This morning, the Federal Bureau of Investigation
arrested eight individuals for their involvement
in a nationwide scheme to defraud McDonald's
and its customers.
(CASH REGISTER DINGS)
The question was still ongoing.
How did he get the game pieces?
WOMAN: He did not cooperate for the fact
that his lawyers would not allow him to.
We were preparing for a war.
We didn't know if Dittler Brothers was involved.
There might be somebody there inside.
The FBI shut everything down and started gathering evidence.
WOMAN: Jacobson was not a McDonald's employee.
He was in fact an employee of Simon Marketing.
The FBI showed up and shut us down.
One bad apple wrecked the lives of so many people.
MAN: The only reason he got caught was because
he pissed somebody off and somebody went to the FBI.
FRANK COLOMBO: I know who broke the case.
I'm not sure if I feel comfortable
saying who broke the case.
INTERVIEWER: Do you know who the informant is?
I do.
- INTERVIEWER: Are we... - Next question.
[bright tone]
[birds chirping]
[suspenseful music]
♪ ♪
I'm just gonna tell you the whole story.
So I had the $50,000 debt because of the taxes.
I was screwed.
Jerry's dead. I'm left holding the bag.
♪ ♪
And I mean, I don't have $50,000 for the IRS.
I'm not going down like that.
I was just thinking,
"Okay, I gotta do something here.
I gotta do something."
♪ ♪
I called the IRS,
and I said, "Listen",
"I know you know I owe $50,000,
but I have a story for you."
So I told the IRS the whole story verbatim.
♪ ♪
Now, it might've been a year later,
my accountant, we were talking, and...
he said, "You know",
you're the reason why all this went down."
I said, "What?" He said, "Yeah."
Because they reported it to the FBI or whomever
and it just busted wide open after that,
but I had no idea.
All I was trying to do was get myself out of a $50,000 debt.
♪ ♪
And the next thing I knew,
everybody is being investigated.
I was kind of scared coming out with this.
I didn't want anything to happen to me,
'cause I've come a long way,
and I don't wanna ever go back.
And so I was kind of hesitant about this whole mess.
And I mean, 'cause when you're quiet for so long
about things that took a turn
and you didn't know why it took a turn,
then you found out
that you're the reason that it made the turn,
that really... you know, I don't know what.
It just made me be more quiet, you know what I mean?
♪ ♪
It does, but I don't like that adjective.
I don't like that, because in my mind,
I never even knew that I was the one.
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
[doorbell chimes]
He was not at his Lawrenceville home today,
the man neighbors here have jokingly nicknamed...
Called him the Hamburglar.
The FBI says 58-year-old Jerome Jacobson
was the ringleader who kept...
There was a lot of publicity on this case at the time.
There was an enormous amount of publicity.
The press was all around the house, on the streets.
I'd get phone calls continuously.
All hours of the night, they would call.
Jacobson provided the winning game pieces
to his friends and associates, who acted as recruiters.
We were totally exhausted.
It just took so much energy to get out in the public.
The FBI believes those recruiters
passed on the tickets to other friends and relatives.
So we had this big buildup of the case
in anticipation of the trial.
Eight people who worked for the company
that runs McDonald's games like Monopoly
and "Who Wants to be a Millionaire?"
are under arrest, charged with rigging the games...
People who run the McDonald's Monopoly game...
If you're just tuning in,
breaking news here on 1010 WINS.
A plane has crashed into the World Trade Center.
Uh, this happening just a matter of minutes ago.
♪ ♪
After 9/11, you know, everything changed.
So this McDonald's story just vanished.
It did very quickly get eclipsed.
All right, we're under attack.
And you kind of snapped out of it.
The world changed,
and what went from being a case
that the entire office and others
were, you know, feverishly working on
kind of went back to primarily just Doug and Rick.
Many, many of us were, you know, immediately changed.
You were now a terrorism agent
and working, you know, all day, all night on that.
[birds chirping]
We didn't put any local stories on the front page
for, like, four months,
so even if we had updates,
they were going back of the paper.
So it just kind of vanished here
and then vanished off the front pages everywhere.
♪ ♪
After 9/11, the McDonald's was a memory.
Everybody forgot about it.
Except the FBI and the Justice Department.
[chuckles]
They... you know, they proceeded.
♪ ♪
The trial was here in Jacksonville
here in this building.
