transcript

Speaker 1:
[00:00] Audible subscribers can listen to all episodes of Generation Why ad free right now. Join Audible today by downloading the Audible app.

Speaker 2:
[00:46] How you doing tonight, Aaron?

Speaker 1:
[00:47] I'm doing, man. How are you?

Speaker 2:
[00:50] I'm doing okay.

Speaker 1:
[00:51] Have you managed to find your beverages you were looking for? You're a fan of the energy drinks.

Speaker 2:
[00:57] No.

Speaker 1:
[00:57] Have you thought about trying other drinks, other beverages?

Speaker 2:
[01:00] I'm not a fan. I just won't drink it.

Speaker 1:
[01:03] You like what you like?

Speaker 2:
[01:04] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[01:05] Yeah, and that reminds me, it's like so often we'll say, oh, I like this, I like that. Good example is, oh, I love the movie The Thing. It was made in the early 80s. At the time, it was revolutionary and it had special effects. And then at some point, I think it was around 2011, they released The Thing. And it was kind of like a sequel of sorts. I don't know. It was something. And a lot of people watched it and said, I don't like this as much as the original The Thing, only that even wasn't the original The Thing. But we all get used to certain things that we like. And then when they change it, now we're not as comfortable. Now we're like, ah, that's not what I remember.

Speaker 2:
[01:43] It's very true. I'm not drinking the other orange energy drinks because they don't taste like the Rockstar one. It tastes like cough syrup or whatever. It's disgusting.

Speaker 1:
[01:55] Well, maybe people can fill us in on things that they've had to try and switch to or try and whether they liked it or not, because I think it's a positive story, I should say. If someone has tried something new and they've liked it, because again, we get so used to what we like, and when it changes, I remember, Justin, back in the day, you and I, we switched up our theme music, and all we did was we had someone take our theme song and update it a little bit.

Speaker 2:
[02:22] I mean, they gave it an overhaul, but they kept the soul and integrity of the original, and I thought they did a great job. But when that happened, a lot of people did not like it. Now, I'm sure nobody would even imagine us having another theme song. If we were to change it again, people would freak out.

Speaker 1:
[02:39] We have offers. Anyhow, let's talk about what we're going to be covering here.

Speaker 2:
[02:44] I don't think I've eaten out of McDonald's in decades. I'm just not a fan.

Speaker 1:
[02:49] You keep bringing up brands, or any of these advertisers, Justin?

Speaker 2:
[02:54] No. When I do talk about brands, I don't think they would ever want me to be their spokesperson or endorsement person anyways. But McDonald's, they used to, or I think they brought it back now, but they do their Monopoly game, where you get little Monopoly pieces on your fries or your drink, and you put them together on this little board, and you can win prizes, win free food, and sometimes they got a big prize, hundreds of thousands up to a million dollars.

Speaker 1:
[03:23] Yeah, I used to play this game, and I haven't had McDonald's a long time either, but this game was exciting, and I actually would go and get a McDonald's something so I could play the game. Sadly, I don't think I ever won anything, except maybe a free fry or something.

Speaker 2:
[03:39] We might have an answer of why you never won, Aaron.

Speaker 1:
[03:44] Oh, yeah.

Speaker 2:
[03:45] But before we get to that, we're going to have some announcements here. We're going to be going to CrimeCon in Vegas. If you don't know, CrimeCon is big deal, and it's going to be May 29th to the 31st. Check out crimecon.com and get your tickets. Use our code GENY.

Speaker 1:
[04:04] And the other thing is just a reminder for any of you who are looking for another way to support us or you just want to hear more from us, join our Patreon. That's patreon.com/generation Why. You won't regret it. Come out there and listen to us. Talk about our day. Talk about feedback on cases we've covered or get extra content. We're always recording more stuff that we want to talk about that doesn't just go out to our main feed. And if you just want to try it, there is a free account you can get. I just uploaded something recently. It's about the case of Liz Barazza. So join today. You can get ad free episodes, bonus content and more from Justin and Aaron.

Speaker 2:
[04:45] So with that, Aaron, what are we talking about tonight?

Speaker 1:
[04:48] Well, in August of 2001, the FBI arrested eight individuals as part of a conspiracy to steal millions in prize funds from the McDonald's Monopoly sweepstakes. And the mastermind of the conspiracy was the very person who was tasked with distributing those game pieces. But it's a very interesting story.

Speaker 2:
[05:08] I've followed this story when it happened and I'm not one that gambles. I want to know that there's a sure thing on the other side of the table. But I'll say this. Once I found out that if you go to a casino and win at the slots and they can come over and say, oh, that slot machine had a malfunction and we're not going to pay you that money. As soon as I learned that, I just was like, I'll never go to a casino and play a slot machine. When I found out about this scam, I was like, I don't know if I'll ever play another game from a company because it can be manipulated.

Speaker 1:
[05:43] Well, I have the opposite take because I've heard from a couple of different people lately that they won at the casinos, and they won and everybody was happy for them, and they got their money. Also, when stuff like this happens, we'll say McDonald's Monopoly, it's a learning experience, and so things may be run better after that. So I guess I come from the other side, but let's get into it.

