Eddie Tipton: Hot Lotto Fraud Scandal

 

The Hot Lotto fraud scandal was a lottery-rigging scandal in the United States. It came to light in 2017, after Eddie Raymond Tipton (born 1963), the former information security director of the Multi-State Lottery Association (MUSL), confessed to rigging a random number generator that he and two others used in multiple cases of fraud against state lotteries. Tipton was first convicted in October 2015 of rigging a $14.3 million drawing of MUSL's lottery game Hot Lotto. Eddie Tipton ultimately confessed to rigging lottery drawings in Iowa, Colorado, Wisconsin, Kansas, and Oklahoma. Also involved in the scheme were his brother, former Texas justice of the peace Tommy Tipton, and Texas businessman Robert Rhodes. Eddie Tipton was sentenced to 25 years in prison. He was released on parole in 2022 after serving five years.

A $14.3 million prize for the Hot Lotto draw on December 29, 2010, had been left unclaimed for nearly a year. When attempts were finally made to claim the prize on behalf of an anonymous offshore trust company in Belize, the claim was rejected by the Iowa Lottery because it was made anonymously. A subsequent investigation into the trust and the discovery of surveillance footage from a convenience store that depicted the ticket being purchased led to the arrest of Eddie Tipton on two counts of fraud for attempting to illegally participate in a lottery game as an employee of the MUSL, and then trying to claim a prize through fraudulent means.

When his trial began on April 13, 2015, evidence was introduced by the prosecutors to support allegations that Tipton had rigged the draw in question by using his privileged access to an MUSL facility to install a rootkit on the computer containing Hot Lotto's random number generator, and then attempting to claim a winning ticket with the rigged numbers anonymously. On July 20, 2015, Tipton was found guilty on both counts; he was sentenced to 10 years' imprisonment, pending an appeal.

Eddie Tipton and his brother Tommy Boyd Tipton were subsequently accused of rigging other lottery drawings, dating back as far as 2005. Based on forensic examination of the random number generator that had been used in a 2007 Wisconsin lottery incident, investigators discovered that Eddie Tipton programmed a lottery random number generator to produce special results if the lottery numbers were drawn on certain days of the year.

The Iowa Lottery and MUSL were also sued by a subsequent winner of a Hot Lotto drawing who sought to have his winnings retroactively increased because the jackpot had been illegitimately reset by Tipton's rigged win. He settled with MUSL for an undisclosed amount on the eve of trial in 2019, but a memo from 2015 was revealed during discovery that showed that MUSL's security officers lacked confidence in the random number generation process and recommended that some of the games be suspended.

Hot Lotto held its final drawing on October 28, 2017; the game was replaced by Lotto America in November 2017.

Investigation

The December 29, 2010, drawing of the multi-state lottery game Hot Lotto featured an advertised top prize of US$16.5 million. On November 9, 2011, Philip Johnston, a resident of Quebec City, Canada, phoned the Iowa Lottery to claim a ticket that had won the jackpot; stating he was too sick to claim the prize in person, he provided a 15-digit code that verified the winning ticket. However, Johnston's prize claim was turned down when he was unable to answer questions that verified he was the owner of the ticket. On December 6, Johnston phoned again, stating the ticket was actually owned by an anonymous individual who was being represented by a Belize-based shell company, Hexham Investments Trust. However, Iowa Lottery rules forbid anonymous prize claims, so the claim was turned down.

On December 29, 2011, less than two hours before the expiration of a one-year deadline for prize claims, representatives of a Des Moines law firm presented the winning ticket at the Iowa Lottery headquarters, signed on behalf of Hexham Investments and New York City-based attorney Crawford Shaw. However, Hexham was misspelled on the ticket as "Hexam", and the claim was, once again, turned down. On January 12, 2012, Shaw met with Iowa Lottery officials in person to try claiming the prize, but was turned down yet again after he refused to identify the owners of the trust. Shaw withdrew his claims over the prize afterward, and the prize money was returned to Hot Lotto's member lotteries in February 2011.

In an interview with Iowa's Division of Criminal Investigation, Johnston (who was listed as Hexham's president) explained that Robert Rhodes and Robert Sonfield of Sugar Land, Texas, with whom Johnston had professional relations, had asked him to assist in anonymously claiming the prize. The Daily Beast reported that Rhodes and Sonfield were, according to an anonymous source, in active litigation over a pump and dump scam, and that Rhodes, Sonfield, and Johnston had also had past business relationships.