It lasted three weeks,
and it was almost like a couple trials within a trial
because once we have
the overall scheme,
then had to place evidence
just upon each of the defendants.
You have those grand hopes of being a million-dollar winner.
Devereaux says Jacobson pocketed those pieces
and, in exchange for a cut of the prize,
gave them to friends and relatives.
Mark is, at that stage, coming on very strong
with lots of threats
about the consequence to our client
and the terrible situation our client was in
and how much time he was gonna get, and...
generally we don't respond favorably to threats.
♪ ♪
It was pretty clear
that Mark Devereaux was coming full force.
I always love wiretaps
because you just bring in the little recorder
and you push play and there's this client...
Not only is he making a confession.
You are listening live
to your client committing the crime.
♪ ♪
Mark was like the bulldog
that bit the tire of the truck
and couldn't let go,
and ultimately
I sicced Janice on him.
[chuckles]
And she eventually brought him around.
♪ ♪
Ultimately it's all up to how you will define victory.
In this case, it wasn't trial, but it was
working through what was best for him plea-wise.
We ended up working out something
that was definitely livable and favorable for our client
from a very difficult position to start with.
- [chuckles] Right. - So, you know...
We didn't have much of a defense.
♪ ♪
According to federal investigators,
Jacobson has pleaded guilty to taking those pieces
and giving them to friends and family to redeem.
Once we made our deal and Jerry pled guilty,
then he became kind of the instrument of the prosecution.
Because Jerry began cooperating,
the prosecutor did agree to do a motion to the court
for reduction based on substantial assistance.
But you are totally at their discretion.
They could suck you dry for information
and then not help you.
♪ ♪
We had eight original individuals who were indicted,
which turned into 53 people.
And out of the 53 that were there,
everybody pled but seven people
who decided to go to trial.
They didn't plead because they didn't like Devereaux's,
you know, aftershave or some crap.
It's because we had them. That's why.
♪ ♪
They got me on one count of mail fraud,
and I pled to the one count because...
I did it; I did it.
These people that I gave tickets to
did not know I lied to them.
So they really... They got screwed.
But once you plead guilty, it's too late.
But that's the mentality
of people who never been in trouble.
You just get so scared.
It's like you're gonna lose everything you have,
you're gonna go to jail, and...
somebody's gonna be screwing your wife, and...
you know, your kids... they're not gonna know you anymore
and stuff like that.
And guys get scared, so that's why they plead guilty,
to get it over with.
♪ ♪
My plan at the time was to enter a plea of not guilty,
so that's what I did.
If you have no knowledge
of a conspiracy or a crime,
you can't be guilty.
♪ ♪
Seven went to trial.
Two, following my opening statement,
ended up changing their pleas
from not guilty to guilty
because they didn't realize
the evidence was more than compelling.
♪ ♪
The light at the end of the tunnel
was a train coming at them,
and they wanted to get out of the way,
so they pled guilty.
[train wheels grinding]
♪ ♪
Certainly it was a crime
when Jacobson stole that game piece.
But then you had the fraudster,
and the fraudster is the one turning in that game piece
and saying that he or she won it
according to these rules.
♪ ♪
Part of the government's theory was that McDonald's
have been defrauded by folks like George Chandler
because they had violated the game rules.
♪ ♪
Game rules, you know, in a federal court of law,
the federal statutes apply...
Mail fraud and whatnot.
I have never tried a case where the "law"
is the game rules of a hamburger company.
You literally have a federal prosecutor
suggesting that if you broke the McDonald's game rules,
you must be a criminal.
There were those that would really question,
"Well, why are you even prosecuting it?
It was just a game."
There's a difference between a law
and rules of a game.
But even if an individual was tricked
and their friend was telling them,
"Why don't you do this?
You act like you're the winner,"
well, you committed fraud because you deceived,
you tricked Ronald McDonald into letting go of money.
What gave the federal government
the ability to prosecute this
was that they used the United States mail.
If you have a scheme
to trick somebody out of property or money
and you use our United States mail...
That's a crime.
♪ ♪
The government dug its heels in on that
and took the position that
if someone found that game piece on the street
and cashed it in, they'd be committing a federal crime.
But the McDonald's witnesses called by the government
admitted on cross-examination that
there's nothing that prohibits a transfer of a ticket.
So St. Jude could get a ticket given to them as a gift.
George Chandler can get the ticket by buying it
or having it handed to him.
All that was perfectly lawful.
