Thieving lottery addict gets 4-12 years

NEW YORK, Sept. 27 (UPI) -- A New York-area woman who pleaded guilty to swindling $2.3 million from her employers to buy lottery tickets didn't take her 4-12 year sentencing quietly.

Annie Donnelly, 38, of Farmingville, N.Y., on Long Island, screamed at the judge and threatened to start smoking crack cocaine and committing suicide in state prison after her sentencing Tuesday, Newsday reported.

At her brief August trial, the bookkeeper for a medical center said at one point in a 3-year binge, she was spending as much as $6,000 a day on scratch-off lottery tickets with stolen money, the newspaper said.

She got tripped up when one of the doctor's paychecks bounced, the report said.

Her screaming tirade lasted several minutes in the court, until her mother stood up in the spectator area and yelled at her to stop it, Newsday said.

State Supreme Court Justice Robert Doyle told her he hoped she would receive counseling and perhaps see her three children again.

"I know you love them and they love you," Doyle said. "But you stole $2 million."