Kentucky's $167 Million Powerball Winner Has Been Arrested Five Times Since Hitting the Jackpot

Another Night, Another Arrest for Kentucky's Luckiest Unlucky Man

Winning $167 million was supposed to change everything for James Farthing. Instead, it seems to have changed very little. The Kentucky Powerball winner was arrested early Sunday, September 20, after local deputies found him asleep inside a running car in a Walmart parking lot — marking his fifth arrest since he won a $167.3 million jackpot in 2025. The scene was almost surreal: one of the biggest lottery winners in Kentucky history, passed out in a parking lot at 4 in the morning.

Officers say a citizen reported a white Ford Mustang with a temporary tag sitting in the middle of an intersection before it turned into the Walmart parking lot and parked next to an EV charging station. Officers found the Mustang still running, approached the vehicle, and found Farthing asleep in the passenger seat. He woke up after they knocked on the window for several minutes and appeared to be intoxicated. Farthing allegedly claimed a woman had driven him there, but deputies say surveillance video showed no one exiting the car before police arrived.

A Jackpot Win That Launched a Legal Nightmare

Farthing won a $167.3 million jackpot on April 26, 2025, after buying a $2 Powerball ticket from Clark's Pump N Shop in Georgetown, Kentucky. The win was the state's largest-ever lottery award. Farthing said he would split the prize with his mother, Linda Grizzle, for whom he had bought the ticket. The celebration, however, was extraordinarily short-lived.

On April 29, 2025 — just days after he won the prize — Farthing was arrested in Pinellas County, Florida, on two counts of first-degree battery and obstructing or resisting an officer without violence. He was jailed after reportedly kicking a police officer in the face at a club. Court documents show that Farthing later signed a plea agreement, pleading guilty to a lesser charge of misdemeanor battery, with a maximum sentence of one year in prison. He was ordered to pay a $1,020 fine.

A Revolving Door of Charges

The arrests kept coming. On February 11, 2026, Scott County District Court records show Farthing was arrested and charged with intimidation of a participant in a legal process — a charge later amended down to disorderly conduct. In March 2026, he was hit with charges of second-degree burglary and marijuana possession after police accused him of entering a Lexington home and taking approximately $12,000 in cash. Those charges were later dismissed after Farthing's ex-girlfriend testified she had misplaced the money she initially reported stolen.

Farthing was then charged with first-degree strangulation and fourth-degree assault after allegedly wrapping his hands around a woman's neck and lifting her up against a wall in his home. He pleaded not guilty and was ordered to have no contact with the alleged victim while wearing a monitoring device. Meanwhile, Farthing was also indicted on a felony wanton endangerment charge for allegedly fleeing the scene of a car crash in Lexington, Kentucky, after a collision that occurred on November 23, 2025, while he was driving between 103 and 117 miles per hour.

A Pattern That Money Couldn't Fix

Farthing's story is a striking — and troubling — reminder that a lottery jackpot doesn't erase the patterns of a lifetime. He has a lengthy criminal history, having spent a total of 30 years in prison at various facilities, with convictions across nine counties in Kentucky for several offenses, including choking a girlfriend, bribing officers while in prison, and selling cocaine to an undercover officer. The windfall gave him a new car and a new spotlight, but not, apparently, a new direction.

The September 20 arrest — his fifth arrest and sixth criminal case since his April 2025 windfall — came after deputies allegedly found him intoxicated and asleep inside a running Ford Mustang in a Walmart parking lot in Georgetown, Kentucky. With multiple open cases still working their way through the courts, including the felony domestic violence and wanton endangerment charges, Farthing faces a legal reckoning that no amount of lottery winnings can simply buy his way out of. His story has become a cautionary tale about what happens when sudden wealth collides with unresolved personal demons — and how a $167 million ticket can't rewrite who a person fundamentally is.