BALTIMORE, April 4 (UPI) -- A woman who has claimed in a newspaper interview to have Maryland's winning Mega Millions ticket would not say Wednesday whether she in fact had the ticket.
Mirlande Wilson had told the New York Post she bought the ticket, worth more than $218 million before taxes, at a convenience store in the Milford Mill section of Baltimore County, The Baltimore Sun reported.
Appearing Wednesday at a news conference with her attorney, Edward Smith Jr., Wilson refused to answer any questions and did not show a winning ticket.
Smith told reporters to "go home" and said, ""I cannot say with any certainty that this ticket exists."
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Wilson, a 37-year-old native of Haiti and mother of seven, had worked as a McDonald's manager. Smith wouldn't say whether she still works there.
"She doesn't want 15 minutes of fame," Smith said. "She wants, I think, a lifetime of being anonymous."
Wilson, who lives in the south Baltimore community of Westport, told the New York Post she and co-workers at McDonald's had purchased a group of Mega Millions tickets but said she had used her own money to buy the wining ticket.
In a Post article published Wednesday, Wilson said she hid the ticket at the McDonald's near the Milford Mill 7-Eleven where lottery officials said someone bought the winning ticket about 3 hours before ticket sales ended Friday.
Smith, who said he had not asked Wilson whether she has the ticket, said she suffers from high blood pressure because of the media spotlight.
Smith said Wilson would claim the prize "at some juncture."
Winning Mega Millions tickets were also purchased in Kansas and Illinois, but no one has produced a winning ticket.
