NEW YORK – She’s been homeless, bankrupt, a robbery victim and assaulted on the job – but radiant Rikers Island guard Garina Fearon now has 54 million glorious reasons to start living la dolce vita.
The 34-year-old single mum from East New York, Brooklyn, who has endured a lifetime of hardship and poverty, told The Post she was the mystery winner of last Friday’s Mega Millions drawing.
“I wanted a better life. I was struggling as a single parent,” a beaming Fearon said yesterday. “I’ve really come back from nothing.”
Fearon, who spent part of her youth in a homeless shelter with no stable family, went on to endure sickening abuse from the monsters in her care.
“She’s had faeces thrown in her face and on her uniform in the years that she’s been there,” said a fellow jail guard. “She’s a tough young lady.”
How she won is as remarkable as her change of fortune.
Fearon said she bought the wrong ticket at a Sutter Avenue bodega, where she went to play Powerball, not Mega Millions.
“I only play every six months or so,” said Fearon, who has a 16-year-old son and a 14-year-old daughter.
She held on to the ticket all weekend, and didn’t think about it until Monday, when she asked a co-worker for a newspaper. She scribbled the winning numbers on the back of an inmate pass as her shift ended.
As she waited for the bus, she made the amazing discovery. “I was about to fold up the lottery ticket,” Fearon said. “Then I saw the numbers, and I started running from one part of the parking lot to the other screaming.”
She still hasn’t come down from her high.
“I don’t know what I’m going to do,” she said. “It’s something unexpected.”
(New York Post)