Speaker 2:
[06:06] So this starts with a person named Jerome Jacobson, and he ends up becoming the key figure in this case. So McDonald's, they first introduced their Monopoly game in 1987, and as we said, customers collect Monopoly pieces from McDonald's drinks and French fries. I think they even had them on hash browns, and they had them as ad inserts in magazines. By completing groups of properties, just like the game of Monopoly, players could win cash or a Sega Game Gear, which was a handheld gaming console from Sega. They had instant wins, and you could redeem those for free food or even a free vacation. This game is very popular, and the grand prize would eventually reach $1 million. There were two ways to win, either by finding the instant win game piece or matching park place and boardwalk. Winners could choose between a lump sum or a $50,000 check every year for the next 20 years. This game would increase McDonald's sales by up to like 40% when they run it.

Speaker 1:
[07:13] Yeah, and it also got people going crazy. They were obsessed with trying to win, so they would bid on pieces on eBay, and some people were said to have even committed armed robbery to get a ticket. Now, these game pieces were produced by Simon Marketing, based in Los Angeles, and printed by Dittler Brothers in Oakwood, Georgia. Now, Dittler Brothers also printed stamps and lottery scratch offs. The person in charge of the game pieces was Jerry Jacobson, known as Jerome Jacobson, who was Simon's Director of Security. He was born in 1943 in Youngstown, Ohio, and moved to Miami when he was a teenager. Now, back in the day, he had applied for the Marines, but he was discharged from basic training due to high arches.

Speaker 2:
[07:57] Well, hold on, Aaron. I could have gotten out of the military by just having high arches. Really? Come on. If I would have known that back then.

Speaker 1:
[08:05] Well, I think the difference. I mean, you joined and you gave it a go, right?

Speaker 2:
[08:10] Yeah. And they asked me if I had tuberculosis ever. And I said yes, because I did as a child. And then during in-processing, they test you for all of that. And you always test positive for TB for your life. And that popped up and they're like, you didn't disclose this to your recruiter. And I'm like, the hell I didn't. I was like, I was trying my best to get out of here. I didn't want to join. And apparently the recruiter didn't write it down, but they let me continue.

Speaker 1:
[08:34] They liked you. They wanted to keep you.

Speaker 2:
[08:36] But anyways, that's enough about my military experience. Back to Jerome.

Speaker 1:
[08:42] Yeah, in 1976, he joined Hollywood's Police Department in Florida, but he went on medical leave a year later due to a wrist injury. And in 1980, during a prolonged medical leave, Jerome collapsed from a severe paralysis of the arms, legs, eyes and respiratory system. He was diagnosed with a rare neurological disorder. His wife, Marsha took a leave of absence and took care of him. Jacobson was declared unfit to return to work and his role was terminated by the city. By 1981, Jacobson and his wife moved to Atlanta and finally he was recovered enough that he could go and get a job. He started working as a mechanic. Marsha worked as a security auditor for the accounting firm Arthur Young and was assigned to Dittler Brothers, one of their clients.

Speaker 2:
[09:28] Now in 1981, Marsha, his wife, recommended Jacobson for the job there too, but they constantly argued at work and they would end up getting divorced in 1983, just a couple years later. I couldn't imagine. Jacobson did well in private security though. He rose through the ranks until he was overseeing all production for Simon Marketing and a client of Dittler, including their $500 million McDonald's account. He started his role with Simon in 1988, and it's said that he took loss prevention very seriously. He would check worker's shoes to make sure they weren't stealing monopoly pieces. Jacobson managed a staff of 30. Female employees complained that he criticized them on how they dressed. He often wrote up workers for mistakes they made. He seemed bossy, but maybe took his job a little too seriously, and that's the way this goes is he rules with an iron fist.

Speaker 1:
[10:24] Yeah. So with all of that, you think, well, he's going to make sure this game is secure. Before each biannual game started, Jacobson went to the Dittler brothers office early in the morning to observe the randomized computer prize draw. He also watched over the printing presses, which operated 24 hours a day for three months to print the 500,000 game pieces. He observed technicians applying the instant winner stamp to blank game pieces and random water marks to deter counterfeiters. And he locked winning pieces in a vault behind coded keypads and dual entry combination locks.

Speaker 2:
[10:59] Jacobson also personally cut out high value game pieces and put them in envelopes sealed with tamper-proof metallic sticker. He used a secret vest that he made to transport winning pieces to McDonald's packaging factories across the country. At the packaging factories, he would personally apply the winning pieces to french fry cartons and soda cups that were headed to McDonald's locations already selected at random by that computer drawing. All of the work was overseen by an independent auditor who followed Jacobson and kept track of all of his expenses. The process felt very secure, but I did read, Aaron, that Jacobson and this auditor did not get along, and the auditor felt that Jacobson overspent on a lot of his travels. Let's just put it that way.

Speaker 1:
[11:47] Well, Jacobson made about $70,000 and he bragged to his colleagues that he was waiting to collect his riches from an investment, and all he needed was to find 10 more people to sign up and invest. A former colleague revealed that a psychic had told Jacobson to invest his money, but they believed it was probably a Ponzi scheme.

Speaker 2:
[12:08] So, he just said that he talked to a psychic, and we have to pause on this real quick, Aaron. It said that Jacobson was very superstitious. It said that he believed in bad luck and stuff like that, but he never really believed in coincidence, I guess, and that becomes a factor here, because as much as he might be superstitious, he believes that he's in control of things. So keep that in mind.

Speaker 1:
[12:34] Well, one day in 1989 at a family gathering in Miami, Jacobson gave his stepbrother, Marvin Braun, a game piece worth $25,000. Now Jacobson later admitted, I don't know if I just wanted to show him I could do something or bragging to see if I could do it, meaning he's got this idea in his head and he thinks, let's just test the waters.