In October 2014, investigators released surveillance footage from a Des Moines convenience store which they believed showed the purchaser of the ticket. He was later identified as Eddie Raymond Tipton, the director of information security at the Multi-State Lottery Association (MUSL), which organizes the Hot Lotto game. As a MUSL employee, it was illegal under Iowa law for Tipton to participate in any lottery game. On January 15, 2015, he was arrested and charged with two counts of fraud for attempting to illegally participate in the lottery, and attempting to use fraudulent means to claim prizes. Rhodes, a previous co-worker of Tipton's, was in Des Moines when Tipton purchased the ticket, and the two were in frequent contact by phone. Tipton claimed he was visiting family in his hometown of Houston at the time of the suspicious purchase, but witnesses matched the buyer's mannerisms and Texas-accented voice to him. Rhodes was arrested on two counts of fraud in March 2015.

Trial

Tipton's trial began on April 13, 2015. Alongside the suspicious manner that Tipton had allegedly attempted to claim the ticket, prosecutors suggested that he had rigged the Hot Lotto draw on December 29, 2010, so that the "drawn" numbers would match the ticket.

Hot Lotto draws are conducted using a random number generator running on a computer in MUSL's Des Moines facility. The computer is in a "locked glass-walled room accessible only by two people at a time and then only on camera", and is not connected to the Internet or any other networks. Tipton was let into the room on November 20, 2010, to manually adjust the time on the draw computer to reflect daylight saving time; it was alleged that while Tipton was in the room, he used a USB flash drive to install self-destructing malware on the random number generator computer, presumably to rig a draw. Tipton's co-workers described him as having been "obsessed" with rootkits at the time. It was also noted that on that day, security cameras were configured to record only for "roughly one second per minute", a change the prosecutors believed was made to prevent anything suspicious from being recorded.

In an April 13, 2015, statement, Iowa Lottery CEO Terry Rich explained that MUSL had implemented stronger security measures to protect the integrity of its draws, including new equipment and software to conduct the drawing, updated security protocols for the draw room, new security cameras, and further separation of duties. Tipton's defense attorney, Nicholas Sarcone, unsuccessfully attempted to block presentation of the hacking theory in court, arguing that Tipton was with multiple people in the draw room, as per protocol, and the use of the convenience store surveillance footage, claiming that the person in the video could not have been Tipton because he did not have a beard at the time. The trial was recessed to July 2015 to give the defense time to analyze the new evidence.

In a brief issued on July 9, 2015, Sarcone wrote that following an examination, there was no evidence that Tipton had tampered with the draw computer, and that according to lottery officials, the cameras in the draw room had a long-term history of technical problems that could have resulted in the incomplete surveillance recording of Tipton's actions. In an interview with The Daily Beast, Tipton denied he was the person who purchased the ticket, and argued that he had been singled out because he was an employee of MUSL. He also noted that, aside from Rhodes, he had not been in active contact with or knew Sonfield, or any other individual alleged to have been involved in the fraud. In his closing arguments, Assistant Attorney General Rob Sand singled out two pieces of evidence as proof beyond a reasonable doubt of Tipton's guilt: firstly, co-workers and friends testified that the voice of the man on the surveillance recording matched Tipton's, and secondly, MUSL IT director Jason Maher testified that Tipton had access to a rootkit.

First conviction

On July 20, 2015, Tipton was found guilty on two counts of fraud. On September 9, he was sentenced to ten years' imprisonment but remained free on bond pending an appeal. Tipton's attorney argued that his client's conviction was based on "speculative" evidence.

In June 2017, the Iowa Supreme Court dismissed Tipton’s conviction on the tampering charge and vacated his conviction on the fraudulent redeeming charge, both due to the state exceeding the statute of limitations. However, by this time Tipton was already planning on pleading guilty to additional charges.

Subsequent allegations

Lottery investigators uncovered three other instances in which they alleged Tipton rigged lottery outcomes.

On November 23, 2005, Tipton's brother Tommy won a $568,990 jackpot prize share in a Colorado Lottery drawing. Eddie Tipton was among those who constructed Colorado's random number generator. A friend of Tommy Tipton claimed that Tommy asked him to claim the ticket in return for ten percent of the winnings.

A December 29, 2007, prize of $783,257 in a Wisconsin Lottery drawing was paid to a limited liability corporation controlled by Robert Rhodes, who had also been charged in the 2010 Hot Lotto case. Records show that the corporation subsequently transferred money to Tipton.

A November 23, 2011, Hot Lotto jackpot of $1.2 million was paid to Kyle Conn, an owner of a construction company in Texas. Conn bought the ticket from the Oklahoma Lottery. Oklahoma investigators were suspicious because Conn was not a frequent player, came from out of state, and specified the winning numbers manually instead of relying on a random pick. They initially declined to say what linked this case to Tipton.

Eddie Tipton faced criminal charges, filed October 9, 2015, related to the 2005 and 2007 allegations. Tommy Tipton was charged on March 30, 2016.

Confession and second conviction

Forensic investigation of the random number generator used to pick the lottery numbers in the 2007 Megabucks drawing showed that it had been programmed to produce knowable outcomes if the drawing occurred on three dates of the year – May 27, November 23, and December 29 – provided these dates were Wednesdays or Saturdays and the drawing was after 8 p.m.

