$10M Lotto-Winning Sex Offender Denies New Charges

Mar. 17, 2014— -- A convicted Massachusetts sex offender whose $10 million lottery winnings may have been used to facilitate further abuse pleaded not guilty to new child sex abuse charges this morning, court officials said.

Daniel Snay, 62, of Uxbridge, Mass., was arraigned this morning in Uxbridge District Court. He was arrested Friday on charges he sexually abused a boy over the course of several years and showed him pornography. Police say Snay may have used winnings from his 2008 $10 million lottery jackpot to groom and win favor with victims.

“Mr. Snay was the recipient of a 10 million dollar lottery award and that windfall aided the commission of the crimes,” Uxbridge police said in a news release.

The abuse allegedly occurred when the boy was between the ages of 8 and 14. Snay is charged with indecent assault and battery on a child under the age of 14, reckless endangerment of a child, enticement of a child and dissemination of pornography to a minor.

Uxbridge police will be working with officials in Rhode Island and Connecticut, as well, where abuse of the same boy is also alleged to have occurred, according to the release.

Snay is registered as a level-three sex offender, meaning he has been determined to be high risk to reoffend. He was convicted in 1974 and 1976 for indecent assault and battery on a child under the age of 14 and was sentenced to five to seven years in prison.

After his release, he won $10 million on a scratch-off lottery ticket while working as a truck driver in 2008.

“He used [the money] as a means for grooming the victims or enticing them because he had this large sum of money at his disposal,” Uxbridge Police Department Public Information Officer Melanie Blodgett-O’Toole told ABC News.

Snay is being held on $5 million bail, it is unclear, even with Snay’s lottery winnings, whether he has enough cash on hand to make the payment.

“That’s possibly why the bail is set so high, when you have these funds at your disposal, it makes things a lot easier,” Blodgett-O’Toole said. “I don’t know if he could post bail with the money he has.”

The arrest has been upsetting to the Uxbridge community, police said.

“The residents are pretty uncomfortable with that idea that we have such a high-risk offender living here,” Blodgett-O’Toole said. “Also the fact that he is a lottery winner gets people pretty riled up.”

He will be transferred to the Worcester County House of Corrections while he awaits his next court date, scheduled for April 16. Snay’s attorney, Samuel B. Goldberg, did not immediately respond to ABC News’ request for comment.