Now, of course,
the defense made a big deal of St. Jude, saying, "See?"
"McDonald's didn't even follow the rules...
Didn't follow their own rules."
They did follow the rules.
McDonald's gave St. Jude's Hospital a $1 million donation
as a gesture of goodwill and fairness.
♪ ♪
I don't think the average person
would think, if they got a game piece
from somebody else,
by most any circumstance,
that they were doing anything wrong,
even though they were telling a lie.
It wasn't a crime.
They didn't know, though, that the piece was stolen.
It's like the difference of buying a car that's stolen
versus, "Oh, look, I got a really good deal."
And had they known, I would suspect many of them,
if not all of them, wouldn't have bought it.
♪ ♪
I was a witness for the U.S. government
for Mark Devereaux.
I remember a question that Devereaux asked me.
He said, "When did you find out the game pieces were stolen?"
I said, "You told me they were stolen."
[chuckles]
If he could have come up and punched me at that time,
he probably would have. [chuckles]
But he stepped right into it, 'cause it was the truth.
♪ ♪
Jerry had never told anyone.
No one in the whole process
knew that he was stealing the game pieces.
People said, "Well, how? You gotta be kidding me."
I mean, you know that"... You know.
No.
I knew Jerry was doing something wrong,
selling the game pieces.
But the reality is,
I think he had the right to place them wherever he wanted.
He was just taking money for 'em.
There's only one witness that could say
what George Chandler knew,
and that was his foster father, Mr. Dwight Baker.
And he told the jury in substance that,
"I hoodwinked George Chandler."
And Dwight Baker made it clear to the jury
that George was not a member of the conspiracy.
He said that. Sworn testimony.
The FBI did a wiretap for two months.
Hundreds and hundreds of phone calls.
Not one word about George Chandler
having any complicity and knowledge
of tickets being stolen or embezzled.
The judge agreed with us,
and he announced that he was gonna add a jury instruction
that the juries could not convict
unless Chandler knew the ticket was stolen
or unlawfully obtained.
We knew then we should win the case.
[birds chirping]
Well, today the Lawrenceville man
who admitted fixing the McDonald's Monopoly game
a few years ago testifies in federal court.
Jerome Jacobson took the winning tickets
while working as head of security
for the company that ran the game
and that he hired recruiters...
The obvious question
and one of the things that was important
for us to present to the jury was,
how in the world could he, Jerome Jacobson,
steal winning pieces from the fortress
that was Simon Marketing and Dittler
while he was being accompanied
by a lady from an accounting firm?
How did he do it?
♪ ♪
When I put a witness on the stand,
especially like Mr. Jacobson,
I try to do the defense's job
before I let the defense do it, telling them, basically,
"Mr. Jacobson, you're a thief,"
and make him admit that.
I don't want the jury thinking that I'm some friend of his,
'cause I'm not a friend of Mr. Jacobson.
Just tell the truth.
What'd you do?
♪ ♪
The way this would work is that, you know,
the airports were a big hub for him.
It's how he got around.
And he would utilize the frequent-flier lounges,
the crown rooms, you know.
He would frequent those a lot.
♪ ♪
Hilda Bennett was accompanying Jerry Jacobson,
but she is not
walking into the men's bathroom facility with him.
Hilda's supposed to be with him at all times.
She was never, ever, under any circumstances,
to give the briefcase full of winning tickets
to Jerry and Jerry alone.
[toilet flushes]
♪ ♪
The briefcase had combinations on it.
Jerry had his combination.
Hilda had hers.
♪ ♪
And somehow he found out her combination.
♪ ♪
He had to look over his shoulder at Simon
like he did at the vault
and get the combination.
♪ ♪
He said he went into a stall where he had privacy
and he just opened up the briefcase.
[locks click]
The game pieces were in an envelope
that was sealed with a sticker
that if you remove the sticker,
it would show that it was removed.
This is before 9/11.
He'd take a little penknife...
Open it up,
take those game pieces.
He knows one of them
is a winning million-dollar game piece.
♪ ♪
He brought commons with him
so that it would have the right amount of pieces on it,
'cause on the outside of the envelope, it would say,
"37 pieces."
So he couldn't take the winners out.
It wouldn't be 37 anymore.
So he had to bring some to replace it.
For some reason, no idea why,
he got sent these...
The stickers that went on the envelopes.
He got a sheet of them sent to him by mistake.
