Bergen Man Is Winner Of $315M Powerball Jackpot

BERGEN COUNTY, NJ — A Little Ferry man won the $315 million Powerball jackpot for the game's May 19 drawing, acting Executive Director John White announced.

"I'm very emotional right now. I like the number," Tayeb Souami of Little Ferry said with a smile at a press conference Friday.

He found out he was a winner on Sunday morning. Noticed his car was dirty and took it to a car wash. He scanned the ticket at a 7-Eleven and had to have someone double check the ticket.

"She said 'Oh my God' and my heart started beating," Souami said. "I was scared to see the number. She kept saying 'Oh my God, oh my God.''

He purchased the ticket by chance. He returned orange juice at ShopRite and got a few dollars back that he used to buy two tickets.

Souami immigrated to the United States from Africa in June 1996. He just refinanced his home to pay for his daughter's college education. He just received a check for the refinancing last week, he said. He is an accountant for a food importing company. He took the jackpot's $183 million cash option rather than the annuity payments.

When he showed his wife the winning ticket, she cried, Souami said.

The ticket for the game's May 19 drawing was sold at ShopRite of Hackensack at 500 South River St.; it was the only jackpot-winning ticket sold. ShopRite received a $30,000 bonus for selling the winning ticket. ShopRite donated the money to various charities in the Hacknesack area, White said.

The jackpot rolled over 16 times before being won. The winning numbers were: 03, 06, 09, 17, and 56. The Powerball was 25 and the Multiplier number was 3.

Two other winning tickets are worth $150,000 and four more are worth $50,000, a lottery spokesperson confirmed. Two of the winning $50,000 tickets were sold in Bergen County: One in Lodi, the other in Rutherford.

Photo: Tayob Saumi (screenshot from NJ Lottery video)