Speaker 2:
[12:55] Yeah, I can control who wins and can I get away with pulling or stealing one of these game pieces and giving it to somebody.

Speaker 1:
[13:05] So when Jacobson's butcher in Atlanta heard he was in charge of monopoly prizes, he said he'd like to win. Now Jacobson bragged that he could make it happen, but it would look too suspicious because people knew they knew each other. They were friends. So the butcher offered to find a distant friend to claim a $10,000 prize and then pay Jacobson $2,000 for the stolen ticket.

Speaker 2:
[13:27] Kind of obfuscate that, like clean the money, clean the ticket, launder it, you know. But this is a time that McDonald's was overwhelmed with employee theft. And in Wisconsin, a 17-year-old employee was arrested for stealing 3,000 game pieces. In response, McDonald's started handing out game pieces from a secure roll on the counter. And this removed Jacobson from the seeding process for several years. So, instead of you getting it on the French fry or the drink, they would have a little roller and the manager or whoever is at the front would just pull out 2 or 3 depending on the meal and hand them to you. So, Jacobson was no longer in charge of these game pieces in such a intimate way.

Speaker 1:
[14:13] Well, then the conspiracy begins in 1995 when game pieces were put back onto drink cups and hash brown wrappers, etc. Jacobson was once again put in charge of distributing the game pieces and in that year, McDonald's upped the stakes and the grand prize became $1 million.

Speaker 2:
[14:32] According to Jacobson, during the 1995 prize draw, when the computer selected a factory location in Canada, Simon marketing executives reran the program until it chose a spot in the USA. Jacobson claimed he was told to ensure that no high-level prizes got to Canada. He believed the game was probably rigged at that point. He's saying, well, if Canada is out of the loop, then this whole game is a sham. And I've already stolen a couple pieces, so I know it's a sham. So not long afterwards, Jacobson opened a package sent to him, by mistake, from a supplier in Hong Kong. Inside was a set of anti-tamper seals for the envelopes for these game pieces. This mistake made it very easy for him to steal game pieces. Just imagine if you have these tamper-proof seals, well now you can act like, oh, well that wasn't tampered with. You can cover your tracks. Now Jacobson recalled, I would go into a men's room at the airport, which was the only place his auditor, the woman, couldn't follow him. I would go into the stall, I would take the seal off, he would pour the winning pieces into his hand, replace them with comments and reseal the envelope. Jacobson stole a million dollar instant one game piece and locked it in a safety deposit box. Then he stole documents that he claimed proved the Canadian Conspiracy, which he thought he would need to protect himself if he ever got caught or fired. He then stole a second one million dollar game piece. So he's going full on out with this and he's saying this game's rigged, so I might as well benefit from it.

Speaker 3:
[16:06] I'm Leon Nefock, best known as the host and co-creator of podcast Slow Burn, Fiasco and Think Twice, Michael Jackson. I'm here to tell you about my show, Final Thoughts, Jerry Springer, whose name is synonymous with outrageous guests, taboo confessions and vicious on-stage fights. But before the Jerry Springer show became a symbol of cultural decline, its namesake was a popular Midwestern politician and a serious minded idealist with lofty ambitions. Through dozens of intimate and revealing interviews with those who knew Springer best, I examined Springer's lifelong struggle to reconcile his TV persona with his political dreams and aspirations. Named one of the best podcasts of the year by The New Yorker and Rolling Stone, Final Thoughts Jerry Springer is a story about choices, how we make them, how we justify them to ourselves, and how we transcend them or don't. Listen wherever you get your podcasts or binge the whole series ad free right now on Audible. Start your Audible subscription in the Audible app.

Speaker 1:
[17:06] On November 12, 1995, Tammy Murphy, a donations clerk at the St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Tennessee, opened the mail and found a card with a $1 million Monopoly game piece inside. Now, this card arrived in a plain white envelope addressed to the hospital. There was no note or return address. It was postmarked from Dallas on November 24th, which was the day after Thanksgiving and the day after Monopoly began. Tammy was thinking, this is probably junk. She was getting ready to throw it away, but she saw the words, instant winner, so that stopped her in her tracks. McDonald's officials ended up inspecting the game piece and determined it was valid before announcing the winner. Now, Tammy never considered keeping the money, she said, because she knew that this was an anonymous donation meant for the hospital. Normally, the prizes were non-transferable, but the president of McDonald's decided to bend the rules in this case. So McDonald's and hospital officials were adamant about respecting the anonymous donors' wishes to remain anonymous. So they're just like, we're going to bend the rules in this instance, you know, for the good of the hospital. So that's a nice story, right?

Speaker 2:
[18:15] Yeah. It's still weird and a little fishy because this game piece shows up like a day or a few days after the game starts. I mean, I think that would raise some flags, but apparently it doesn't.

Speaker 1:
[18:30] No, and the New York Times, they tried to figure out, who the donor was. They conducted their own investigation. Jacobson later told CNN, he sent the game piece to the hospital in hopes that a good deed would get him a more lenient sentence in the future were he to be caught.

Speaker 2:
[18:47] Nice.

Speaker 1:
[18:48] He's obviously a guy who is enjoying this, but he's also running it through in his head. Like, how can I help myself with this whole situation? Because people, they're going to judge me. If I'm caught, they're going to say, you're selfish. You broke the rules. You're a criminal. But he's going to be able to say, oh, but look what I did here and look what I did there. I was using this for some good as well. I don't know if that works, but that's the idea anyway.

