Posted on March 29, 2013

Powerball Winner Pedro Quezada Riches Will Be Cut Down by $29,000 in Past-Due Child Support, and Thousands More Per Year Could Be Claimed

Vera Chinese and Ginger Adams Otis, NY Daily News, March 28, 2013

He’s a big papi — and now it could cost him.

Rags-to-riches Powerball winner Pedro Quezada has five kids who could all cash in now that he’s a multimillionaire.

The former bodega owner — who scored $338 million with New Jersey’s largest jackpot win — already owes $29,000 in unpaid child support to an unnamed woman, state officials said Thursday.

It will be taken off the top of his Powerball payout before he gets a dime, along with 9% annual interest that has accrued on the 2009 charge.

Even though he’s now worth an estimated $152 million after taxes, his past-due child support payments won’t go up retroactively, said legal expert Bryan Salamone. But any future payments would almost certainly jump.

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Quezada says he’s been married to his current wife, Ines Sanchez, for the past nine years.

His oldest son, Casiano, 23, and youngest daughter, 5, were in Passaic with him when he claimed his millions.

But three others — a 15-year-old boy, and girls aged 10 and 17 — were in a different state.

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New Jersey has no record of a divorce for Quezada — but does show a child custody claim from a woman who shared at least one child with him but never legally married him.

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