DOUG MATTHEWS: We didn't know how
the McDonald's Monopoly game was fixed.
So, inside the wire room,
people'd sit in there, getting ready to listen.
And nothing happens.
♪ (UPBEAT MUSIC PLAYS) ♪
The FBI, we start coming up with how do we get past winners
to recount how they allegedly won these pieces.
Locking them into a story on camera,
takes a B-minus case and makes it a A-plus case.
For a while, the question was, "Who is Uncle Jerry?"
We were looking into Jerry Jacobson.
We thought this may be the main guy.
But there was always this inference that Uncle Jerry
somehow connected to organized crime.
We found out that there was another Jerry involved,
named Jerry Colombo.
My husband. He was part of the Colombo crime family.
My Jerry and Jerry Jacobson became partners
on the Monopoly thing. My husband picked the winners.
INTERVIEWER:
"Uncle Jerry" is Jerome Jacobson.
My husband. He got a lot of my family members involved.
And that isn't all.
That was just a little piece of the pie.
[bright tone]
- Whiskey.
Where's Oliver?
[cat meows]
Oliver, come on!
I helped pick the winners.
I gave some tickets to some friends of mine
and family members who needed it.
I wanted them happy, so...
I gave 'em things.
I was gonna get the $1 million,
but I gave it to my father.
And, um...
Maybe if certain things never happened...
This Monopoly thing would still be going on today.
It's true.
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
- With Shamrock Productions
and the "Reunion of Winners,"
I think some of them are pretty legendary,
in terms of what was captured on film.
- Like Buddy Fisher and Mr. Hoover,
Gloria Brown was an instant $1 million winner.
She had won in South Carolina.
- Gloria had said her address
was in the Hilton Head area of South Carolina,
but she was from Jacksonville, Florida.
There was always something
that I was trying to drive out.
I was trying to expand the BS
that they were trying to put out there
because I know AUSA Devereaux
needs a ground ball, boy needs something easy.
- [laughs]
- I'm kidding, he's good at his job.
- It's been a decade, but I enjoyed it.
First time, yeah...
- Well, I was unemployed at that time, right in--
- Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
- But I am a social worker.
I just was taking a break from...
stress.
I'm not doing it anymore, thank God.
[laughter]
- Yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
- No, most--
- Most of my family is here.
I had a friend, a personal friend and another friend,
a couple of friends there that--
basically what I was doing was a lot of visiting,
job searching at that time,
so, you know, trying to relocate.
- One thing that struck me was that Ms. Brown
wasn't as open and friendly
as Mr. Hoover was.
She seemed to be on guard,
whether or not she suspected something was awry or not,
she just...she just wasn't as forthcoming.
- Yeah, yeah.
- Yes, yeah.
- Well, in Hilton Head, you know,
um, during that time I was, you know, living with a friend,
of course, and, um, trying to job hunt
and right now, I have my own agenda,
you know, I have my patients to care for.
Um...I'm busy, like today
I'm taking a trip, you know,
and, um...
um day-to-day-- I work seven days a week,
basically, you know, I'm on call all the time.
So compared to back then, um, and to now,
I would say that, um...
McDonald's have made it so that
I can just lie without any stress, you know?
- Um, a little over a year, back and forth.
- Many of the winners were saying they lived in one area,
but then had a post office box
where they would have their winnings sent to,
so they would set up fake addresses.
And so, a lot of the evidence that I was gathering
was around where they lived,
exactly what store they won
the McDonald's Monopoly piece at.
- So, I said, "Gloria, do you remember
the McDonald's where you went to claim the prize?"
"Absolutely."
"This is a picture." We took a picture of it
and put it on this board and she said, "Oh, my God,
that's exactly the one," and I said, "You know what,
can you autograph that for us?"
- "Thanks a million."
- [laughing]
- That picture that she signed,
it was not in Hilton Head, South Carolina.
It was Jacksonville, Florida.
- No, I sure don't.
- The fake address was a part of the scheme.
And so, Rick had this surveillance photo
of a McDonald's right there in Jacksonville.
And I go, "Oh, my God, that's perfect."
So I take it with me. "What are you gonna do?"
And I said, "I'm gonna-- I'm gonna use it.
Wait and see. I'm gonna show you."
And, as she's doing it, Amy,
she's like, "Oh, my God, that's just--
that's not it. That's not it."
And I'm looking over-- it's starting to get louder,
and I'm like, I'm looking back,
"Do you want that here?
I mean--they almost can hear that."