Speaker 2:
[19:12] So back in Atlanta, Jacobson's butcher wanted to buy another winning game piece. And I don't know, Aaron, I'm not that close with my butcher. In fact, I don't have a butcher. So I'm just kind of thinking, what kind of relationship does he have with this man where now he's bragging about these game pieces and selling them to him. But I guess he's making money from the cut.

Speaker 1:
[19:33] I think what you're missing here is there are definitely people who get close with their butcher. And this becomes a big deal. So, and we might hear from people about this.

Speaker 2:
[19:43] I guess, but I don't know. If I have a scam going, I don't think I'm going to be including a butcher.

Speaker 1:
[19:50] Now we're going to get the hate emails.

Speaker 2:
[19:53] They have sharp objects. Anyways, his butcher proposed traveling with his sister to Maryland, where she would find a game piece on a fry box. Jacobson gave him a $200,000 game piece in exchange for $45,000. He thought he could trust the butcher because he paid him the first time, but this butcher betrayed him, and Jacobson only received $4,000, not the $45,000 promised.

Speaker 1:
[20:21] This is a different way of doing business because before he would have the money presented up front, and this time he thought, well, I'll just let you claim the money, and then you can give me money out of that. That's a lot of trust, and apparently he put trust in the wrong butcher.

Speaker 2:
[20:38] On top of that, this butcher was supposed to give this ticket to his sister. But one evening, Jacobson was watching TV and saw a commercial for Monopoly featuring the butcher as a winner. That's putting a connection between him and the butcher, somebody he knows, and the agreement was, your sister gets it, not you. I need to keep this at an arm's reach. But that didn't happen. So that's just probably one of the first red flags of somebody that Jacobson knows winning.

Speaker 1:
[21:08] So according to The Daily Beast, one day in 1995, Jacobson was sitting in the Atlanta airport when 32-year-old Gennaro Colombo sat next to him. Now they struck up a conversation, and Jacobson asked where he was headed. Colombo showed him a purse full of $100 bills and said he was headed to Atlantic City. Colombo was born in Sicily, raised in Brooklyn, and was living in South Carolina, operating adult nightclubs, underground casinos and sports betting ring. He claimed to be a member of the Colombo crime family. So of course Jacobson is thinking, oh, I bet I can work with this guy. So he tells him, hey, I work in promotional gaming, and Colombo said, I'm interested. Now by November, Jacobson had given Colombo a game piece for a brand new car. Colombo, and like the butcher had, agreed to appear in a McDonald's commercial because he won this car. He ended up taking a cash prize instead of the car though.

Speaker 2:
[22:03] Colombo's wife Robin recalled how they would travel with friends from Atlanta to Boston to win $1 million prizes provided by Jacobson. So they have this relationship where Jacobson is selling game pieces and now he has essentially a buyer, somebody who can distribute them for him and he gets a cut. This Colombo guy, Aaron, he's pretty sleazy and he claims he's part of this crime family. He also runs strip clubs which that's neither here nor there, but one of the strip clubs was called, I think, the Fuzzy Bunnies and he turned it into a church by having the dancers read from the Bible on stage. Therefore, he could get the tax shelter like a regular church.

Speaker 1:
[22:46] Sounds like there could be a whole other episode on this Colombo fella.

Speaker 2:
[22:50] Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 1:
[22:51] Now, of course, when Colombo introduced Robin to Jacobson, he called him Uncle Jerry. If you've heard about this story, then you'll no doubt have heard the name Uncle Jerry, Uncle Jerry being Jerome Jacobson.

Speaker 2:
[23:03] In 1996, Robin's father, William Fisher, received a million dollar game ticket. Fisher had traveled from Jacksonville, Florida to Litchfield, New Hampshire to collect the prize. Robin's brother-in-law also won. Every winner would end up sending cash to Jacobson via the Columbos. So this is the scam. This is the conspiracy.

Speaker 1:
[23:28] In 1997, Robin Columbo introduced her husband to her friend, 37 year old Gloria Brown. Now Brown recalled that Columbo had asked how much money she could come up with in order to be eligible to be a winner. A few weeks later, Brown met him on the side of the road to hand him $40,000 in cash. Now he showed her a $1,000,000 game piece and promised to share more details later. So Brown's told now that she would have to travel to South Carolina to get the prize. Columbo and a cousin drove her to a McDonald's, but parked away from the restaurant. They coached her on what to tell the staff. At first, she panicked and thought about just running away, but she ended up going through with the plan and claimed the prize. So she's in the McDonald's, she says, I won, you know? So they were all excited and they helped her fill out a prize form and she pretended she lived at the cousin's South Carolina address. Brown later told reporters she found the ticket while cleaning out her car.

Speaker 2:
[24:27] According to Robin, Jacobson eventually started funding Columbo's businesses, including a private club in Hilton Head, South Carolina. In return, Jacobson sent more opportunities to the Columbo's because now they're in business together.

Speaker 1:
[24:43] Well, late one night, Robin found a plastic bag in her freezer that contained a single gray M&M. In 1997, the Mars Candy Company launched a competition to find an imposter M&M with a game piece that would win one million dollars. Now, Jacobson's new wife Linda did not know about his scam, his scheme. By this point, he had given his stepbrother Marvin Brown three more game pieces, including one worth one million dollars. Brown told the Daily Beast that he didn't need the money, so he dropped the tickets into Salvation Army Bins. He claimed he also flushed a one million dollar ticket.

Speaker 2:
[25:18] These people are idiots. They're idiots. I'm sorry. All of them are idiots.

Speaker 1:
[25:25] They don't need the money.

