( dpa ) - An elderly Costa Rican man won the lottery jackpot of some 135,000 dollars, but suffered one of the biggest disappointments of his long life when he found out he had narrowly missed the deadline to cash it in.
Rodrigo Zavaleta, 85, told Costa Rican media on Wednesday that he kept his winning tickets in a cupboard along with tickets with other numbers. Following the lottery draw in December, he checked his numbers but did not realize some of them had won a prize.
On Friday - one day after the three-month deadline to cash in winning the tickets had expired - Zavaleta opened the cupboard and found those that had won the jackpot. However, when he went to seek his prize, he was told that was no longer possible.
In his "frustration and rage," the old man said he had not ruled out filing suit to try and get the money.