- Mm-hmm. - [indistinct speech]
- That's what I love. [indistinct speech]
Every time I talked to them,
they would just lie, lie, lie.
And it was perfect for the FBI because it was really
building evidence and helping them build their case.
But we also wanted to make sure
that it seemed like we were having fun.
Because, once again,
that's how it would be at a real shoot.
- Okay. - Oh, wait--oh, there's--
- Uh, Doug brought a lot of that energy.
- Up there? Okay.
- Okay. [laughter]
- Okay. Okay.
- Okay.
- That's typical Mathews. That's what he would do.
- Thanks a million, McDonald's. [laughs]
- Okay, look right in the camera
and say it right there.
- Thanks a million, McDonald's.
- And it was hard sometimes to keep a straight face,
to be honest with you.
It was very hard at times, 'cause the things we were
doing with the light meter or the camera and sitting them
and fixing them up, we had no idea.
- I got my McDonald's millions--million
at Hilton Head in South Carolina,
and it made me a...
Millionaire.
- [laughing] That's cute.
- Pretty close, okay.
- What I figured out at an early age in the bureau
is, you push it and then you think it's--you keep pushing.
You never know when you're gonna hit a wall.
And, of course, I never found the bottom.
The bottomless tea glass, right?
It's perfect for me. Just keep going.
And, of course, she did.
- Ron and I will s--
Ron-- Ugh.
- Ron and I will see you in Vegas.
Thank you, McDonald's.
[laughter]
- We knew it was such good evidence
having Gloria sitting here,
just making the story up.
And doing it with this sincerity--this fake sincerity.
It was--it was--as a criminal investigator,
it was an awesome thing to behold.
- There were so many different layers of the conspiracy
that we were investigating,
and the more sophisticated a scheme,
the more difficult it is to prosecute the case.
Now you have actual video production
that you can show a jury.
That's very powerful.
[upbeat music]
- By this time, literally almost the whole office now,
or a big majority of them, have been diverted to work on
what we call Operation Final Answer.
♪ ♪
- We worked seven days a week on a regular basis,
but at times it did not feel like work.
We had great camaraderie between all of the agents
that were working it, and we knew the mission is--
what we were trying to accomplish
was a noble one and a good one.
Um, so nobody ever complained about it.
♪ ♪
- Things were moving fast, and naturally,
we always want to move at our pace.
We wanna control the timing of things,
and we did not have that luxury.
The game was running. There was clock running
on how long we could keep it a secret.
Throughout this, we were really, really
racking up incredible evidence,
discovering new people, proving all different elements
of what was going on. And we kind of knew
the process of how these were placed,
but the one thing that was still out there
was how is Jerry Jacobson doing this?
That was kind of this nagging,
you know, this nagging question mark.
- What we had to vet out here is, who--
who was helping Jerry?
- Hilda Bennett was the CPA that would travel
with Mr. Jacobson to these various manufacturing plants.
And we didn't know, are they in cahoots?
On an investigation,
you just don't cut somebody out.
And so, we had to surveil Ms. Bennett as well.
- You want cheese? - Yep.
- I need to get a large coffee
with ten cream and five sugar.
- Anything else?
- Yep, another large coffee
with ten cream and five Equal.
- Okay.
- That is Equal? - Yep.
- Awesome, thank you. - You're welcome.
- Have a great day. - Thank you.
- Oh, that's perfect.
The one time I've seen Uncle Jerry was up in Georgia.
My brother went to go visit.
I stayed in the car.
I didn't get out of the car because he didn't directly
involve me 'cause he was always trying to protect me.
They don't want me to get involved.
- But giving you a little taste at the same time.
- I guess so, yeah, yeah.
♪ ♪
Uncle Jerry was a middle-aged guy.
Just normal, average height, normal, average build.
But size doesn't matter. Like my dad always used to say
and still does say, "As long as this works,
that's all I need. One finger."
And it's the truth.
- And the family that's backing you.
- Yeah, and a family that's backing you.
That's a big thing.
♪ ♪
Jerome was getting the tickets,
but when it came to...uh.. - Dispersing.
- Dispersing the tickets, I don't think he had
the resources to do the big
$1 million hits everywhere,
so I think that's where my brother
took the reins of everything.
So Uncle Jerry was getting
the tickets and selling them to my brother
and then my brother would sell them to other people
and it was just a--literally, it was a monopoly of scams.
Every ticket was a little different.
The agreement with Uncle Jerry
was depending on the value of the ticket.