Speaker 2:
[25:26] They're fools. I'm surprised they haven't been caught already. I'm surprised that nobody has figured this out yet, but that's just typical of bloated corporate America. Nobody's talking to each other. One hand doesn't know what the other is doing.

Speaker 1:
[25:40] Yeah, it's really surprising that with all the random people that are being brought into this that no one's said anything.

Speaker 2:
[25:46] In 1998, Jacobson's nephew, Mark Schultz, had received a $200,000 game piece. Jacobson received $45,000 from him. At Mark's wedding that year, Jacobson was discussing the Monopoly game when a distant cousin joined the conversation and wanted in. I mean, he's just talking about it openly in public, and somebody hears it and says, hey, I want in on this. The first rule of Fight Club is you don't talk about Fight Club. So by the end of 1998, Jacobson was stealing almost all the big ticket pieces and collecting kickbacks from those he gave winning pieces too. This is why you never won this game, Aaron.

Speaker 1:
[26:26] Yeah, that could be, but I still wonder if I'd have won anyway.

Speaker 2:
[26:30] So he and his wife will end up moving to Lawrenceville, Georgia. He also purchased a plot of land by the lake. They went on cruises and he joined a classic car club. At the club, he sold a member four game pieces for $65,000 that he used to buy an Oldsmobile car. After three years of marriage to Colombo, Robin felt like an outsider. Her husband spent most of his time at clubs and casinos and she began confiding in Jacobson over late night phone calls about this. One night she told him that Colombo was having an affair with her personal trainer. Jacobson suggested that she marry him, but Robin said she just couldn't. Robin tried to make the marriage work and eventually she told her husband she needed to leave South Carolina in hopes that things would get better.

Speaker 1:
[27:20] On May 7th, 1998, they drove to Georgia to look for land to build their dream home. They ended up in a serious car accident. Now, Colombo was able to get out of the car, but his blood pressure dropped and he was hospitalized. Two weeks later, doctors turned off his life support. This meant that Jacobson needed a replacement for Colombo. Business with him had been very profitable. He wanted to keep the gravy train rolling, and so Jacobson needed to continue his scheme.

Speaker 2:
[27:49] I want to add real quick here, Aaron, that this car accident where Colombo dies, a lot of people report this as being very questionable. Like almost like a hit. You can read into that whether Robin wanted out, or you can read into that that somebody else didn't like Colombo, or maybe it was just a freak accident.

Speaker 1:
[28:10] So Jacobson was in London with his family. He was waiting to board a cruise when he met a man named Don Hart, and Don Hart was traveling with his wife. They were from Atlanta, and so Jacobson joined their group on the cruise. Hart had recently sold his trucking company, and he had contacts all over the United States. So Jacobson got to talking about his scheme to Hart, who thought it sounded too good to be true, but decided, hey, I want to get involved.

Speaker 2:
[28:37] And later in 1998, one of Hart's accomplices redeemed a $200,000 game piece. After that, Hart told Jacobson he didn't want to be involved in handling game pieces or money, but he introduced Jacobson to two friends who said they could help him. You know, he's networking, but I'm still just absolutely shocked because it just seems like random people he would meet. He doesn't know who he's talking to. They could be an FBI agent, for all he knows.

Speaker 1:
[29:05] But for people who like to talk to FBI agents.

Speaker 2:
[29:08] Exactly.

Speaker 1:
[29:09] Richard Couturier, who owned a chain of fried chicken restaurants, believed he was helping McDonald's find winners because most people threw away their game pieces. And you know what? I've always wondered that. Like, I wonder if pieces just got thrown away. Oh, wait, no, Jacobson rescued those.

Speaker 2:
[29:24] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[29:25] So Couturier recruited random people he met at parties. Jacobson gave him 10 winning pieces, including two $1 million prizes. Jacobson said that he would buy property and Couturier would write a check to his home equity loan. And Hart also introduced Jacobson to Andrew Glom, a gambler from Fort Lauderdale. In 1983, Glom was convicted of shipping cocaine on a Pan-American flight from Miami to Dallas. He escaped to Europe for 16 months before having to complete his 12-year sentence. But Glom gave his winning tickets to acquaintances from his drug trafficking days. In 1999, one of Glom's million-dollar winners was a man who pleaded guilty to distributing 400 pounds of cocaine in Pittsburgh. But Jacobson sent all of his game pieces to Andrew Glom, including eight $1 million winners. So this seems like an escalation.

Speaker 2:
[30:18] Yeah. And it's March of 2000 that the FBI received a tip. Special Agent Richard Dent of the FBI's Jacksonville office received a tip in March of 2000 that the McDonald's game was rigged by an insider known as Uncle Jerry. The tip revealed that winners paid Uncle Jerry for stolen game pieces. For example, a $1 million winner paid for their first $50,000 installment to Uncle Jerry in cash. Sometimes, he would demand cash up front, requiring them to mortgage their homes to come up with the money. This informant reported that members of one family in Jacksonville claimed three $1 million prizes and a Dodge Viper. Guess who that was? Agent Dent then alerted McDonald's headquarters in Oakbrooks, Illinois. McDonald's executives were worried about this because the company would see a 40% increase in sales during their Monopoly game run. Such a scandal would taint their reputations, so company lawyers promised to help the FBI by sending a list of past winners. And you know, if you see all those winners, you can start connecting the dots.