In January 2017, Rhodes pled guilty in Iowa to charges related to aiding Eddie Tipton in the 2010 Hot Lotto incident. In March 2017, he pled guilty to the 2007 Megabucks incident. As part of the plea bargain, Rhodes agreed to testify against Eddie and Tommy Tipton. He was sentenced to six months of house arrest and ordered to pay $409,000 in restitution.

In June 2017, Eddie Tipton confessed in court to having installed the rigged random number generator in 2005 or 2006. "I wrote software that included code that allowed me to technically predict winning numbers, and I gave those numbers to other individuals who then won the lottery and shared those winnings with me," he said. He admitted to fixing lotteries in Colorado, Oklahoma, Wisconsin, and Kansas as well as Iowa. Tipton was sentenced to 25 years in prison, but his attorneys claimed he could be paroled in three or four years. Eddie and Tommy were also ordered to pay about $3 million in restitution.

Tommy Tipton served 75 days in jail in Texas after pleading guilty in June 2017 to conspiracy to commit theft by deception.

Eddie Tipton was released on parole in July 2022 after serving five years. On January 20, 2022, Tipton had been approved for parole, but before release, parole had been revoked for getting into a fight.

Restitution avoided

As of 2019, Eddie and Tommy had largely avoided paying the over $2.3 million in restitution they owed to Oklahoma, Colorado, Kansas, and Wisconsin. Their payments to the four states totaled about $1,225. During the interim, Eddie and Tommy Tipton had transferred ownership of several properties to their mother, Lawanda Tipton.

Counter-suit to overturn sentence

Tipton sued the state of Iowa in January 2020, claiming he was pressured four years ago to plead guilty to crimes he did not commit. The lawsuit sought to overturn his sentence. Assistant Attorney General William Hill asked a judge on November 4, 2021, to dismiss this lawsuit.

Suit by later jackpot winner

On February 4, 2016, the Iowa Lottery and the MUSL were sued by Larry Dawson, who won a $6 million Hot Lotto jackpot several months after the rigged draw. Dawson claimed that because the MUSL had officially recognized an illegitimate draw as having a winning ticket, the following drawing's jackpot should not have been reset to $1 million and would have theoretically reached $16 million by the time of his winning draw. As such, Dawson claimed that, given the parties' failure in properly auditing their games, he was entitled to $10 million that was not officially awarded in the rigged draw. Iowa Lottery CEO Terry Rich criticized Dawson's lawsuit for its attempt to "rewrite history", stating that, "No one can know what would have occurred in this case had any event in it been changed. We believe that Mr. Dawson rightfully was paid the jackpot to which he was entitled." Dawson later received a $1.5 million settlement from MUSL.

The jackpot from the rigged 2010 draw was ultimately not claimed and distributed among the sixteen states participating in the lottery.

In popular culture

On January 7, 2018, episode #1 of the podcast Swindled covered the incident.

On January 28, 2018, GSN aired a documentary about the Hot Lotto fraud scandal called Cover Story: The Notorious Lottery Heist.

In September 2018, an episode of American Greed documented the incident.

In March 2021, episode #160 of the podcast Criminal covered the incident.

In April 2025, the documentary "Jackpot: America's Biggest Lotto Scam," produced by AMS Pictures, covered the case.

Daniel La Plante

 

Daniel J. LaPlante (born May 15, 1970) is an American convicted murderer serving multiple life sentences for the 1987 murders of Priscilla Gustafson and her two children in Townsend, Massachusetts. Before this, he spent time in juvenile detention for a 1986 home invasion where he hid inside the walls of a family’s home in Pepperell, Massachusetts, for over 6 months.

Early life

LaPlante was born on May 15, 1970, in Townsend, Massachusetts. His parents divorced when he was young, and his mother became a single parent. She later remarried and had two more sons.

While growing up in Townsend, LaPlante claimed to have been sexually and psychologically abused by many adults in his life, including his father, stepfather, and psychiatrist. Allegedly, LaPlante's father was responsible for the majority of the abuse.

LaPlante attended elementary school in Townsend and went on to attend St. Bernard's High School in Fitchburg. LaPlante played football and ran track, but he struggled with school. He was diagnosed with dyslexia at an early age. He also struggled with learning disabilities and attention deficit disorder.

Some of his classmates described him as "creepy" and "weird," and he was generally considered a loner by both fellow students and teachers. The opinion among the residents in the neighborhood was that LaPlante was "strange" and "disturbed".

As a teenager, he was referred to a psychiatrist, who diagnosed him with hyperactivity disorder because of his abnormal behavior, his appearance, and his lack of hygiene.

In October 1987, after the Bowen family invasion, LaPlante was living with his mother and stepfather while being out on bail. During this time, he committed several burglaries in the neighbourhood where he obtained money and guns. Later, LaPlante's stepfather discovered one of these guns in LaPlante's laundry basket. When confronted by his mother and stepfather, LaPlante claimed to have bought the gun. LaPlante would burglarize a neighboring family, the Gustafsons, where he would steal valuables and knickknacks.