The $1 million tickets were going for 50 grand.
Uncle Jerry would get the 50,
and then my brother would get half of whoever won.
And so, if they got the payments for 20 years
and so forth, he'd get half,
and then the winner would get half.
So it was a better deal for my brother, long-term,
than it was for Uncle Jerry.
[light music]
♪ ♪
I really didn't think much of it,
'cause someone had to win, so...
In my brother's eyes, it was, "Okay, well,
"instead of Joe Shmoe winning, I'm gonna make,
you know, John Shmoe win."
The money's still gonna go somewhere,
you know, were just redirecting it.
The $1 million ticket
was supposed to be our wedding gift.
We were married November 24, 1997.
- 1996.
- 1996...
let's start that over again.
[laughter]
Cut that.
Whoops, I'm getting my ass kicked tonight.
[laughter] Okay.
Um, but that was gonna be our gift, our wedding gift.
Free of charge. We didn't have to buy it.
- The McDonald's piece was in one of the little,
I guess you'd call them eggs,
like your kids get toys in at the gumball machines.
It was in there, in the back of the freezer,
underneath two ice cube trays.
I remember exactly how it sat.
- It was just chilling.
- I always looked up to my brother.
He was my protector, pretty much.
He would always come to visit me and throw me
a couple thousand dollars, like it was me giving away
a couple dollars to the kids.
This is our son Frankie. He dropped about $150,000
and we just decided to take a picture,
we kind of--thought it was kind of funny.
- I was so upset over that picture.
Because it was such dirty money
around such a clean, perfect baby.
- Ah, it was pretty crazy,
but...with that comes a price.
- Put it this way. Uncle Jerry called my home
at least three times a week
to tell Jerry what he had to do next.
And he and I would talk, you know,
sometimes 30 minutes, sometimes 45 minutes.
And my husband would meet him in Atlanta.
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
- I don't know how many people he hooked up.
- It was way more than I thought it was.
- My brother had a lot of connections
all over the place 'cause he had nightclubs
and certain things that he was doing
that I can't really mention, 'cause I'm sure the FBI's
gonna watch this tape someday. [laughs]
But there was a lot of things that he was into.
So my brother started, you know, expanding
to in-laws and brother-in-laws
and friends and friends of friends and...
and that's how he took this little small operation
and made it huge.
- I was working at the airlines
in Jacksonville here,
and a passenger came through named Colombo.
Right off the bat, he was very personable
and, um, a gentleman.
My last name was Italian,
so he seemed to take a liking to me.
First thing he said to me, he was like,
"Hey, here's some money, go eat, go eat."
And I just thought that was so funny because
that's how Italians are.
And it just made me feel
at ease with him, that this is a good person.
I never knew he was married. I didn't really care because
I didn't really have any relationship on that level,
you know, in my mind anyways.
One day, we were just driving around, and he says,
"Hey, I want to show you something," so we pulled over.
And, uh, he reaches around the backseat
and he pulls out the winning pieces.
It was, like, the whole thing. It's $100,000.
And I was like, "Wow, so many people are trying
"to win this thing, and you're sitting here
with all four pieces." [laughs]
You know, I'm like, "What?"
"If you're interested," he says,
"just walk in McDonald's
"and this is what you gotta do
and this is how it rolls."
He goes, "I'll give you 20,000 now
and I'll give you another 10,000 later."
And I thought, "Wow, that's a lot of money,"
You know what I mean? I could go buy me a car,
you know, I could go do some stuff, you know...
'cause back then, you know, I'm working at the airlines,
what am I making? You know, $10 an hour?
I was game for something exhilarating.
So he had me fly to Philly.
Being with I'm with the airlines, I can do that.
He picked me up at the airport,
we drove right to McDonald's
and I didn't even have to think for myself,
you know what I mean? Just follow the script.
And that's exactly what I did.
And I was just like, "Um, I--I'm the winner."
And he's like, "Huh.
So you're the winner."
It was just too easy.
But I didn't know...
the aftermath that was to follow.
I mean, 'cause there was things that nobody knew,
and I just kept it all to myself.
- My husband, he picked the winners,
but he kept picking Italians
on the East Coast.
They were--they were kind of being stupid about it.
Somebody was bound to get suspicious,
so I told my husband,
"I've got a friend in Jacksonville.
Bring some women into it and women of color."
- My name is Gloria Brown-Byer,
and I live in Jacksonville.
I've been here all my life.
I didn't wanna be interviewed anymore.
