Just a year ago, Capaci was the sole winner of a $195 million Powerball jackpot. After taxes and a lump-sum-payout deduction, he took home $67 million–a lot of clams for a retired electrician in Streamwood, Ill. End of story, happily ever after? Flash forward to the present: some of Capaci’s closest pals no longer talk to him. He’s not welcome at his neighborhood pub, and his former bartender buddies are muttering “lawsuit.” Capaci declined to speak with NEWSWEEK–in fact, he’s declining all media requests–and his son Tony explained why. “So much has happened that has made our lives so complex… There are too many allegations and too many negative words.”
The story starts at Bill’s Pizza Pub in Streamwood, where Patti Rooney and John Marnell tend bar. On May 20, 1998, with the Powerball jackpot overflowing, they collected $5 bills from several pub regulars and drove one hour to Wisconsin for tickets. At the last minute, Capaci threw a fiver into the kitty–either the best or the worst investment he ever made. The next day, Marnell handed Capaci a sealed envelope containing his ticket. Unable to read it without his glasses, Capaci handed the ticket to Rooney to read. “My hands were shaking. I took a step backwards and almost fell,” she remembers. “That was the first time he told us, ‘I’m going to take care of you, too’.”
Capaci quickly dashed off checks to Rooney and Marnell for $10,000 each. But pub regulars say that he’d promised the bartenders far more. (Rooney asked for $3 million, and says he offered $500,000 for her and Marnell to split.) Pizza Pub owner Bill Berger says Capaci’s “certainly not going to be happy with the money, because he hasn’t done the right thing. He hasn’t taken care of Patti and John, and this never would have happened without them.”
Maybe the regulars at the bar Capaci used to call “my place” wouldn’t be so hard on him if they thought he’d handled himself better. In the weeks after his win, regulars say, he often turned the pub into the court of the lotto king. He’d order a round of drinks for the house, then lean over to the bartender and say, “Except him!” while pointing at someone he didn’t like. Other times Capaci would complain, “You don’t know the problems that that money has brought me”–infuriating people who were struggling just to pay their bills. “I think Frank wants to be a good guy,” says bar owner Berger. “I’m just not sure he knows how.”
For now, Capaci is staying away from the bar. He’s kept his job as a groundskeeper, unlisted his phone number and bought a shredder for the reams of unwanted mail. “He’s gone into hiding,” says old friend George Brust. For Capaci and other lotto winners, big money brings big problems. That doesn’t stop the rest of us from dreaming of that winning ticket–and of how well we’d handle it if we only got the chance.
