After spat, wife gets winning lottery ticket

A Massapequa Park woman is $3 million richer after winning the jackpot in the New York State Lottery's Triple Million scratch-off game. And it was a spat with her husband, Rudy, that made them millionaires, Theresa Holzknecht, 48, said at a news conference Thursday morning in Garden City.

She said their daughter Jessie, 12, had been grounded for staying out too late, but her husband caved in and let her hang out with friends.

To make amends to his wife, Rudy Holzknecht went to pick up their daughter from a friend's house Nov. 26 and stopped off at Ed's Service Center on Carmans Road in Massapequa to buy his wife the $10 lottery ticket he usually gets for her.

They saw they had won after Rudy, 50, got home that night, a Saturday. "That was 10 p.m.; we didn't sleep after that," Theresa said.

The family has a Rottweiler, Captain Nemo, who likes to sleep on one end of the couch, Theresa said. Until they could get to the lottery office the next Monday morning, she said, "that's where the ticket was, under the cushion where Nemo could guard it."

Theresa Holzknecht, who works as a secretary for her husband's awning business, said she'll buy a new family truck and pay for their daughter's college tuition. But the couple said they wouldn't let the money, $99,045 a year after taxes for the next 20 years, change their lives. Rudy had a tape measure hanging from his jeans as the couple were handed a cardboard replica of a $3 million check. He was on his way to work, he said.

"It'll make it easier," he said. "Instead of six 12-hour days, I'll cut back to four [days]."

Two other jackpot winners, Edwin Zhingre and Mario Zhingri, said their lives wouldn't change either. Lottery officials at the news conference introduced the Queens Village brothers, who will share a $5 million jackpot in the Mega Money Multiplier $20 scratch-off game. The two brothers, who emigrated from Ecuador 10 years ago, spell their last names differently.

Edwin, 28, bought the winning ticket Dec. 1 at the Sarahi Grocery on Springfield Boulevard in Springfield Gardens. But he decided to split it with his oldest brother. Mario, 37, said his brother told him, "In the worst times, when he needed my help, I always helped."

With William Murphy