I don't want to talk to anybody else
about the McDonald's thing.
'Cause it was...
a whole lot.
I was a McDonald's $1 million winner.
And...this is the first time
that I've really just had the opportunity to just--
to just really just say, "Okay, I'm gonna lay all
my cards on the table and to tell everything."
I mean...I mean--even though
my sister was there, she don't know all the details.
I mean, she'll be hearing this
for the first time herself, some of this stuff.
I have a son, and I raised him as a single parent.
He, as a child, was very understanding.
We had a relationship where, if money was not available,
I'd discuss it with him, and we worked it out together.
I always had to work, and I always managed
to keep a job, but it was always a struggle.
Years passed by and I didn't see Robin
for some years and, um,
when she called me,
she told me she had got married.
I'm thinking maybe now she has somebody that can
look out for her and she was very happy being with Jerry.
I think it was in '97.
Robin had called me and said
she had something she wanted to discuss with me,
but we couldn't talk about it over the phone.
So Jerry asked me to come and visit.
It was at their home in South Carolina.
My first impression of Jerry Colombo was that
he was a real-life comedian type guy, you know.
And he treated me
just like I had been around the whole time.
But the thing that bothered me is that there was never
any time that she and I could be alone,
even when we went shopping, he went shopping with us.
[laughing]
One night I had just said,
"Can you just leave us alone for a few minutes?
Durn, Jerry."
And then he left us alone
just for a few minutes, and he came back.
We were not allowed to really discuss anything.
Finally he talked to me about a proposition,
and it was a proposition that would help me.
He asked me, was I familiar
with the McDonald's game piece?
I said yes.
So he said
people are picked to be winners.
This is how it's always been done.
And then he told me that
he would let me know what the next step was.
When I first got the offer...
I thought to myself
that it was a blessing that came knocking at my door.
And...
you know, I was going to church
and I was doing--trying to do the right thing and...
my son was young, and I was making...
Probably about $24,000 a year, it was just...
By the time taxes and stuff come out,
it's really nothing.
And I just wanted a better life,
and I just felt like this was my opportunity.
And I said, "Well,
this couldn't come to me if it wasn't meant for me."
- My brother was always joking around,
always making people laugh, always having a good time.
Very lighthearted, uh, but if you pissed him off,
then he can have a temper as well.
But he never was the type of person who would grab you
or, you know, threaten you... - Or rough you up.
You knew if he looked at you
when he told you exactly what he wanted you to do,
you knew you had to do it.
- The whole relationship changed.
It got to the point that I didn't talk to Robin anymore,
I only talked to Jerry Colombo.
And I finally got the information from him
that I was gonna be a $1 million winner
and that he needed me to come up with some money.
And I'm asking him, "Why?"
Then he said, "Everybody that wins
has to give some upfront money."
And I'm like, "How much?"
And he asked me how much I could come up with?
I said, "I really don't have any money,"
so he said, "Can you get money off your house?"
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
Can't back out now. He's told me too much.
I mortgaged my home to get my upfront money.
♪ ♪
I put all the stuff I worked hard for on the line
because I believed that this was my blessing.
I met him on the side of the road
and gave him my first portion of my money.
♪ ♪
It felt like something had just been ripped from me.
And, you know, to meet somebody
on the side of the road and give them cash money,
that much at one time...
that's more than I ever had in my hand at one time
in my life, and I just had to give it all away.
I just felt that I just had gave my life away
and I'm giving it to somebody I don't know much about.
Can I even trust this guy? You know.
♪ ♪
- Before my husband was working
the Monopoly fraud game,
we had my son, Francesco Gennaro Colombo.
[indistinct speech]
- Say hi to the camera, Frankie.
- Hi, camera! [laughter]
- Bye, camera. - Bye, camera.
Easy.
- Basketball.
- [laughing]
- I was, at times, really very happy.
I had my son. I had some money.
I should've at least been having a good time.
But I was never satisfied, ever.
Um, I went from home to home
thinking that one was gonna make it better.
You don't have friends.
You can't bring friends into that lifestyle.
Even though I adored my husband,
I found out he had a mistress on the side,
which I guess is a prerequisite
of an Italian gangster to have a mistress.
I was walking down the hallway to check on Frankie,
while he was sleeping, when I heard my husband
on the telephone saying, um...
some unsavory words to her.
And I barged in and I said,
"Who the hell are you talking to?"
And I took the phone from him.
And I took it, and I slammed it across his face.
- They did get in a lot of fights.
Um, she would say a lot of mean, nasty things to him.