Pepperell home invasion

In 1986, LaPlante asked a 15-year-old Tina Bowen on a date over the phone. Bowen agreed, and when she met with him was shocked to see a rough and unkempt-looking LaPlante, who had lied about his appearance to her. After their date concluded, LaPlante started to stalk Bowen regularly. Using his experience as a home burglar, LaPlante went inside the Bowen family home and hid in a very narrow space inside the walls of the house, which were said to be no more than a few inches wide.

After over a year of the Bowen family hearing strange noises and noticing household items going missing, Frank Bowen, Tina's father, opened one of his daughter's closets to find a dirty LaPlante with a face painted in ketchup and mayo with hair in spikes, wielding Frank's hatchet and wrench. LaPlante then instructed Frank and his daughters to go into a bedroom before Frank slammed the door between him and LaPlante. Tina then jumped out of the second-story window and ran to a neighbor's house to call the police for help. When police arrived, they were able to extract Frank and his daughters from the house and thoroughly searched the interior of the house, unable to find LaPlante.

Police later discovered a series of tunnels and small spaces inside the walls of the house, where LaPlante had been living. LaPlante was nowhere to be found, and the Bowen family moved on. LaPlante had also been arrested by police other times previous for this.

Murders and judicial process

On December 1, 1987, LaPlante entered the Townsend home of Priscilla Gustafson, a nursery school teacher. Gustafson, who was pregnant, was found face-down on her bed, her pillows covered in her blood. LaPlante had raped her and shot her twice at point-blank range. LaPlante drowned both of her children (7-year-old Abigail and 5-year-old William) in separate bathrooms.

LaPlante was questioned by police about two days after the murders, but at the time there was not enough evidence to arrest him. Later the same day, police went to LaPlante's home to interview him further, and seeing the police approach, LaPlante leapt off the porch and fled. A manhunt was launched involving police, police dogs, and helicopters. Meanwhile, LaPlante had made his way on foot to a home in the neighborhood where he stole a van and briefly took the woman who owned the van hostage. He then drove towards the town of Ayer, where he was spotted and pulled over by a policeman. LaPlante left the vehicle and escaped into a lumberyard where he threatened the owner with a gun and then hid in a dumpster. LaPlante was then apprehended by two policemen who kept him under guard until reinforcement arrived at the scene, where LaPlante could be arrested and taken into custody.

A year later, LaPlante was sentenced to three life sentences for the murders of the Gustafsons. On March 22, 2017, a re-sentencing hearing for LaPlante was held at Middlesex Superior Court in Woburn, Massachusetts. LaPlante asked for a reduction in his sentence. At the hearing, it was mentioned that during his first appeal, previous court rulings were cited, saying that juveniles convicted of murder should be given a meaningful opportunity to re-engage with society. There was also a new law allowing “juveniles convicted of murder with extreme cruelty and atrocity to ask for parole after they’ve been behind bars for a minimum of 30 years.” The judge, however, affirmed LaPlante's sentence of three consecutive terms of life imprisonment, with the possibility of parole after 45 years, after a forensic psychiatrist evaluated LaPlante and found that he was not remorseful for his crimes. LaPlante is currently held at MCI - Norfolk. Between 1990 and 2000, LaPlante was held in the custody of the Federal Bureau of Prisons, including at ADX Florence.

Media coverage

LaPlante was featured in Season 2, Episode 1 of Investigation Discovery's Your Worst Nightmare series "Bump in the Night".

LaPlante was also featured in Season 1, Episode 2 of Lifetime Channel's Phrogging: Hider in My House series, "Footsteps in the Attic", which documented LaPlante's crimes committed before the Gustafson murders.

On September 9, 2024, Investigation Discovery released Season 1, Episode 1 of The Real Murders on Elm Street titled "Killer in the Walls."

On August 5, 2023, Lifetime released a film titled Boy in the Walls, also based on LaPlante's offenses before the Gustafson murders, where he secretly lived in the walls of a teenage girl's family house and terrorized the family through various methods before committing the Gustafson murders. Boy in the Walls is a fictional story only loosely based on LaPlante. The film is directed by Constance Zimmer, and it stars Ryan Michelle Bathe and Jonathan Whitesell.

Oil Tanker Collides

 

The March 2025 collision between the U.S.-flagged oil tanker Stena Immaculate and the Portuguese-flagged container ship Solong in the North Sea off the coast of East Yorkshire, England, stands as one of the most notable recent incidents of its kind.

The Solong struck the anchored Stena Immaculate, sparking a massive fireball, igniting both vessels, and causing a spill of jet fuel. 

