Wife of lotto winner evicted; moving company offers help

Wednesday, December 16, 2009 posted 10:05 AM EST

Donna Campbell of Miramar wants to serve her husband with divorce papers. But she can't find the guy.

The two have been on tense terms since 2007 when the former Caribbean beauty queen made headlines after going public with their marital drama. Her husband, Arnim Ramdass, was a part of a pool of American Airlines mechanics in Miami who won a $19 million Florida Lotto jackpot.

He never mentioned it to her. She found out only after she grew suspicious and ran a Google search on him. So in 2008 Campbell, 49, sued Ramdass for a chunk of the change. The judge said no. Ramdass walked out on her and the bills they once shared.

And on Tuesday night, she will be evicted from their former home in the SilverLakes subdivision.

``I thought winning the Lotto was supposed to bring together a family, a husband and his wife,'' Campbell said Monday. ``But all I got was deception and lies.''

Campbell said she last saw her husband in July. He and a friend came to the house and started removing furniture.

Campbell, a runner-up in the 1979 Miss Trinidad & Tobago beauty pageant and a retired skin-care model, started renting out empty rooms in the house to cover her expenses.

Meanwhile, the mortgage was not being paid.

The house was auctioned off in July, but the owners let Campbell stay until now as she tried to untangle a complicated legal case that is still being fought in family court.

Campbell, who has no formal legal education, is representing herself. Her original lawyer withdrew from the case and the legal aid clinics she has visited say they do not accept ongoing cases. She wants to keep fighting.

``To give up on this case would be like if you witness a robbery and just walked away,'' Campbell said.

``You have to do something about it.''

Efforts to reach Ramdass on Monday were not successful. His family law attorney, Mitchell Haymes, did not respond to an e-mail or a telephone call Monday evening.

Ramdass and 16 other mechanics won the prize on June 20, 2007. They opted to take a lump-sum payment and divide the winnings.

Campbell's divorce petition states that her husband's net winnings were $449,511.95 after taxes.

In the summer of 2007, Campbell said she noticed her husband was acting strangely. He disconnected the phone lines and wanted the television turned off.

Knowing Ramdass liked to gamble, Campbell searched his name on Google. She discovered a press release announcing that he and his friends had won the Lotto jackpot.

She confronted him. He told her he bought the ticket for his daughter from a previous marriage, a story that she swears doesn't wash.

Since then, she said Monday, she has developed chronic lung disease and other ailments that she attributes to the stress of her ordeal.

Campbell thinks Ramdass is still in the area. But neither police nor a private investigator she has hired have located him.

The day before she was set to leave the house, boxes lay unfilled near the dining room. The patio table that she moved inside was still shrouded with legal documents, medical records and photos of her wedding day.

``This one, we took at the Hard Rock,'' she said, pointing to a picture of her and her husband in their wedding attire. ``We went gambling until 3 or 4 a.m. and we always said we'd share . . . If I won $40, I shared it with him.''

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