You know, he showed me the envelope.
Had that little silver hologram on it.
He said, "Nobody can get into these
"because this is sealed and it's got a special mark on it
if anybody tries to get into it."
So he would close the envelope
and put on a new sticker, and nobody was the wiser.
♪ ♪
But had he not gotten those stickers,
he never could've done this.
♪ ♪
[gavel banging]
I mean, nobody suspected that,
and that's how he did it.
♪ ♪
After he stole all the game pieces,
he would end up going to these factories
and making a big play.
"Ladies and gentlemen, please see,
"here is the seed pack
"which contains one of the winning game pieces.
"Please, everyone, look at it
"to ensure that it has not been tampered with.
"Look, I take my job so seriously,
I even wear a bulletproof vest."
And everybody's thinking,
"Wow, this guy is, like, going really overboard."
But it was all a show.
The biggest break in the chain to me
was the security auditor, Hilda.
But I can't totally blame her
because I've seen a lot of people not stand up to Jerry.
They'd let him take a little pass
rather than go in for a confrontation.
Our first thought was,
the two of them had to be in cahoots with one another.
How else could it work?
I wanna get two really good interviewers on here
'cause I wanna know once and for all,
is she involved?
Is she not involved?
So we interviewed Hilda Bennett
and the other people from the CPA firm.
They weren't involved.
We had no money trading hands.
Nothing to show that they were, you know, a part of the scheme.
Thinking, "My God, how could you not be involved?"
But she turned out to be, you know, an honest lady
and just, you know, got had by Jerry
like he did everybody else.
I think he told me at some point, he goes,
"Yeah, and these CPA firms that we're hiring to follow me
"and, you know, 'legitimize' this process,
they're a bunch of idiots."
As he coined it as,
"I'm stupid, but I was smarter than those guys."
[laughs]
[seagulls cawing]
We're near the end of nearly six hours of closing arguments
in which defense attorneys have tried to convince the jury
that their clients are victims too.
They say they were played
just like everyone else in this scam.
George Chandler's lawyer insists
his client thought he was helping his foster father
hide assets during a sticky divorce.
This case goes to the jury next,
and what they have to decide
is whether they have any reasonable doubt
any of these guys intended to be part of a scam.
Until trial, Jerry had never told anyone
that he had actually went into the bathroom
and changed out the game pieces
and was stealing the damn things.
He never told anybody.
In order for it to be a crime,
you have to have knowledge that it's stolen.
No one knew.
♪ ♪
When the jury gave their verdict to the judge,
there was kind of a...
respectful but pregnant silence.
♪ ♪
And then the judge said,
"Guilty."
♪ ♪
It confirmed my worst fear...
♪ ♪
And that was hard.
It was difficult.
♪ ♪
When you put 12 people together in that box,
it's something magical.
And I'm not saying anybody is a lie detector,
but most of us can, after a while,
go, "You know, that just doesn't pass the smell test."
♪ ♪
We're very pleased with the verdict.
I think this shows that
there's no easy way to make money but to work hard.
And I think it shows that fraud is not a game
and fraud is just thievery.
Thanks a lot.
♪ ♪
George never wavered, nor did I,
in our belief in his innocence,
and we went right to work to put together
a comprehensive motion for judgment of acquittal.
We knew we would appeal,
but that doesn't change the fact
that you've been found guilty.
♪ ♪
I remember coming home
and talking to Russell about the verdict.
I remember Russell asking me...
♪ ♪
If I was gonna have to go to jail.
And I didn't know how to answer him.
I didn't think he was serious.
I was like... I was like,
"You're not serious."
You know, all you think about at ten years old is
going behind bars... You see all these bars on TV,
and that's jail to you.
♪ ♪
I was definitely afraid for him.
Am I gonna get to see my dad anymore?
Am I gonna get to see him for the next ten years?
Is he going away for life?
It's heart-wrenching for sure, 'cause you wanna say,
"Well, Daddy, when am I gonna see you?
What do you have to do?"
You don't... you don't know.
♪ ♪
And he loved up to me, and I took him under my arm,
told him it was gonna be all right
and we'd... we'd get through it
and...
Tell him not to worry,
that...
That the truth would eventually win the battle.
♪ ♪
Robin Lisa Colombo took part in a nationwide scheme
to steal the game winnings.
The maximum penalty of a single count of mail fraud
is five years in prison and a $250,000 fine
along with restitution.
18 months.