Incident Vessels: The Stena Immaculate was carrying over 13 million gallons (220,000 barrels) of jet fuel for the U.S. government, while the Solong was carrying cargo that reportedly included sodium cyanide and other chemicals.

Location: The collision took place at 09:47 GMT just off the coast of East Yorkshire in the North Sea.

Aftermath: Both ships sustained significant damage and were abandoned by their crews.

A major multi-agency rescue operation involving HM Coastguard lifeboats and helicopters safely evacuated 36 mariners, though one crew member from the Solong was unfortunately lost at sea.

Legal & Environmental Response Investigation: The captain of the Solong was arrested on suspicion of gross negligence manslaughter following an analysis of the vessel tracking data.

Containment: Environmental authorities initiated tactical counter-pollution measures to handle the fuel leak and monitor structural integrity.

Edict of Expulsion

 

The Edict of Expulsion is a royal decree expelling all Jews from the Kingdom of England that was issued by Edward I on 18 July 1290; it was the first time a European state is known to have permanently banned their presence. The date of issuance was most likely chosen because it was a Jewish holy day, Tisha B'Av, which commemorates the destruction of Jerusalem and other disasters which the Jewish people have experienced. Edward told the sheriffs of all counties he wanted all Jews expelled before All Saints' Day (1 November) that year.

Jews were allowed to leave England with cash and personal possessions, but the debts which they were owed, their homes, and other buildings—including synagogues and cemeteries—were forfeited to the king. While there are no accounts of attacks on Jews during their departure on land, there were acts of piracy in which Jews died, and others were drowned as a result of being forced to cross the English Channel at a time of year when dangerous storms are common. There is evidence from personal names of Jewish refugees who settled in Paris and other parts of France, as well as Italy, Spain and Germany. Documents which were taken abroad by the Anglo-Jewish diaspora have been found as far away as Cairo. Jewish properties were sold for the benefit of the Crown, Queen Eleanor and selected individuals, who were given grants of property.

The edict was not an isolated incident, but instead was the culmination of increasing antisemitism in England. During the reigns of Henry III and Edward I, anti-Jewish prejudice was used as a political tool by opponents of the Crown, and later by Edward and the state itself. Edward took measures to claim credit for the expulsion and to define himself as the protector of Christians against Jews, and following his death, he was remembered and praised for the expulsion. The expulsion embedded antisemitism into the English culture of the medieval and early modern periods; such antisemitic beliefs included the belief that England was unique because no Jews lived there, and the belief that the English had superseded the Jews as God's chosen people. The expulsion edict remained in force during the rest of the Middle Ages, but it was overturned in 1656, more than 365 years later, during the Protectorate, when Oliver Cromwell informally permitted the resettlement of the Jews in England.

Background

The first Jewish communities in the Kingdom of England were recorded some time after the Norman Conquest in 1066, moving from William the Conqueror's towns in northern France. Jews were viewed as being under the direct jurisdiction and property of the king, making them subject to his whims. The monarch could tax or imprison Jews as he wished, without reference to anyone else. A very small number of Jews were wealthy because Jews were allowed to lend money at interest while the Church forbade Christians from doing so, which was regarded as the sin of usury. Capital was in short supply and necessary for development, including investment in monastic construction and allowing aristocrats to pay heavy taxes to the crown, so Jewish loans played an important economic role, although they were also used to finance consumption, particularly among overstretched, landholding Knights.

The Church's highest authority, the Holy See, had placed restrictions on the mixing of Jews with Christians, and at the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215 had mandated the wearing of distinctive clothing such as tabula or Jewish badges. These measures were adopted in England at the Synod of Oxford in 1222. Church leaders made the first allegations of ritual child sacrifice, such as crucifixions at Easter in mockery of Christ, and the accusations began to develop into themes of conspiracy and occult practices. King Henry III backed allegations made against Jews of Lincoln after the death of a boy named Hugh, who soon became known as Little Saint Hugh. Such stories coincided with the rise of hostility within the Church to the Jews.

Discontent increased after the Crown destabilised the loans and debt market. Loans were typically secured through bonds that entitled the lender to the debtor's land holdings. Interest rates were relatively high, and debtors tended to be in arrears. Repayments and actual interest paid were a matter for negotiation, and it was unusual for a Jewish lender to foreclose debts. As the Crown overtaxed Jews, they were forced to sell their debt bonds at reduced prices to quickly raise cash. Rich courtiers would buy the cut-price bonds, and could call in the loans and demand the lands that had secured the loans. This caused the transfer of the land wealth of indebted knights and others, especially from the 1240s, as the taxation of Jews became unsustainably high. Leaders like Simon de Montfort then used anger at the dispossession of middle-ranking landowners to fuel antisemitic violence at London, where 500 Jews died; Worcester; Canterbury; and many other towns. In the 1270s and 1280s, Queen Eleanor amassed vast lands and properties through this process, causing widespread resentment and conflict with the Church, which viewed her acquisitions as profiting from usury. By 1275, as a result of punitive taxation, the crown had eroded the Jewish community's wealth to the extent that taxes produced little return.

