GCP man wins $33M, but keeps his day job

Richard Tedesco

Philip Cimino may be about $16.4 million richer after winning the Mega Millions drawing at a Mineola store last week, but he’s still not giving up his job at a florist shop.

The 67-year-old Garden City Park resident said he feels duty-bound to keep working as a floral designer at San Giorgio Florist in Carle Place despite winning the $33 million jackpot in the Nov. 6 Mega Millions game.

“Well, it’s Christmas time. They need me here,” Cimino said, after answering the phone at the florist shop on Friday. “I been at work all my life. I can’t just stop.”

He said he will cut back his working hours after the holiday season in January, but he wasn’t making plans for any exotic vacations or a new car after receiving an after-tax, lump-sum payout of $16,408,264 on the $33 million jackpot.

Cimino did say he is planning to purchase a condominium for him and his girlfriend, who has chosen to remain anonymous amidst all the hoopla surrounding her boyfriend windfall.

Cimino bought the ticket with the winning numbers at the Mineola Card & Smoke Shop at 428 Jericho Turnpike on his way to work on the day of the drawing. He said he plays the same set of numbers three times weekly for two or three weeks at a time. He said he hadn’t had any luck with the numbers he’d been playing – 4, 18, 22, 38, 44 and mega ball 24 – and was about to change them up but had second thoughts.

“I figured I’d play it one more time,” he said

When Cimino scanned his ticket the following day at the shop, the machine flashed the news that he was a winner. 

Figuring he’d won a small secondary prize in the drawing, he brought the ticket up to the counter to find out how much he’d won.

The proprietor checked the numbers and said, “Phil, get a lawyer.”

“That’s when I knew I had won the big prize,” he said, laughing. 

It isn’t the first time he’s come up with a winning hand in Mega Millions. Two months after he started playing when the New York State Lottery began the game in 2002, he won $5,000 – which provided enough incentive to keep him playing regularly. 

Cimino said he’s also won secondary prizes in the intervening years, “but small, nothing that required photographers and reporters.”

Now he said his first priority is consulting with his accountant and an attorney before he makes any decisions about spending his multi-million dollar windfall.

“I’m still floating on cloud nine,” he said.

And customers at San Giorgio Florist are probably hoping some of Cimino’s luck will rub off on those floral arrangements.

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