Speaker 1:
[31:29] Special Agent Dent called Amy Murray, the McDonald's spokesperson, to say he believed that William Fisher, the $1 million winner of the 1996 Deluxe Monopoly game, was a fraud. As mentioned previously, William Fisher was Robin Colombo's father. Now Robin believes it was one of the Colombo's who told the FBI that her father, William Fisher, her cousin, and her friend Gloria Brown illegally won Monopoly prizes. Now she had been trying to cut herself off from the family, but that was difficult to do because of her son, Frankie.

Speaker 2:
[32:01] Amy Murray called Fisher at his home in Jacksonville. Fisher told her that he won the prize in New Hampshire, where he was living for a year, according to an affidavit. However, paper and electronic records show Fisher had lived in Jacksonville all along, never was in New Hampshire. When Agent Dent asked about Gloria Brown, Murray revealed that she had rerouted her annual checks to Jacksonville. Dent opened an official investigation called Final Answer. Twenty-five agents across the country tracked 20,000 phone numbers and recorded phone calls, and of course Jerome Jacobson's phone was wiretapped as part of this investigation.

Speaker 1:
[32:42] Well meanwhile, Jacobson's conspiracy continued. On April 29, 2000, Jacobson was driving through South Carolina with his friend Dwight Baker, a real estate developer who had sold him a plot of land. Baker was a respected man in his community with big ambitions. He was recovering from a tractor accident that damaged his spine and he feared he would never walk again. So Jacobson was helping him get out of the house and drove him up into the mountains. Also, Baker was struggling financially and this McDonald's game offered him some hope. Jacobson offered him a million dollar game piece and instructed that whoever redeemed it for Baker would have to say they pulled it from a hash brown bag. So Jacobson asked Baker for $100,000, which was the largest kickback he demanded by that point. Baker recruited 30-year-old George Chandler, his foster child, into the conspiracy.

Speaker 2:
[33:37] Baker will end up showing him the winning piece and offered to sell it to him for $100,000. He claimed that the winner was going through a divorce and didn't want to split his winnings with his wife. Chandler only had $50,000, so on June 6, 2000, Baker helped him fill out a McDonald's claim form, then photocopied the game pieces and mailed it to the Redemption Center. Baker warned Chandler not to participate in any promotions, but as we've seen in the past, on June 26, Chandler told him he would need to show up at the South Union McDonald's at 11 a.m. because McDonald's was giving him a giant check on TV. This footage was sent to the FBI office in Jacksonville.

Speaker 1:
[34:20] In March 2001, McDonald's did another promotional Who Wants to Be a Millionaire game. Baker asked Jacobson if he'd accept a plot of land for more game pieces. Baker gave a $1 million piece to his friend Ronnie Huey and a $500,000 game piece to his wife's sister, Brenda Fennis. With strict instructions to set up fake lives in other states, claim their prizes and keep quiet. Stay off the TV. On April 27, 2001, Agent Richard Dent received a call from McDonald's informing him that Ronald E Huey of Germantown, Tennessee had claimed a $1 million prize. So, spokeswoman Amy Murray called Huey and asked him to appear in a commercial. But he said he'd like to remain anonymous.

Speaker 2:
[35:05] Agent soon discovered that Huey's Tennessee phone number was just a call forwarding device and that he really lived in Anderson, South Carolina near George Chandler, the latest winner. Figure that one out. The walls are closing in here slowly.

Speaker 1:
[35:23] Well, Baker took his sister-in-law Brenda Fennis on a road trip to North Carolina to conceal her South Carolina address. She rented an apartment, obtained a phone, mailing address and a driver's license. On May 16th, 2001, Brenda claimed the $500,000 winning ticket. She agreed to pay the taxes, give Baker $90,000, Jacobson $70,000 and would keep $90,000 for herself. However, according to Baker, she told others she was going to buy them a car or build a house. She also told her son, her daughter-in-law and her sister all about the scheme.

Speaker 2:
[35:59] Everyone's talking, Aaron.

Speaker 1:
[36:01] Yeah, but now she's going off the rails because she's claiming to say that, I'm going to share the money with you guys. But now she's also telling other people, I'm going to buy you a car. I've got a lot of money coming and here's why.

Speaker 2:
[36:13] On May 30th, 2001, Agent Dent was notified about Brenda Fennis when he discovered that she lived in the town of Westminster, South Carolina. Dent looked on a map of South Carolina and discovered a 25-mile triangle of suspicious McDonald's winners. At the center of the triangle just happened to be Drome Jacobson's lakefront home. Dent asked McDonald's to delay sending the checks to Huey and Fennis while he applied for wiretaps. His application was granted three weeks later, by then the winners were in a panic. Jacobson told Baker that Fennis needed to insist on getting something in writing from McDonald's, so Baker could make a legal issue about the delay. Baker later said he had a gut feeling that they had been caught, and he was right.

Speaker 1:
[37:02] Fennis confessed to her pastor and then stopped answering Baker's calls. So Baker became worried she was going to keep the entire check to herself. There was a phone call and in it, Baker told his wife that if Jacobson knew that Brenda had gone rogue, he'd report the ticket stolen and say he was threatened to give up the game pieces. Baker decided that Fennis should give him the money or he'd have to alert the US Marshals. This entire scheme by this point is unraveling. No one can trust each other.