She was very abusive, as far as physical--
slapping and so forth and so on.
Robin would just try swinging and clawing at him.
I mean, he would grab her hands and say, "Stop, stop, stop it."
[doorbell rings]
- Anytime I threatened to leave him,
Uncle Jerry would step in.
Send 15 grand, buy me a car,
um, whatever to appease me.
And, um...
So I wouldn't leave.
- My brother was always making money and he was never home.
He always had an excuse to go somewhere,
to go on a business trip, to be somewhere.
Um...so I knew he wasn't happy.
During the Monopoly situation,
my brother wanted to open up a club
in Ladson County, South Carolina.
I believe he was trying to get away
from the life of crime and he was trying to make
a legitimate business.
So he opened up a place called the Fuzzy Bunny.
- The Fuzzy Bunny opened its doors just a half hour ago,
opening the doors to a steamy controversy.
Gurnal?
- Well, Debbie, we are here at the Fuzzy Bunny,
which is located on Highway 78 and Royal,
just down the road from the Fairgrounds in Ladson.
And the entertainment and the dancing
have begun here at the club.
- He had some dancers, they were wearing, um,
bikini tops...
- And pasties. It was not full nudity.
- Wasn't fully nudity.
He wanted to do classy places.
- He had his morals.
- Yeah, he had-- he had his morals.
- I got girls in Daisy Dukes, tops.
I got volleyball courts being built outside, um...
I have live concerts here on the weekends.
Basically, that's about it, really.
- He wanted to make, like, a gentlemen's club.
And his goal was to open up four or five of these
all through Hilton Head and North and South Carolina.
The county kept on fighting him
and fighting him and fighting him.
They kept on shutting him down for this permit, that permit.
- That's not gonna stop you from...
- That's not gonna stop us. My attorney told me
we can--I mean, whatever we gotta do, we're gonna do.
I mean, I'm out here trying to earn a living for my family
just like you are, and that's it.
- I was proud of him
for actually doing something legal for once.
- The one time he tried to do something legit.
- Right?
- Some people have already trickled in
to the establishment here...
- Coming soon, Fuzzy Bunny's.
I hate it so much.
And I told my husband, I said, "I know you,
"you couldn't just open a club.
You have to try 'em out."
And I told him to stop.
- There is an existing court order
where the club cannot be opened.
- Three months later, I thought he had sold it
or whatever, so no more Fuzzy Bunny.
And then one night my son and I went out to dinner,
and he was like two, about two years old.
We're driving down the road, and I pass Fuzzy Bunny.
And I looked, and there's a bunch of guys
and I'm like, "Damn, there's my car."
I got a little closer, and I said,
"And there's my big, fat husband."
And I turned around and I jumped up on the curb and I--
And Jerry, he was sitting back
like a big, fat cat on the phone.
And I just punched him right in the jaw.
I said, "You are so divorced."
All the guys are just standing there
just staring, and I said,
"You're going down. All you motherfuckers
"are going down. Every single one of you.
I'm going to the FBI," I said,
"I'm going to the Witness Protection Program,"
I said, "so just watch out."
So I go to a payphone; I called my parents.
And I said, "Mom, I need you to take two names down."
She goes, "What the hell have you done?"
I said, "Well I just threatened three goons
"with the FBI, so if you don't hear from me in a couple days,
you are to contact them and give them these names."
And Uncle Jerry was the top of that--
on that...list.
They beat me home.
My husband and two big-ass goons.
And I said, "This is what I want.
I want a moving truck here and a divorce."
He goes, "Robin, you're never leaving me.
"There is no divorce.
You're stuck with me."
So I called Uncle Jerry, and he says,
"You married the wrong guy,"
and he asked me to marry him.
Yeah.
- Yeah.
And I told him no.
I thought, you know, "I'm never gonna get out of this,"
so I stayed.
But I was a prisoner in my own home.
- Jerry Colombo told me that I had to have
a South Carolina address.
And he had a cousin that lived at this particular spot,
and this was gonna be my address.
And at that point, I'm like,
"Oh, gosh."
This isn't what I was expecting.
He coached me on some things that I needed to say
and work on and believe...
I had to leave my voice on the voicemail as if it was my home.
Hi, this is Gloria.
Leave a message, and I'll get back with you.
He made me do it till I got it right.
You know, he wanted the right tone, you know.
It had to be happy.
One of the things that constantly crossed my mind
is that my life was in danger.
I had no other option but to take this process through.
