Woman was jailed after cashing in lottery tickets worth thousands, SC cops say
A woman was recently arrested for cashing in lottery tickets that she stole, according to the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division.
On April 8, Mary Elizabeth Devoe was charged with breach of trust and intent to defraud, counterfeit game tickets, SLED said Tuesday in a news release.
Then on April 30, the 61-year-old Allendale woman was charged with another count of intent to defraud, counterfeit game tickets, according to the release.
The charges stem from multiple incidents in December 2025, when Devoe was accused of stealing lottery tickets from Lowcountry Gas & Grill, the restaurant/gas station/convenience store where she worked, arrest warrants show. That’s at 1110 Buford’s Bridge Highway in the Ulmer area of Allendale County.
SLED didn’t give an exact value of the winning lottery tickets that Devoe cashed in after stealing them, but according to charges it was more than $2,000 but less than $10,000. Devoe redeemed most of the prize-winning lottery tickets at the store where she worked, the same location from where they were stolen, according to an arrest warrant. Both the theft and redemption at the store were recorded on surveillance footage, an arrest warrant shows.
She did go to Columbia to cash in one stolen winning scratch-off game at the South Carolina Education Lottery Claims Center, an arrest warrant said. That incident led to the April 30 charge and was the reason why Devoe has been booked into two county jails, according to SLED.
Devoe was booked into the Allendale County Detention Center on the initial two charges connected to the stealing and redeeming of the tickets at the store where she worked, according to the release. She was then booked into the Alvin S. Glenn Detention Center in Richland County for cashing in the ticket at the claims center, SLED said.
Devoe was issued personal recognizance bonds — $2,000 for each charge in Allendale County and $5,000 in Richland County — and released within 24 hours of each of the charges, court records show.
She will be prosecuted by both the 14th Circuit Solicitor’s Office and the 5th Circuit Solicitor’s Office, according to the release.
The SLED investigation was requested by the South Carolina Education Lottery.
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This story was originally published May 5, 2026 at 2:28 PM.
