A Massachusetts man accused of trying to extort his coworker for a share of a $3 million lottery prize had an arrest warrant issued just days before his trial was slated to begin.
Joseph Reddem of Raynham was nowhere to be found for his final pretrial conference hearing on Monday inside Plymouth County Superior Court. When his attorney did not have an explanation for his absence, the judge issued the warrant.
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Reddem's trial on the extortion charge had been scheduled for May 20, but is now on hold until he's located.
The case is part of the extraordinary storyline that led to the search for the rightful owner of a $3 million lottery ticket. The NBC10 Boston Investigators have closely followed developments and produced a 30-minute documentary, "$3 Million Mistake."
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Surveillance footage from a Lakeville convenience store captured the sequence of events.
In January 2023, a man named Paul Little bought a lottery ticket and a bag of chips.
Carly Nunes, the store cashier, forgot to hand Little the ticket, and he left without noticing.
Days later, video captured Nunes attempting to claim the prize at the lottery headquarters in Boston's Dorchester neighborhood.
Prosecutors say Reddem worked at the convenience store with Nunes and gave her and her boyfriend a ride that day.
Employees became suspicious when they saw Nunes and Reddem arguing in the lobby and launched an investigation into the purchases.
"The woman that was claiming the prize said that she was only going to pay (Reddem) $200,000 and that was it," Dan O'Neill, director of compliance & security at the Massachusetts State Lottery, told NBC10 Boston when we interviewed him last June. "Any time there's an argument, there's something up, and that's a red flag."
After a grand jury investigation, Plymouth County prosecutors charged Reddem with extortion for threatening to go to police about the stolen ticket unless he received a larger share of the jackpot.
Reddem's defense attorney, Nicolas Gordon, expressed doubt about the criminal case when we spoke to him after his client's arraignment last June.
"Simply asking a new lottery winner to share in the winnings because maybe you want to buy a home, or maybe you feel like everyone's excited and happy, it's certainly not extortion," Gordon said. "He's being a Good Samaritan doing a good deed. And now look at the mess he's in trying to do something nice to give them a ride."
Reached by phone, Gordon declined to comment about whether he's had any communication with Reddem about his whereabouts.
As we reported last February, Nunes admitted she tried to cash the lottery prize that she knew belonged to somebody else.
A judge sentenced the 24-year-old to two years of probation with the requirement of continuing substance abuse treatment.
Meanwhile, Lakeville resident Paul Little eventually learned he was the rightful winner of the ticket.
The career diesel mechanic received the large check last summer and has since used some of the proceeds to fix up his longtime home.
