Neillsville Woman Sentenced for Altering/Forging Lottery Tickets

Tuesday, July 8th, 2025 -- 1:00 PM

(WEAU Staff, WEAU) A Neillsville woman is sentenced for altering or forging lottery tickets.

According to WEAU staff, the court finds 26-year-old Hope Johnson guilty, due to a guilty plea, on one count of lottery-alter/forge ticket. The remaining charges are dismissed but read in.

Online court records show Johnson is sentenced to probation for two years. Online court records also show a probation review hearing is scheduled for Oct. 8, 2025.

According to the criminal complaint, a BP gas station had an around $9,000 shortage for the month of August 2024. The same employee, Johnson, had been working when the lottery shortages were.

She had also started working alone and the high dollar shortages appear to have happened on days where Johnson was working alone between August 21, 2024, and August 26, 2024.

After reviewing store footage, loss prevention stated the video shows her standing at the lottery terminal and printing several Fastplay tickets, checking them and not purchasing them.

After Johnson scanned the tickets at the store, she would take the winning ones to the Express Mart across the street. The total number of tickets that were illegally obtained was 881, adding up to $8,810. The total winning amount was $2,840.

The store manager said when she was doing lottery reconciliation for August 25, 2024, around $900 worth of pay slips were missing. When a customer redeems a winning lottery ticket, a pay slip is generated at the lottery terminal.

This has to be attached to the ticket that was redeemed and use it to confirm their pay-outs. In September 2024, officers got in contact with Johnson advising her of next steps.

They referred several criminal charges to the Clark County District Attorney’s Office.

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