Robin knew all of my family
and my son.
I just kind of felt like I was trapped.
It was no way out, but to go through it.
When time to turn the game piece in,
he picked me up with two men.
I didn't know either one of them.
I almost felt kidnapped in a sense,
you know what I'm saying? It's like,
"You're here, and you're gonna ride with us
and you're gonna do what we say."
"And you're gonna do it right."
All the way there,
Jerry Colombo never stopped talking.
Telling me what to do
and what you're gonna say.
I mean, he was just drilling--
and how you're gonna do it.
And they drove me to the McDonald's
that they had picked out that I was gonna go to.
He parked the car in the corner.
The ticket was in a little vial about this tall
with a cap on it.
There I was, walking down this block
in a place I had never been before.
It was like bank robbery or something, you know?
They on the block down at the end.
They don't wanna be seen.
They down the street, the getaway car.
And I'm like, "Oh, Lord, this could go so bad."
A lot of things was going through my mind.
Am I gonna lie enough to be believable?
Am I gonna mess up and then I'm in trouble?
Just all kind of stuff was going through my head.
Am I going to jail today behind this foolishness?
And at this point in time,
I was about to panic.
And I'm saying to myself...
"Oh, Lord, Jesus."
I wanted to cry before I got into the place
and I said, "No, you can't go in there upset."
I had to not be Gloria at that time,
I had to become somebody else to make it believable.
Here we go.
I had to go in and stand to this counter
and tell them that it looked like I'd been a winner.
The manager came out said, "Have a seat."
And I had to give them my information--
the fake telephone number, the fake address.
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
And then they finally came out and congratulated me.
The manager at the McDonald's, the cashiers,
everybody running around so happy
that they got the winner come to their McDonald's.
And there I was, I couldn't even hardly
put a smile on my face.
By the time I got to the car-- got back to the car,
Jerry Colombo was having a fit.
Because it had take-- it took too long.
And there he was, as soon as I get in the car,
"Okay, what took you so long?"
Then I had to explain to him.
"Well what were you doing all that time?"
"I was sitting waiting," you know.
"What did they tell you?"
So they told me they'd get back--be getting back with me.
I hung around another day
and then I came on back to Jacksonville.
And went back to work
like nothing had happened and I just had to wait.
- They don't want to see this club open up.
- And anybody in the Ladson-Summerville area
knows that place has been a bar for 50 years.
It's been a bikers' club. It's been a nightclub.
It's been a lounge.
- My brother would use
loopholes after loophole after loophole,
and they finally came up with one that was saying,
uh, you can't have female dancers within
1,000 feet of a school or something--
something to that nature, what it was.
So he turned the Fuzzy Bunny
into the Church of Fuzzy Bunny.
- The Church of Fuzzy Bunny's
- The Church of Fuzzy Bunny's.
- The transformation of their club
into a church...
- Dancing girls, alcoholic drinks,
and the Bible?
Lowcountry Preachers
say the switch from Fuzzy Bunny Club
to Fuzzy Bunny Church
is nothing but blasphemy.
- I really, honestly, didn't see the big deal in it,
I'll be honest with you. 100%, I swear.
And I mean, I'm a woman, but I--I really
didn't see the-- the huge deal.
- Those two don't mix, as far as I'm concerned.
Church and strip joints just don't mix.
- Yeah, but they can't fool people.
No good people is gonna be going in that place.
- I don't see nothing with having a place
where you can come in, say a few prayers,
have a couple drinks, see some women dancing.
- He liked to be the center of attention,
uh, and if you messed with him,
he would just play that game as long as it took.
- Marianne, you're next on the line
with Jerry Colombo, go ahead.
Go ahead, Marianne.
- Yes, um, I think what you're doing
is an abomination to God.
And it's wrong, it's wrong in the eyes of God.
And really, it's wrong in morals, too.
- All right.
- Thank you.
- Well, I guess God hasn't talked to you lately.
He came to me in a dream a couple weeks ago,
and he told me what I'm doing is fine.
- You say that with somewhat of a smirk on your face,
I mean, you had to have...
- I did have--I did have a dream one night, that's why.
- Well, we all have dreams,
I don't know if it's divine intervention.
- This one was divine.
- We never went. - No.
- No--but it sounded like a fun time, though.
- I mean, a little prayer, a little pasties...
- Right? [laughter]
- All the publicity that has come out of this situation
with Fuzzy Bunny's has earned owner, Jerry Colombo,
notice from "The National Enquirer,"
Comedy Central, the cable channel,
and this Friday, he has a scheduled guest appearance
on the David Letterman show.