♪ ♪
Because of my past record, you know,
they were throwing out all kind of numbers,
ten years and this,
but when we went for sentencing, the judge said,
"That was so long ago.
We'll forget about that."
He gave me the year and a day.
The judge, he gave me six months of ankle brace
and then 12 months' probation.
♪ ♪
I wore an ankle bracelet, yes, sir, for two years.
Two years' house arrest and probation.
When I was in the courtroom that day,
I was thinking to myself,
"I'm gonna be going to jail,
"and I gotta make plans for my son
"to figure out who gonna be
the best person for him to stay with."
♪ ♪
He said, "We're not gonna lock you up.
I said, "Well, that's a good thing."
♪ ♪
My full sentencing was that I had to pay restitution.
My house is still... Has a lien on it,
but it was a sigh of relief
that I'd be able to be home with my child
and to take care of my own child.
♪ ♪
White-collar crimes notoriously
do not get high sentences.
If they haven't committed another crime,
they have no priors, and they cooperate,
they may only get two years' imprisonment.
♪ ♪
Jerry Jacobson got the most severe sentence.
It was approximately three years.
He pled guilty,
received a 37-month sentence, I think.
And I would consider that a victory.
He should've got more.
It just doesn't square up to me,
but again, like I said, I'm just an agent.
Most agents probably believe that,
so we're glad we don't wear the robe.
37 months in prison,
particularly with somebody who has MS,
is not exactly an easy sentence either.
A night is a long time in prison.
[chuckles]
The sympathetic heart of a criminal defense lawyer.
♪ ♪
As part of Jerry's sentence,
he was ordered to pay, I think,
somewhere in the neighborhood of $12 million in restitution
and, I believe, forfeiture as well.
It was more than he could pay.
And so at a certain point, it becomes...
irrelevant.
[cell door clanks shut]
When I went to jail,
you meet with the unit manager,
and he says, "You owe $3 1/2 million."
I said, "Yeah."
He said, "Do you have it?"
I said, "Yeah, it's in my locker.
"I brought it in with me.
Maybe if you come and help me, we could carry it in here."
[chuckles]
To this day, I pay $160 a month.
Tomorrow.
Tomorrow. [chuckles]
♪ ♪
[yelps]
[sighs]
[sniffles]
Ugh, these heels.
I've had a crazy journey, really,
after Jerry, my husband, died.
I was a shell of a woman. It was horrible.
I couldn't eat. I couldn't do nothing.
So I didn't wanna be here no more.
[sniffles and groans]
So I...
I took a lot of pills.
[melancholic music]
I told Jerry, I said, "I'll see you soon."
♪ ♪
That should've killed me. That didn't.
♪ ♪
Jerry had a lot of faults.
I know he cheated on me. I know he lied.
♪ ♪
But he was also my mediator, you know,
my middleman that kept me from...
the family, from people hurting me.
♪ ♪
He always took my side. [sniffles]
I can't find my... Where's my lighter?
♪ ♪
Colombos, I knew they'd blame me.
How could you not?
I'm the driver.
I would.
You blame everybody. You blame God.
You blame... you know.
[sniffles]
So...
When my mother went to prison after Jerry died,
it ended up becoming a...
big war between
my family and the Colombos.
- See Mommy. - See Mommy.
They ended up keeping my brother,
who's three years old at the time.
Hi, camera. Hi, camera.
I would call them all the time,
trying to get him.
They would never let me see him.
♪ ♪
I was in prison, counting the days
until I'm gonna see my damn son.
And Monopoly put me back in prison.
♪ ♪
I lost my son, my husband.
I was losing my freedom again.
I didn't know what I was gonna do.
[sniffles]
[soft dramatic music]
♪ ♪
He never once apologized, ever, for doing it,
first of all.
I don't think he's regretting anything he did.
[scoffs] He pulled off a $20 million McDonald's scam.
He's famous, almost, you know?
You're doing a movie about him.
♪ ♪
Talking about the consequence,
I remember his remorsefulness and grief
when he realized that other people were being charged.
He didn't imagine that could happen.
[indistinct chatter]
[laughter]
We did not realize what it was going to do
at the time that Jerry was caught.
Our people were all vilified.
We did nothing wrong.
We were doing...
- We're doing our job. - As we were supposed to.
- We were just doing our job. - That's it.
♪ ♪
After they announced
the closing of the plant to everybody,
we had no choice.
