Pack River man attempts to cash in stolen lottery tickets

A Pack River man caught cashing in stolen lottery tickets in Bonners Ferry was turned over to authorities for a burglary at Samuels Store late Sunday evening.

Josh Voss, 25,  was arrested after admitting to the burglary to Idaho State Police and a city police officer in Bonners Ferry.

Voss told police he broke a back window at the Samuel’s Store with a horseshoe and then went inside and took a large stack of lottery scratch tickets, a couple of knives, some shotgun lighters and a carton of cigarettes. 

Voss told police he hitchhiked to Bonners Ferry, where he went to Zip Trip and cashed in $44 worth of winning scratch tickets.  He then went to the Conoco station on South Main Street and tried to cash another large stack of tickets, police said. 

The owner of the Conoco, Rick Philbrook, that morning  heard one of his beverage distributors mention that the Samuel’s Conoco had been broken into earlier  and lottery tickets were stolen, according to police. 

When the man tried to cash in the tickets, Philbrook told the man he was not able to take lottery tickets and then called Bonners Ferry Police.

Police found the man in front of the old Conoco on South Main in front of Boundary County Middle School, with a backpack full of the stolen tickets and merchandise from the Samuel’s Store.

The ISP officer took Voss back to the Samuel’s Store, where he found more scratch tickets that Voss had ditched.