A lucky guy walked into a bank to cash a $100 check and wound up winning a $3.3 million jackpot. That’s how Huffington Post told the story when a Miami-Dade jury found for Rodolfo Valladares in 2012.
The reality is heartbreaking. Because Valladares vaguely resembled a man wanted for bank robbery, a teller at a Bank of America branch in Aventura pressed a silent alarm; minutes later, his life changed forever. A policeman’s boot struck his head and turned a sociable optimist into a paranoid hermit.
