Though, along with the Washington Post and Los Angeles Times, the New York Times refuses to report on John Edwards' love child scandal covered masterfully by the National Enquirer, they have no problem picking up on another line of gossip put forth by a different media outlet. It's the human interest story about New Jersey's $126 million lottery, and how the winning ticket may have been purchased by a Brazilian immigrant, but nobody knows for sure. Not even the Times. But hey, why should not knowing the facts and basing the article on somebody else's loose reporting stop an article from getting printed?

When they write the definitive history of the Great Brazilian Lottery Rumor, its authors may not be able to get much closer to its precise origins than the notebook of Leonardo Ferreira, a reporter for The Brazilian Voice newspaper, which is published here.

It was Mr. Ferreira who, in the newspaper’s July 26 issue, first printed the gossip that the winning ticket in New Jersey’s Mega Millions lottery drawing of July 22 had been purchased by a Brazilian immigrant at a supermarket in the Ironbound neighborhood, which has large Brazilian and Portuguese populations. The jackpot was $126 million.

The source of Mr. Ferreira’s tip was nebulous: a supermarket employee whose name he never learned. But in short order the scuttlebutt got increasingly rich and more colorful.

One version held that the immigrant was illegal and was afraid to step forward for fear of losing the prize and being deported. In a retelling, the woman had entrusted the ticket to a friend, a legal immigrant, who now refuses to give it back. A variant maintained that the woman gave the ticket to her boyfriend who ran off with both the ticket and another lover.

The rumors of the Brazilian multi-multi-multi-millionaire even became big news in Brazil, as they zipped back and forth between the continents via Internet, telephone, television and the jet streams of aspiration that connect the two countries. Within days, Brazilian television stations and newspapers, following up on Mr. Ferreira’s article, were tracking the story.

“Brazilians from all over Brazil have been calling me,” said Mr. Ferreira, who immigrated to the United States from Rio de Janeiro in 1995. “Everybody went crazy.”

Problem is, it may not be true.

Hey, just like those Edwards rumors!

[NYT]