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DES MOINES | January 27, 2012 Crawford S. Shaw, a Yale graduate and attorney licensed to practice in New York, said he represents a trust that owned a winning Iowa Lottery jackpot ticket purchased at a convenience store in December of 2010 that was associated with criminal proceedings and bankruptcy filings in New York and Delaware for which the clients involved with the trust are in Belize and as such have abandoned the claim for the jackpot worth $14.3 million dollars. The Iowa Lottery has confirmed the ticket as authentic. The Associated Press states that Shaw is the former C.E.O. of Industrial Enterprises of America Inc., a bankrupt public company District Attorney's office in Manhattan said was looted in a securities fraud scheme valued at $100 million. According to a report in MSNBC, Shaw referred a reporter to a statement issued by a law firm based in Des Moines that had performed work on behalf of the trust which said the identity of the buyer(s) of the ticket were unknown even to Shaw and offered to authorize the Iowa Lottery to pay the winnings, after taxes, to charities, but lottery officials declined, saying no payments would be made until the identities of the buyers were known. The Iowa Attorney General's Office and Division of Criminal Investigation announced a criminal probe into the matter. According to the Des Moines Register, the ticket was signed by Shaw on behalf of an company called Hexham Investments Trust. The name Hexham, however, was misspelled on the signature.

LOS ANGELES | January 28, 2012 E Online entertainment news columnist Leslie Gornstein, Ask the Answer Bitch, in her column Thursday covered a report on the celebrity splits Heidi Klum and Seal, K.D. Lang and her domestic partner, Drew Carey and the lady he dated for 5 years, and Katy Perry and Russell Brand. In covering the report, as all of the split-ups happened in or around January, Gornstein raises the question "Is January to blame?" Since Leslie the Answer Bitch Gornstein knows everything, she answered her own question, with assistance from her colleagues, and the following is the response to whether January is to blame for all of the reported celebrity splits: quite simply put, "yes." Divorce attorneys confirm that January is a busy month for breakups and divorce filings in general, which includes celebrities. "People go through a very exhausting year, and people looking at the new year as a new life," says family law specialist Marilyn B. Chinitz a Partner of Blank Rome LLP at their New York office. "So as soon as January rolls around, people think, 'This is my new beginning.'" Gornstein also responded by stating that the holidays are also stressful. Traveling and complaining family members can lead to fights that end with a filing for divorce from which celebrities are not immune. Lastly, couples who decide to breakup often wait until the holidays are over, states the Answer Bitch.