Steps towards expulsion

See also: History of the Jews in England (1066–1290) § Edward I and the Expulsion.

The first major step towards expulsion took place in 1275 with the Statute of the Jewry, which outlawed all lending at interest and allowed Jews to lease land, which had previously been forbidden. This right was granted for the following 15 years, supposedly giving Jews a period to readjust; this was an unrealistic expectation because entry to other trades was generally restricted. Edward I attempted to convert Jews by compelling them to listen to Christian preachers.

Text of a statute in Latin

The Church took further action; for example, John Peckham, the Archbishop of Canterbury, campaigned to suppress seven London synagogues in 1282. In late 1286, Pope Honorius IV addressed a special letter or "rescript" to the Archbishops of York and Canterbury claiming Jews had an evil effect on religious life in England through free interaction with Christians, and calling for action to be taken to prevent it. Honorius's demands were restated at the Synod of Exeter.

Jews were arrested during the coin clipping crisis of the late 1270s, when over 300 Jews—over 10% of England's Jewish population—were sentenced to death for interfering with the currency. The Crown profited from seized assets and payments of fines by those who were not executed, raising at least £16,500. While it is unclear how impoverished the Jewish community was in these last years, historian Henry Richardson notes Edward did not impose any further taxation from 1278 until the late 1280s. It appears some Jewish moneylenders continued to lend money against future delivery of goods to avoid usury restrictions, a practice that was wholly known to the Crown because debts had to be recorded in a government archa or chest where debts were recorded. Others found ways to continue trading, and it is likely others left the country.

Expulsion of the Jews from Gascony

Local or temporary expulsions of Jews had taken place in other parts of Europe, and regularly in England. For example, Simon de Montfort expelled the Jews of Leicester in 1231, and in 1275, Edward I had permitted the Queen mother Eleanor to expel Jews from her lands and towns.

In 1287, Edward I was in his French provinces in the Duchy of Gascony while trying to negotiate the release of his cousin Charles of Salerno, who was being held captive in Aragon. On Easter Sunday, Edward broke his collarbone in an 80-foot (24 m) fall, and was confined to bed for several months. Soon after his recovery, Edward ordered the expulsion of local Jews from Gascony. His immediate motivation might have been the need to generate funds for Charles' release, but many historians, including Richard Huscroft, have said the money raised by seizures from exiled Jews was negligible and that it was given away to mendicant orders (i.e. friars), and therefore see the expulsion as a "thank-offering" for Edward's recovery from his injury.

After his release, in 1289, Charles of Salerno expelled Jews from his territories in Maine and Anjou, accusing them of "dwelling randomly" with the Christian population and cohabiting with Christian women. He linked the expulsion to general taxation of the population as "recompense" for lost income. Edward and Charles may have learnt from each other's experience.

Expulsion

By the time he returned to England from Gascony in 1289, Edward I was deeply in debt. At the same time, his experiment to convert the Jews to Christianity and remove their dependence on lending at interest had failed; the fifteen-year period in which Jews were allowed to lease farms had ended. Also, raising significant sums of money from the Jewish population had become increasingly difficult because they had been repeatedly overtaxed.

On 14 June 1290, Edward summoned representatives of the knights of the shires, the middling landowners, to attend Parliament by 15 July. These knights were the group that was most hostile to Jews and usury. On 18 June, Edward sent secret orders to the sheriffs of cities with Jewish residents to seal the archives containing records of Jewish debts. The reason for this is disputed; it could represent preparation for a further tallage to be paid by the Jewish population, or it could represent a preparatory step for expulsion. Parliament met on 15 July; there is no record of the Parliamentary debates, so it is uncertain whether the Crown offered the Expulsion of the Jews in return for a vote of taxation or whether Parliament asked for it as a concession. Both views are argued. The link between these seems certain given the evidence of contemporaneous chronicles and the speed at which orders to expel the Jews of England were made, possibly after an agreement was reached. The taxation granted by Parliament to Edward was very high; at £116,000 it was probably the highest of the Middle Ages. In gratitude, the Church later voluntarily agreed to pay tax of a tenth of its revenue.

Original text of a letter from Edward I

On 18 July, the Edict of Expulsion was issued. The text of the edict is lost. On the Hebrew calendar, 18 July of that year was 9 Av (Tisha B'Av) 5050, commemorating the fall of the Temple at Jerusalem; it is unlikely to be a coincidence. According to Roth, it was noted "with awe" by Jewish chroniclers. On the same day, writs were sent to sheriffs saying all Jews were to leave by All Saints' Day, 1 November 1290, and outlining their duties in the matter.

