A Michigan woman is accused of passing stolen scratch-offs at three South Carolina stores in one day

The South Carolina Law Enforcement Division has charged a Michigan woman with three felony counts of intent to defraud the South Carolina Education Lottery. According to SLED, Keaysha Sincere Warren, 23, was charged with one count in Calhoun County and two in Richland County on Monday, August 31, and was booked first at the Orangeburg-Calhoun Regional Detention Center and then at the Alvin S. Glenn Detention Center in Richland County.

The lottery requested the investigation. The arrest warrants, released with the announcement, describe a single day. Affidavits sworn by a SLED agent allege that on June 22, 2025, Warren and co-defendants took scratch-off tickets from two stores and then passed them at three others across two counties.

The charges are accusations. Warren has not been convicted of anything, and she is presumed innocent unless a court finds otherwise. The co-defendants are not named in the released documents.

What the three warrants allege

Five stores appear across the three affidavits, two as the alleged source of the tickets and three as the places they were allegedly cashed, and the alleged thefts in Orangeburg County sit in a third county that carries no charge of its own. Each affidavit closes with the same sentence: "The theft and scanning of the tickets were both video recorded."

The counts are filed under South Carolina Code Section 59-150-260(A). That section makes it a felony to falsely make, alter, forge, utter, pass or counterfeit a state lottery ticket with intent to defraud. The allegation here is passing stolen tickets, and the same section reaches that as well as counterfeiting. Conviction on a single count carries a fine of up to $50,000, imprisonment of up to five years, or both, and a person convicted under the section is barred from receiving any lottery prize. Three counts are charged.

Fourteen months from the alleged offense to the arrest

The dates on the documents run longer than the announcement suggests. The alleged thefts and cashings are all dated June 22, 2025. The three warrants were sworn before magistrates on October 24, 2025, four months later. They were served on August 31, 2026, ten months after that. Warren is listed at an address in Flint, Michigan. The released documents do not say why the warrants waited ten months for service.

The case will be prosecuted by the 1st and 5th Circuit Solicitor's Offices, covering Calhoun and Richland counties respectively.

Why it's pointless to steal scratch-off tickets

Scratch-off tickets are not interchangeable pieces of paper. Packs carry serial numbers and are tracked from the printer to the retailer, so a store that reports a theft can hand the lottery the numbers of the missing tickets. Any attempt to validate one of those tickets at a terminal then records where and when it was scanned. A pack of tickets must also be scanned at a retailer kiosk for activation before they go on sale.

South Carolina also writes the outcome into law. Section 59-150-220 says a prize must not be paid on a ticket that is stolen, counterfeit, altered, fraudulent, unissued or unreadable. A stolen winning ticket produces a flag at the counter instead of a payout.

Sources

SLED: SLED charges Michigan woman with three counts of lottery fraud in two South Carolina counties

South Carolina Code of Laws, Title 59 Chapter 150