- Oh, yeah. Yes.
- Jerry Colombo won a Dodge Viper.
- Jerry Colombo... - Jerry Colombo...
- Jerry Colombo...
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
- This is my first letter of congratulation.
They're congratulating me for being a $1 million winner
and explaining to me that I'll be getting $50,000
for, um, the next 20 years.
The check came in the mail,
which--that went to my fake address.
And Jerry brought it to me, and I told him
I'll deposit the check, and then he said,
"You didn't get any cash off of it?"
I'm like, "No, they gotta put a hold on it."
During that time, my bank account was always low,
so I had to go back to the bank
and insist on getting something.
So I got $2,000 and I gave it to him.
When it did clear, he was calling me to add
to the 2,000 and make it 25.
So I just took the money and gave it to him.
Didn't ask any questions.
He worked out a deal where
what I had, he took and, um,
for the first five years, I had to give them...
give Jerry Colombo $25,000.
Nothing changed for me.
Now, I never acted like I had money.
'Cause I was in a deeper hole than I was before I did it.
Took my mortgage up higher, of course.
I went from paying 300 and something a month
to $1,000,
so I was just like-- "Phew!"
That's when I found out about the taxes.
Jerry Colombo got $25,000 each time before taxes.
I didn't go out and buy anything.
I couldn't buy anything.
I was so stressed.
Well, Jerry Colombo always had to consult
with the head man. "Let me call Uncle Jerry."
Uncle Jerry is being reported to about everything.
During that time, I felt like Uncle Jerry
was the main mob man. [chuckles]
Within that first year, McDonald's wanted me to do
all this publicity.
But I just couldn't get into it.
Jerry Colombo's thing was, "They want you to advertise
"because you are the first black,
"and you're female.
And you got the $1 million."
And I'm saying to myself, "Yeah, but...
"I don't wanna keep talking to people
"and telling people this story
over and over and over and over and over."
But he said that we had to do this.
We stayed in the Four Seasons.
I think that was the first time I ever had
the opportunity to just order what I want off the menu
and not worry about a tab.
Then I came in here and the girl took so long
to come out and I said, "This must be real."
So, you know, it's just--it's just all beginning to set in.
Just--I just don't know how to describe it.
It's undescribable.
The best part about it, the whole thing,
is that I got a chance to meet Sherman Hemsley.
The marketing company, they had a big celebration.
It was something like a promotion type thing
and Jerry Colombo said,
"Uncle Jerry's gonna be in the audience."
And I'm like, "God..." [inhales]
So...
they had this big check for me to hold
and take a picture and then they say, "Speak!"
I'm like... [sighs]
Here I go.
More lies.
I was kind of out of it.
I could hear the cameras going.
The whole time I'm thinking about this mob man
in the audience.
Never seen a picture of him,
didn't know who I was looking for,
but I kept looking to see which one it could be.
After that, I finally just told him,
"I don't want to do anything else.
Don't--don't put me out to do anything else."
Jerry Colombo said, "Uncle Jerry was in the crowd.
He said you did great."
It just was little things like that, that made sure,
I guess, I stayed on my toes
and did what I needed to do and do it proper.
So I was still under that web the whole time.
I didn't know where to turn. I didn't know what to do.
There's just really no way out of it.
And I said to myself, "Now what's next?"
- As soon as I got that check, things changed.
I'm in his car, and we're going to this bank.
We needed to get the check cashed right there.
And all the money went right to Jerry's hands.
The teller said to me, he said, "Get that money.
It's $50,000 taxes on that.
Make sure you get that."
But I didn't think anything of it.
It just kind of-- you go numb, you know,
there's just no thought.
And that's kind of how I felt, I think,
with that money, 'cause it's not mine.
He said that he had to go to Uncle Jerry first,
give him his piece of pie
and then everybody gets a piece of pie
and it has to go, you know,
in that order before I can get my money.
So I--I kept calling him and calling him and he would like
call me back and say, "I'm gonna get the money for you,
"I got the money on me,
it's gonna be like another week," or whatever,
he just kept putting me off.
I heard the difference in his voice, like, like--
like, "Don't bug me. You're gonna get your money."
I--I believed...
that Gennaro owed Uncle Jerry money.
I believe the money got too big
to not take a bigger piece of that pie.
Because the spending habits became bigger and grander.
And I'm thinking, "Okay,
that's why I'm not getting my money."