Proclamations ordering the population not to "injure, harm, damage or grieve" the departing Jews were made. Wardens at the Cinque Ports were told to make arrangements for the Jews' safe passage and cheap fares for the poor, while safe conduct was arranged for dignitaries, such as the wealthy financier Bonamy of York. There were limits on the property Jews could take with them. Although a few favoured persons were allowed to sell their homes before they left, the vast majority had to forfeit any outstanding debts, homes and immobile property, including synagogues and cemeteries.

Image of a letter from Edward I

Letter from King Edward I to the Treasurer and Barons of the Exchequer, dated 5 November 1290

On 5 November, Edward wrote to the Barons of the Exchequer, giving the clearest-known official explanation of his actions. In it, Edward said the Jews had broken trust with him by continuing to find ways to charge interest on loans. He labelled them criminals and traitors, and said they had been expelled "in honour of the Crucified [Jesus]". Interest to be paid on debts seized by the Crown was to be cancelled.

The Jewish refugees

The Jewish population in England at the time of the expulsion was relatively small, perhaps as few as 2,000 people, although estimates vary. Decades of privations had caused many Jews to emigrate or convert. Although it is believed most of the Jews were able to leave England in safety, there are some records of piracy leading to the death of some expelled Jews. On 10 October, a ship of poor London Jews had chartered, which a chronicler described as "bearing their scrolls of the law", sailed toward the mouth of the Thames near Queenborough en route to France. While the tide was low, the captain persuaded the Jews to walk with him on a sandbank; as the tide rose, he returned to the ship, telling the Jews to call upon Moses for help. It appears those involved in this incident were punished. Another incident occurred in Portsmouth, where sailors received a pardon in 1294, and a ship is recorded as drifting ashore near Burnham-on-Crouch, Essex, the Jewish passengers having been robbed and murdered. The condition of the sea in autumn was also dangerous; around 1,300 poor Jewish passengers crossed the English Channel to Wissant near Calais for 4d each. Tolls were collected by the constable of the Tower of London from those leaving on their departure, of 4d or 2d for "poor Jews". Some ships were lost at sea, and others arrived with their passengers destitute.

It is unclear where most of the migrants went. Those arriving in France were initially allowed to stay in Amiens and Carcassonne, but permission was soon revoked. Because most of the Anglo-Jewry still spoke French, historian Cecil Roth speculates most would have found refuge in France. Evidence from personal names in records shows some Jews with the appellation "L'Englesche" or "L'Englois" (ie, the English) in Paris, Savoy and elsewhere. Similar names can be found among the Spanish Jewry, and the Venetian Clerli family claimed descent from Anglo-Jewish refugees. The locations where Anglo-Jewish texts have been found are also evidence for the possible destination of migrants, including places in Germany, Italy, and Spain. The title deeds to an English monastery have been found in the wood store of a synagogue in Cairo, where, according to Roth, a refugee from England deposited the document. In the rare case of Bonamy of York, there is a record of him accidentally meeting creditors in Paris in 1292. Other individual cases can be speculated about, such as that of Licoricia of Winchester's sons Asher and Lumbard, and her grandchildren, who were likely among the exiles.

Disposal of Jewish property

167 and 169 King Street, The Music House, Norwich: one of two surviving Jewish houses dating from before the expulsion. Such properties were forfeit and sold or gifted by the Crown.

Following the expulsion, the Crown seized Jewish property. Debts with a value of £20,000 were collated from the archives from each town with a Jewish settlement. In December, Hugh of Kendall was appointed to dispose of the property seized from the Jewish refugees, the most-valuable of which consisted of houses in London. Some of the property was given away to courtiers, the Church and the royal family's circle in a total of 85 grants. William Burnell received property in Oxford which he later gave to Balliol College; for example, Queen Eleanor's tailor was granted the synagogue in Canterbury. Sales were mostly completed by early 1291 and around £2,000 was raised, £100 of which was used to glaze windows and decorate the tomb of Henry III in Westminster Abbey. It appears there was no systematic attempt to collect the £20,000 worth of seized debts. The reasons for this could include the death of Queen Eleanor in November 1290, concerns over a possible war with Scotland, or an attempt to win political favour by providing benefit to those previously indebted.

After the Expulsion

See also: History of the Jews in England § Resettlement period, 16th–19th centurie.s

It is likely the few Jews remaining in England after the expulsion were converts. At the time of the expulsion, there were around 100 converted Jews in the Domus Conversorum, which provided accommodation to Jews who had converted to Christianity. The last of the pre-1290 converts, Claricia, the daughter of Jacob Copin, died in 1356, having spent the early part of the 1300s in Exeter, where she raised a family. Between the Expulsion of the Jews in 1290 and their informal return in 1655, there continue to be records of Jews in the Domus Conversorum up to and after 1551. The expulsion is unlikely to have been wholly enforceable. Four complaints were made to the king in 1376 that some of those trading as Lombards were actually Jews.

