From mansion to homeless
Ex-jailbird Lee Ryan scooped the £6.5million jackpot just 17 weeks after the lottery was launched on November 14 1994. He made headlines when it emerged he was accused of handling stolen cars and was imprisoned for 18 months after his huge payout.
Lee then spent a decade living the high life and splashed his car on luxury cars, a helicopter and a £2million mansion.
But Lee ended up penniless, spent two years living on the street and shacked up in a tiny flat in London he shared with homeless pals.
“The money was cursed because I took the p**s out of God when I asked him to make me a multimillionaire. My cellmate warned me to be careful what I wished for,” he said.
Lee ended up splitting with Karen Taylor, his girlfriend of eight years, and moved to London where he met a 25-year-old from Kyrgyzstan.
They took an ill-fated trip to the Central Asian country where Lee attempted to invest the last of his winnings in property.
But he returned empty-handed, claiming to have been stitched up by investors following the Kyrgyzstan revolution in 2010.
This post first appeared on thesun.co.uk