- I'm wondering if the local banks will have the money...
- Mm-hmm. [laughter]
- You know, it's a small town.
- It's a cute town. - It really is.
- It's a great little town. - I love it!
- It's like living in the '60s.
- You could ask any number of people,
what would drive you to do what these people did?
- And the first one I peeled off, I believe,
was Pennsylvania Avenue, and the second one I peeled off
was $1 million instant prize winner
and it was like, "Wow, is this for real?"
- A lot of this is stealing money, using a device to do it
tricking somebody into it.
And then two or more do that, that's the "conspiracy."
Devereaux's gonna be so happy I said that.
But it's more than that.
- Breakfast sandwich? - Yeah, that's what it was.
A breakfast sandwich, a breakfast sandwich.
- A lot of 'em are good people,
they make bad decisions,
whether it be they have fallen into a financial problem
and they hear a nice way to get out of it.
- That's your motivation. "Okay.
"I'm gonna do it because, you know, I need money to--
for my kid's health or school or I'm gonna retire."
- Human nature
makes us do different things.
People want to justify what they did
or why they did it
so they can really live with themselves.
Everyone, everyone watching this show
cannot stand in front of a mirror,
look at themselves in the eyes
and say they've never done something that they wish
they could correct and take back.
- A couple of years later, I had this company that was
calling me on a regular basis trying to get me
to come on this trip.
I was very reluctant,
but they kept saying it was for all the winners.
They wanna find out where we are now,
what we're doing, you know, just a follow-up.
A lot of this stuff I just wanted to block out
and just forget it
and you just kind of went in and laughed and talked,
and, you know, it just--try to make me feel comfortable,
but I never felt comfortable about this whole thing.
- Um, basically, what I'd like you to do...
- Somebody asking me a question from over
on this side, somebody asking me a question
from over on this side-- that's when I knew
that something wasn't right.
I was about to get sick to the stomach because I knew...
And I was trying to cut 'em short, and they wouldn't--
they wouldn't stop asking me questions.
- Um...so did you-- when did you
decide to move back to Jacksonville?
- I felt like an interrogation went on because when I came--
when I was in there, I was like, I could feel
my adrenaline building a little bit because
I knew that it was...
that they wasn't asking me questions.
The questions they was asking me was to just
get it on record, how I spent the money.
But I felt it.
That feeling is something else.
- Okay, let's-- let's rehearse it, okay?
And this--you talk to the camera.
- Okay, okay.
- You can do it slow
because this is like a rehearsal--
- It--it might have been, um,
but you're about to deprive someone of their freedom,
you know, their future,
everything from family...
it's not meant to be that kind of fun for us at all.
It's not fun at all
to deprive liberty to someone.
- We just walked out of there,
and I was kind of numb walking out the door,
like, "Oh, this is it.
Something is gonna happen from this."
- It wasn't much longer after the Fuzzy Bunny situation
I got real depressed.
I didn't eat. I was just so distraught.
Then I got mad.
I looked over at him
you know, I told him about Uncle Jerry.
I said, "You know he asked me to marry him?"
As soon as I said the words,
I was sorry, 'cause I could tell
it was a real thing.
'Cause at first I thought,
this could be a setup, you know,
maybe they're trying to find out my loyalty
and it wasn't a setup.
And so he went and cussed Uncle Jerry out.
The next day, we're driving down the road.
Jerry's in the passenger seat,
I'm driving, Frankie's crying in the car seat.
It's bothering Jerry more than it is me.
And we got in an argument.
And so he says, "Rob, I gotta put him down,
lay him down. It's enough."
And so he took him out of his car seat,
and I'm like, "God, Jerry, come on."
And a little teardrop came down my face and I thought,
you know, "I'm never gonna get out of this."
[baby crying]
[horn blares]
[crashing, glass shatters]
[bright tone]
ROBIN COLOMBO: He is not some sweet little old man.
He's a freakin' gangster.
♪ (DRAMATIC MUSIC PLAYS) ♪
FRANK COLOMBO: I was not sure if the accident was an accident.
It could've been a possible hit. Things were getting really ugly.
CHRIS GRAHAM: Operation Final Answer was moving fast.
Everything was on the table.
We thought, "Well, how much bigger can this get?"
And it would get bigger.
"How much further back could it go?"
And it would go back further.
One of my biggest regrets
is being involved in this McDonald's thing.
FRANK: If you can get away with something
over and over, and over... You only gotta be caught once.
♪ (MUSIC CONCLUDES) ♪