Speaker 2:
[37:29] Baker went to Fennis' apartment in North Carolina where her check was due to arrive. He found no one there, but on the floor was a tear-off strip from a FedEx envelope. Fennis had already gotten the package. On July 11th, McDonald's launched their own second promotional game of 2001. Executives had wanted to cancel the games, but Agent Dent asked them to go through with it to gather more evidence. And it's kind of a honeypot scheme at this point, like, no, you got to put it out there so we can find all the people that are involved. There were two $1 million prizes in this game, which Jacobson had control of. He gave one to Andrew Glom, which put him solidly on the FBI's radar and gave the other to Baker. Jacobson told Baker he needed a deposit. So again, these are all the same players. These are all the same people. They're all tied together and they're all within a 25-mile radius of each other.

Speaker 1:
[38:24] Well, Brenda Fennis had flown to California to receive her prize directly from Simon Marketing. Baker and his wife, they spent days at the Indianapolis International Airport watching incoming flights to try and catch Brenda. On July 20th, she arrived and the Bakers confronted her. She told them she had just $20,000 in cash and a cashier's check for $480,000. They didn't know it, but an undercover FBI team filmed this entire confrontation.

Speaker 2:
[38:52] In Corbin, Kentucky, Baker gave Jacobson a paper bag containing $70,000 cash as payment for that next winning ticket. Baker planned to give the ticket to Ronnie Huey, who was recruiting a friend in Texas to claim the prize. Agent Dent looked at Huey's recent calls and figured out that that friend was Huey's brother-in-law, John Davis, who lived in Grantsbury, Texas. And on July 22nd, FBI surveillance teams followed Baker and Jacobson to the woods of Fairplay, South Carolina. But they didn't actually see the transfer because of the Dent's trees. Agents followed Baker to Huey's home in Anderson, where they believed he gave him a $1 million game piece.

Speaker 1:
[39:36] 8 days later, Agent Dent received a call from Amy Murray, informing him someone had claimed the $1 million prize. The agent asked if it was John Davis. So they were obviously on to the scheme. They had the right name. The FBI recruited McDonald's to help them arrest their suspects. Working with Amy Murray, they first made a plan to invite the winners to Vegas for a winner reunion, where they would all be arrested. But they decided against this idea. Instead, they opted to approach the suspects about shooting fake commercials. On August 3, 2001, Amy Murray approached 56-year-old Michael Hoover in Westerly, Rhode Island, the winner selected by Andrew Glom. Now Michael told Amy Murray and a film crew that his lucky moment happened when he went to the beach. He went to the water to wash off the sand and his copy of People magazine fell in. So he bought another copy at a grocery store and inside that was an ad insert with the Instant Win game piece. This was actually a sting operation. Two men posing as the camera crew were actually FBI agents.

Speaker 2:
[40:41] On August 27, 2001, the FBI would make eight arrests, including Jerome Jacobson. Individuals were arrested in Georgia, South Carolina, Florida, Texas, Indiana and Wisconsin. So we need to get into these indictments and court proceedings here.

Speaker 1:
[41:00] Yeah, the FBI listed the following individuals in their announcement. 49-year-old Linda L. Baker, a recruiter. 49-year-old Noah Dwight Baker, a recruiter. 44-year-old John F. Davis, a winner. 58-year-old Andrew M. Glom, recruiter. 56-year-old Michael L. Hoover, winner. 56-year-old Ronald E. Huey, a recruiter. 58-year-old Jerome P. Jacobson, the mastermind. And 50-year-old Brenda S. Fennis, a winner. Now over $13 million worth of grand prizes were stolen, and all eight of these people were charged with felony conspiracy to commit mail fraud.

Speaker 2:
[41:41] Jacobson was interrogated for six hours, and Agent Dent presented all the evidence he gathered against him. McDonald's CEO, Jack M. Greenberg, issued a statement after the arrests. Said, today's arrests are a powerful reminder that McDonald's will never let anything get between us and our customers. Customer confidence is at the very heart of McDonald's business. When the FBI first contacted us, we were shocked and stunned. However, we agreed immediately to cooperate fully with the FBI in an effort to ensure our customer interest was protected. And today, we are pleased to see this objective accomplished. We are proud of the role McDonald's played in this investigation, and pleased that no McDonald's employees were involved in any way. The FBI has made it clear that McDonald's was betrayed by a longtime supplier in a highly sophisticated inside game of fraud and deception. We are delighted that the perpetrators were arrested today. Instead, on behalf of McDonald's, our franchises, employees and customers, we want to thank the FBI, the US. Attorney's Office, and the Department of Justice for their extraordinary work. In piecing together this challenging case, the Federal Law Enforcement Team has earned our heartfelt thanks for the arrest of this criminal ring. Moreover, we recognize that this investigation is ongoing, and McDonald's has pledged to continue cooperating and support the FBI's efforts.

Speaker 1:
[43:07] So, they had to make a choice here because obviously, their reputation could be ruined by this. So, how do they make it up to the public, right? Because now the public is doubting, oh, like, what's the point of even playing? I'm not going to win. So, then this CEO went on to say, let me underscore one important point. Millions of McDonald's customers legitimately won prizes over the years from free food and drinks to cash and merchandise. We now know, however, that this criminal enterprise has been charged with stealing many of the highest value prizes from our customers and that is completely unacceptable. To right this wrong, we are announcing today the opportunity for McDonald's customers to win prizes valued at $10 million between August 30th through September 3rd in a McDonald's instant giveaway. So they're going to do this as what they call fulfilling their commitment to their customers. And basically, this is all just the CEO telling the public, we know this went wrong, but it wasn't one of our employees. And since the FBI is involved and we're cooperating fully, you can put your trust back in us. We will earn it back.

Speaker 2:
[44:11] And we're going to run this contest for you, which will probably spike our sales and all that. So it's a win-win for everybody, right?

