A Texas businessman charged with helping a lottery official try to claim a rigged $14 million jackpot has been released from jail while he fights extradition to Iowa.
Robert Rhodes of Sugar Land, Texas was released under electronic monitoring after posting $10,000 bond last week. An extradition hearing is set for May 7.
Rhodes is disputing charges that he worked with a friend, 52-year-old Eddie Tipton, to try to claim the Hot Lotto jackpot. Tipton was security director for the Multi-State Lottery Association, an Iowa-based group that operates Powerball and Hot Lotto for state lotteries.
Prosecutors say Tipton may have inserted a software program that manipulated the random number generator for Hot Lotto. They say Tipton bought the winning ticket, and Rhodes and others later tried to claim it.
