Winnings Expose Marriage's Fault Lines -- Lotto Millions Fuel Bitter Divorce Battle

DALLAS - Lynette and Jimmy Nichols started their marriage in ordinary fashion, working hard for low wages, struggling to make ends meet and rearing each other's children.

Now, their 15-year working-class partnership is at a strained end, with one extraordinary difference from millions of other divorces: The Nicholses are parting millionaires.

To anyone who hasn't known the thrill of fast riches, those on both sides of the Nichols split say the case shows that some things are more important than money - even one of the Texas State Lottery's biggest jackpots.

Lynette Nichols, a habitual bingo and lottery player, changed the couple's lives forever when she bought 23 $1 tickets on a Wednesday in July 1993 for a near-record lotto drawing.

Her ecstatic shrieks filled the bingo hall that night as she leapt and knocked over her table.

One of her tickets matched the six lotto numbers - 7-8-15-42-46-47 - good for one-third of the $48.6 million prize. The share guaranteed her annual after-tax payments of more than $500,000 over 20 years.

The couple had never earned more than $35,000 in a year while raising six kids. Suddenly, instead of living paycheck to paycheck, their financial worries evaporated.

But the lightning-strike luck set off other changes.

The winnings soon fueled a bitter battle in divorce court over who should get how much of the cash.

"The lottery did not solve all their problems," said Tony Wright, Lynette Nichols' attorney. "It probably caused their problems as much as anything."

The way the parties describe it, the money exposed a marriage's fault lines. And an otherwise routine divorce was cast in a public light because of the assets in play.

The relationship disintegrated into charges and countercharges of greed, adultery, and physical and mental abuse.

The marriage and the money are finally on the verge of being split after 2 1/2 years of wrangling and sometimes inventive legal arguments.

The fighting even caused headaches for lottery officials with a court order, now rescinded, that the state should pay the entire jackpot upfront, rather than over two decades.

Larry Parnass, an attorney for Jimmy Nichols, said the sides "could have and should have reached agreement a long time ago, and there wouldn't have been that battle."

The Nicholses, both from humble beginnings, married in 1981. It was the third marriage for Lynette, now 47, who grew up in Dallas, and the second for Jimmy, 48, who came from a large Arkansas family.

She worked as a $6-per-hour bookkeeper, played bingo about four nights a week and bet on the lottery religiously.

The lotto win seemed to put the Nicholses on Easy Street for a while.

"We had about one month of good times . . . and about three years of misery," Lynette Nichols said. "It was a curse. It didn't help at all."

Said Jimmy Nichols, "More bad than good has come out of it so far."

Each says the other squandered much of their new-found wealth.

Lynette Nichols said her husband quit his job and "spent a little more than $100,000 on toys for himself," including a satellite dish, a 60-inch TV, and hunting and fishing trips.

"When I went out to buy something, I got told, `No, you can wait,' " she said, adding that he even questioned her grocery spending.

Jimmy Nichols said his wife outspent him 70 percent to 30 percent, including cars and cash for her relatives.

The luckiest numbers of Lynette Nichols' life didn't change the fact that she was abusing alcohol and tranquilizers, she said.

After her first three cups of coffee in the morning, "I'd have another cup and pour Jack (Daniels whiskey) in it," she said. "Then I'd pop a Valium."

Her drinking didn't stop after she developed heart problems and had a pacemaker implanted in 1992; and her husband didn't treat her any better after she hit the jackpot, she said.

Lynette Nichols says her husband was controlling and abusive.

"I admit I did slap her once," Jimmy Nichols said. "I apologized for that, and it never happened again."

Lynette Nichols moved out of the house about three months after her big win. Although her husband filed for divorce several months later and the estranged couple accused each other of starting affairs, he said he hoped to reconcile with his wife as late as last year.

The breaking point apparently came after a final reconciliation attempt. Lynette Nichols, who said she also was physically abused during her first marriage, accused her estranged husband of kidnap and rape.

Through a second pacemaker surgery, her drinking continued, she said, as her weight fell as low as 89 pounds.

Meanwhile, the couple's legal representation ground on, topping $200,000 in attorneys' fees on each side, Wright said. Parnass denied that his bill went that high.

Wright prepared to try to convince a jury that Jimmy Nichols deserved none of the winnings. His three-way argument:

-- The winning ticket was bought with a bingo dollar given to Lynette Nichols by her mother, so the winnings were separate property.

-- Jimmy Nichols had told a reporter that he just wanted a new boat, and that the rest of the money was his wife's.

-- Because Jimmy Nichols had told his wife he never loved her, marrying her had been a fraud, and the winnings could not be community property.

Parnass said his client never made such statements.

On the third day of the trial last spring, the opposing sides decided on a settlement about midway between Nichols' original demand for 60 percent and Lynette Nichols' initial offer of 25 percent.

The Nicholses now express some sympathy for each other.

With the help of a psychologist, Lynette Nichols said, she has stopped drinking and smoking, and avoids fried foods. And she has reunited with a high-school sweetheart.

But these nouveaux riches are not yet galloping off to their delayed happily-ever-after ending.

Lynette Nichols will need a third pacemaker implanted this fall. Part of her outstanding $60,000 medical bill is being disputed in countersuits.

The former couple have had to maintain fairly modest lifestyles while the lotto payments have gone into a trust fund for two years.

But the Nicholses know they have some big paydays ahead.

"What the money means to me is that all my six kids and 13 grandkids are not going to have to work 12 hours a day, six days a week to build up enough to buy a house or start their own business," Jimmy Nichols said.

Gambling aside, Lynette Nichols figures her luck has finally begun to change. And somehow, she said, the money doesn't matter that much.

"I'd trade it for a normal life," she said. "It's not worth it. Health and happiness is what I want."