Southington PTO Raffle Rigged With Fake Tickets, Man Charged

SOUTHINGTON, CT — A Southington man is facing a third-degree forgery charge for allegedly stuffing raffle drawing containers with bogus tickets at a local PTO event and winning prizes, police said. He also stole a prize, police said.

Police on Tuesday announced the details of a warrant obtained for Alexander Stewart, 35, of the Plantsville section of Southington.

He was also charged with three counts of sixth-degree larceny, police said.

It is alleged that while attending a PTO event that included a raffle, Alexander placed raffle
tickets that he did not purchase into the raffle ticket containers, police said.

Alexander then won two prizes with tickets that were not sold to him by the organization and tickets
whose numbers were not sold by the organization, police said. It was discovered that Stewart entered 180
fraudulent tickets into the raffle ticket containers, police said.

The following day it was reported that a raffle prize went missing and video surveillance showed Stewart leaving the event with three raffle prizes when he only "won" two, police said.

Stewart was released on a $1,000 bond, police said. He appeared in court Monday and had his case continued until Jan. 25, police said.

Photo Credit: SPD