Propagandising the Expulsion

The Shrine of Little Saint Hugh, commemorating a blood libel, at Lincoln Cathedral

After the expulsion, Edward I sought to position himself as the defender of Christians against the supposed criminality of Jews. Most prominently, he continued personal veneration of Little Saint Hugh of Lincoln, a child whose death had been falsely attributed to ritual murder by Jews. After the death of his wife Queen Eleanor in late 1290, Edward reconstructed the shrine, incorporating the Royal Coat of Arms, in the same style as the Eleanor crosses. It appears to have been an attempt by Edward to associate himself and Eleanor with the cult. According to historian Joe Hillaby, this "propaganda coup" boosted the circulation of the Saint Hugh myth, the most famous of the English blood libels, which is repeated in literature and the "Sir Hugh" folk songs into the twentieth century. Other efforts to justify the expulsion can be found in the Church, for instance in the canonisation evidence submitted for Thomas de Cantilupe, and on the Hereford Mappa Mundi.

Significance

Edward I used antisemitism as an instrument of state policy.

The permanent expulsion of Jews from England and tactics employed before it, such as attempts at forced conversion, are widely seen as setting a significant precedent and an example for the 1492 Alhambra Decree. Traditional narratives of Edward I have sought to downplay the event, emphasising the peacefulness of the expulsion or placing its roots in Edward's pragmatic need to extract money from Parliament; more recent work on the Anglo-Jewish community's experience has framed it as the culmination of a policy of state-sponsored antisemitism. These studies place the expulsion in the context of the execution of Jews for coin clipping and the first royal-sponsored attempts at converting Jews to Christianity, saying this was the first time a state had permanently expelled all Jews from its territory.

For Edward I's contemporaries, there is evidence the expulsion was seen as one of his most prominent achievements. It was named alongside his wars of conquest in Scotland and Wales in the Commendatio that was widely circulated after his death, saying Edward I outshone the Pharaohs by exiling the Jews.

The expulsion had a lasting effect on medieval and early-modern English culture. Antisemitic narratives became embedded in the idea of England as unique because it had no Jews, and of the English as God's chosen people, superseding the Jews. Jews became an easy target of literature and plays, and tropes such as child sacrifice and host desecration persisted. Jews began to settle in England after 1656,[80] and formal equality was achieved by 1858. According to medieval historian Colin Richmond, English antisemitism left a legacy of neglect of this topic in English historical research as late as the 1990s. The story of Little Saint Hugh was repeated as fact in local guidebooks in Lincoln in the 1920s, and a private school was named after Hugh around the same time. The logo of the school, which referenced the story, was altered in 2020.

Apology

In May 2022, the Church of England held a service that the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, described as a formal "act of repentance" on the 800th anniversary of the Synod of Oxford in 1222. The Synod passed a set of laws that restricted the right of Jews in England to engage with Christians, which directly contributed to the expulsion of 1290.

Notes

Modern historian Cecil Roth notes the significance of the expulsion as a permanent act was "fully appreciated" by Jewish writers.

The Church held that Jews were condemned to servitude for the crime of crucifying Christ, while they did not convert. This carried over into legal formulations. Because Jews were treated as the sole property and jurisdiction of the Crown, they were placed in an ambivalent legal position. They were not tied to a particular lord but were subject to the king's whims, which could be either advantageous or disadvantageous. Every successive king formally reviewed a royal charter, granting Jews the right to remain in England; Jews did not enjoy any of the guarantees of Magna Carta of 1215.

Taxation by the King of 20,000 marks in 1241, £40,000 in 1244, £50,000 twice in 1250, meant taxation in 1240-55 amounted to triple the taxation raised in 1221-39. Bonds were seized for a fraction of their value when cash payments could not be met, resulting in land wealth being transferred to courtiers. Further large sums were demanded in the 1270s, but receipts declined sharply.

The total raised includes fines from Christians, but it is believed the vast majority of this sum was raised from Jews. UK's National Archives estimates £16,500 as being equivalent to around £11.5m in modern terms.

The sheriff in each town kept an archa or "chest" with an official Jewry to record debts held by Jews of that town. Jews were only allowed to live in a town with an archa; in this way, the Crown could easily assess the wealth and taxability of Jews across the country. Archae had been seized and destroyed during pogroms organised by Simon de Montfort and his supporters in the 1260s.

In France and Brittany, for example, but usually Jews were able to return after a few years

Eleanor's dower towns included Marlborough, Gloucester, Worcester and Cambridge. Other expulsions took place in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Warwick, Wycombe (1234), Northamptonshire (1237), Newbury (1243), Derby (1261), Romsey (1266), Winchelsea (1273), Bridgnorth (1274), Windsor (1283). Under their town charters, Jews were forbidden from entering any of the new north-Welsh boroughs Edward I created.

una cum libris suis, in Bartholomaeus de Cotton's Historia Anglicana

 A labourer's wage for a day's work