

The NDA that started it all

The NDA barred her from sharing details of the win and his finances with anyone outside a short list of approved people. Within about a month, the court said, the couple were in a custody dispute.

By around September 2023, the winner believed she had broken the agreement by telling his father and stepmother, and that the information had spread to others, including his sister. She denied it, pointing to his own sworn statements that he'd told his father himself. In November 2023, he sued her in federal court in Maine as "John Doe," with her as "Sara Smith," seeking damages and an injunction.

Her lawyer, Peter Brann, has argued the suit was an attempt to make things harder for her in the custody case. "It should never have been filed to begin with," he told the Portland Press Herald in September.

The newspaper steps in

Early in 2024, the Maine Trust for Local News, publisher of the Portland Press Herald, intervened in the case. As trial approached, Doe asked the court to either close the courtroom to the public or let both sides keep using pseudonyms at trial.

In April 2025, U.S. District Judge John Woodcock said no to both in a 40-page opinion. Some of his reasoning is worth reading closely:

  • On closing the trial, he said that "if the wishes of litigants for privacy trumped the right of public access, courts would become publicly funded forums for private litigation, unaccountable to the public itself."
  • On pseudonyms, he warned that the logic of Doe's request would extend from lottery winners to "heirs to large fortunes, top tier professional athletes, highly successful entrepreneurs, nationally prominent entertainers," and he noted that "great wealth comes with the financial capacity to afford enhanced security and privacy."
  • On the bind Doe was in, he called it a "dilemma… of [Doe's] own making." Parties to sensitive contracts sometimes agree to confidential arbitration or mediation, he noted, but this NDA expressly gave Doe the right to go to court for an injunction. Because only a court can issue that kind of order, he wrote, "Mr. Doe's NDA contained the seeds of its own ineffectiveness."

"Hitting the jackpot isn't always everything it's cracked up to be"

Doe appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit in Boston. On Sept. 15, 2026, a three-judge panel affirmed the trial judge.

Judge O. Rogeriee Thompson's opinion is unusually playful. It opens with "Hitting the jackpot isn't always everything it's cracked up to be. Just ask 'John Doe,' today's appellant." It cites both the Notorious B.I.G.'s "Mo Money Mo Problems" and Moby-Dick. To make a point about why courts dislike secrecy, the author is first listed as "ROE, Circuit Judge," and a footnote follows: "Just kidding -- Judge Thompson authoring here."

The substance was serious. The court said it could "well appreciate some of Doe's concerns" and respected "his worries about his family's safety," but found "no abuse of discretion in the district court's careful judgment preserving the common-law tradition of public access to -- and oversight of -- our judicial proceedings." It rejected Doe's argument that he lost because he was rich. Doe himself, the court noted, had built his case around the "unique risks inherent to being an ultra-high-net-worth individual."

The opinion closes under the heading "CASH OUT": the trial court "honorably upheld its duty to 'do equal right to the poor and to the rich.'" (That phrase comes from the oath federal judges take.)

The twist: he tried to walk away first

Less than 24 hours before the ruling was published, Doe's lawyers filed a motion to dismiss the case without prejudice, according to the Press Herald. They wrote that even a win at trial would reveal "his identity and confidential information… to the media and public, which is exactly what he brought suit to avoid." They said a recent deposition had left them "reasonably satisfied" that the alleged breaches could be handled without a trial.

The defense said it would oppose a no-prejudice dismissal, because that would let Doe sue again later. It filed that opposition on Sept. 30, ahead of its Oct. 5 deadline, and the court docket sets Oct. 14 for Doe's reply. A judge has to approve any dismissal, and as of Oct. 7, 2026, the docket showed no ruling.

One more wrinkle: in May 2025, Maine passed a law (LD 404) making the identity of anyone who wins $100,000 or more confidential unless they agree in writing to be named. That law protects winners from the lottery publishing their names. It doesn't control what happens in a courtroom, and it arrived years after this jackpot.

What winners can learn from John Doe

1. Anonymity has edges. State anonymity laws and claiming through an LLC or trust can keep your name off a press release. They don't seal court records, stop family members from talking, or bind a judge. (Our trusts and LLCs guide covers the claiming side.)

2. Draft private agreements for private enforcement. If you want an NDA, ask your attorney about confidential arbitration or mediation clauses. A contract whose only remedy is a public lawsuit, as Judge Woodcock pointed out, may undermine itself.

3. Tell as few people as possible, as late as possible. Every person who knows is another way the news can spread. Decide who needs to know before you claim, not after.

4. Separate money fights from family fights. This dispute became tangled up with a custody case. A family-law attorney who understands sudden wealth is as important as the tax advisor.

5. Plan before you claim. This year's $1.04 billion Powerball winner in Illinois spent weeks with advisors before claiming anonymously under Illinois' rule for prizes of $250,000 or more. Running the numbers in the Jackpot Dreaming take-home calculator is the easy part.

Weighing cash against payments? See our lump sum vs. annuity breakdown.

FAQ

Who won the $1.35 billion Mega Millions jackpot in Maine?

The winner hasn't been publicly identified. The prize was claimed in 2023 through LaKoma Island Investments LLC, and the winner chose the $723.6 million cash option.

What did the First Circuit decide on Sept. 15, 2026?

It upheld a lower court ruling that the winner couldn't close his trial to the public or keep using a pseudonym at trial in his NDA lawsuit against his former partner.

Did the lottery winner drop the lawsuit?

He asked to dismiss it without prejudice the day before the ruling came out. The defense filed its opposition on Sept. 30, and Doe's reply is due Oct. 14. A judge must decide, and as of Oct. 7, 2026, the court had not ruled.

Can Maine lottery winners stay anonymous now?

Under a law passed in 2025, winners of $100,000 or more are kept confidential unless they authorize disclosure in writing. That covers the lottery, not court proceedings.

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