Speaker 1:
[44:19] Oh yeah, it sounds that way.

Speaker 2:
[44:21] So over the following weeks, Jacobson provided the FBI with documents he claimed proved Simon Marketing rigged the contest against Canadian customers in 1995. I guess this is his way of trying to minimize his involvement. But on September 10th of 2001, a federal grand jury in Jacksonville returned indictments against 21 people involved in the scam. All were charged with conspiracy to commit mail fraud.

Speaker 1:
[44:48] And Jerome Jacobson was charged with eight additional counts of mail fraud. Now this was the day before the September 11th terrorist attacks in New York City. And this is likely why so few Americans remember the McDonald scandal or its outcome. Jacobson was facing nine charges with a five-year penalty for each. He was warned he'd be about 104 years old when he got out. So in exchange for his signed confession and testimony, Jacobson pleaded guilty to three counts and received 15 years. Jacobson was sentenced in 2003.

Speaker 2:
[45:22] Government seized all of his property. McDonald's terminated its relationship with Simon Marketing and the company dissolved in 2002. McDonald's sued Simon Marketing, which in turn counter sued. McDonald's would end up settling with Simon Marketing and paid the company $16.6 million. Don't know if I agree with that, but that's how it played out.

Speaker 1:
[45:45] So McDonald's also unveiled a special $10 million instant giveaway, which we mentioned earlier. A prize patrol tapped 55 random customers on the shoulder who ended up splitting the winnings. So I guess that's possibly a safe way to do this, a secure way.

Speaker 2:
[46:01] I'd be like, hey Aaron, show up at one o'clock today so I can come tap you on the shoulder.

Speaker 1:
[46:06] Yeah, there's always a way, but no, they say this one was legitimate, so maybe things are working better. But in total, over 50 defendants were convicted of mail fraud and conspiracy. The recruiters, Schwartz, Hart, Couturier and Glom, were sentenced to one year and one day in prison with massive fines. In July 2004, a three-judge panel of the 11th US. Circuit Court of Appeals found a complete failure of proof on the conspiracy charge for four men found guilty in the scheme and concluded they were convicted of a conspiracy they were not charged with. So again, court actions, but this is more action being taken by the government to put a stop to this and hold people accountable.

Speaker 2:
[46:50] Baker, his wife Linda, Brenda Finnis and the other fake winners received probation and were required to pay back their prize money over time.

Speaker 1:
[46:59] Richard Couturier told the court that a man he believed was in the mafia warned him not to mention Don Hart's name to investigators. He feared for his life. Now just before a judge announced her sentence, Robin Columbo caught a glimpse of her lawyer's paperwork and saw that she was headed back to prison. So she made a run for the exit, but she was caught. She was sentenced to 10 months in prison.

Speaker 2:
[47:22] Jacobson took the stand and admitted to stealing up to 60 game pieces over a dozen years, totaling over $24 million in prizes. He agreed to pay $12.5 million in restitution. He was ultimately sent to jail for 37 months. The government never revealed how much money Jacobson got from the scheme, but it was said at trial he stole up to 60 pieces and charged $45,000 to $50,000 per sticker, which means he could have netted around $3 million, and he has to pay back $12.5 million in restitution. So it's interesting how that plays out.

Speaker 1:
[48:01] Yeah, you get money for your scam, but the damage you did, well, that's going to cost you too. Let's talk about where things are now, Justin. In 2020, HBO released a documentary, McMillions, a docu-series about the scandal. Have you seen this?

Speaker 2:
[48:16] I've seen parts of it, definitely. I don't know if I stayed awake for the whole thing because it was pretty long.

Speaker 1:
[48:22] Yeah, it's pretty long, but it's also very informative. If you want to know more about this, definitely check that out. At this time, Jerome Jacobson is in his late 70s, and in 2020, he was living in Georgia. In the fall of 2025, McDonald's announced that Monopoly was returning for a limited time for app loyalty members. Some physical game pieces would be placed on food items, and digital pieces were available in the app on select orders.

Speaker 2:
[48:48] Customers can earn free food and bonus points. Some of the largest prizes included 1 million American Airlines miles, a new Jeep Grand Cherokee, and 1 million cash prizes for one player. Monopoly was last released in 2014 and 2016. And it seems that everyone's going to apps now, Aaron. For any sort of sale, giveaway, promotion, you have to have the app. I've walked into a few franchises and said, hey, I want my free whatever. And they're like, oh, you know, you get it through the app. And I'm like, yeah, I'm not installing that.

Speaker 1:
[49:23] Well, but that is what people are expecting and dealing with anyway. It's interesting how I was watching a video the other day and they talked about how there used to be prizes, you know, toys inside of cereal boxes. And, you know, it was kind of fun for kids back in the day, but I guess in the modern age, kids don't care about those. I don't know if they were like worth six cents or something, if they're even interested in those things. So cereal makers ended up going to, hey, scan this QR code with your phone and you can get a little game to play or whatever. They've really moved away from some of this stuff. And I guess in the end here, McDonald's ran this promotion again and we'll see how many more times they run it because it's kind of caused them a headache, but maybe they have figured out and maybe it will return again. As a reminder to our listeners, we really appreciate all of you. And if you could do us a little favor, if you haven't left us a review in a while, please head out to your app that you use, whether it's Spotify or Apple Podcasts or Castbox, whatever you use and please leave us a review. Thank you. Follow Generation Why on the Audible app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to all episodes of Generation Why ad free by joining Audible.