You didn't get a severance or anything.
You were just terminated, basically.
You would be amazed at the reaction and the emotion
you saw in a lot of the people.
Some of them just busted out crying.
So we all lost our jobs because...
- Basically yeah. - This place disappeared.
[chuckling] There is no Dittler Brothers.
It just all came crashing to an end
because of one person.
It hurt a lot of people.
I would hope he feels bad just because we built friendships.
I remember the joke around, you know,
they wished he would come back up here
and sit in the lobby
and just everybody, as they walk by, slap him.
I think he would've needed protection
if he came back up to the plant,
'cause he was just...
What he done over ten years...
♪ ♪
He has never once mentioned
all the chaos and destruction
that he caused with his little project,
and he didn't even seem to think about it.
He has a variety of thoughts about why he did it,
but basically he said it was utter stupidity on his part.
♪ ♪
Jerry and I were married
from 1973 until '76.
Let's put it this way:
it went from worse to unbearable.
♪ ♪
When a child is brought up a certain way,
they wind up a certain way.
He never felt worthy of much.
He was raised without money,
and he felt like he played second fiddle to Marvin
because Marvin was getting the financial support.
♪ ♪
We were... we were friends, but...
[clicks tongue]
We're not brothers, if that's a word you wanna say.
No, there are no fun stories.
There are no fun stories, no.
♪ ♪
At some time in his life, he decided,
"I want what all these other people have."
He wanted people to look up at him
for his prestige,
the money that he had in the bank,
so he could suppress all the negative feelings.
♪ ♪
And he achieved what he wanted to.
He had money. He had status.
He had everything...
♪ ♪
But then paid dearly for it.
♪ ♪
He may be remorseful, but he also may think,
"Well, I did have it once."
Scarlet, McKinley, Russell,
Taylor, Pruitt!
- What? - Hey, hey!
[buzzer blares]
Wake up!
You should... You can't wear that.
Why?
It's church, Pruitt.
It's church, the Lord's house. Come on.
I knew the odds of winning the appeal
were very, very slim.
I was just sentenced to probation,
so I remember thinking...
"What's the point?"
But I wanted to appeal because I...
I needed justice to be served.
♪ ♪
Okay. We ready?
Let's roll. Load up.
We wanna head this direction.
When I was convicted, Mark Devereaux,
he knew that the evidence was overwhelming
that I was not involved in a conspiracy.
Mr. Chandler certainly didn't have clean hands.
He was willing to take money
from a lady that should possibly get 50%
of whatever the money is through a divorce.
He was lying to McDonald's, willing to do that too.
Course, there was no wife.
That was all a phantom story.
The appeal that we wrote disagreed and said
that type of approach is really
standing criminal law on its head.
But the percentage of criminal convictions
that get reversed by the 11th Circuit
is down around 2%,
so we felt were right,
but being right doesn't always mean that you win.
♪ ♪
The court of appeals agreed with us.
We won the appeal in 2004.
You know, the world was now making sense again.
♪ ♪
Yeah, I was eventually acquitted.
The problem was, I still lost a lot of people's trust,
and that hurts.
And that's... there's real damage there, you know,
real and lasting and permanent damage.
♪ ♪
For a long time, I was angry with Dwight.
I felt violated.
Dwight was my friend.
I trusted him,
and I looked up to him.
- Hey, George. - Hey, Dwight. How are you?
How's the family?
They're all good.
I told Dwight, "I forgive you."
"I'm not angry with you anymore."
♪ ♪
I would never want anybody
to go through the pain and the hell that...
the people that've been involved
because of my behavior have had to go through.
You pay for some bad choices.
And the sad part is,
everybody around you pays for your bad choices.
♪ ♪
[laughter]
- He split it with you. - Yeah.
[laughs]
We all make mistakes.
He shouldn't be faulted for it the rest of his life.
♪ ♪
You know, it's hard to move on sometimes.
You can't ever quite get back to normal,
but you can forgive and you can extend grace to people.
♪ ♪
I just wanted to do better in life
and didn't think of all the repercussions
that was involved.
I did a crooked deed, and I've been knocked down.
♪ ♪
Just get up and keep moving.
And that's what I did.
♪ ♪
Probation officer told me as far as Robin was concerned,
no contact at all.
Told her that I'm not gonna
associate myself with her,
that I don't need no more trouble.
[knock at door]
Just recently...
Who is it?
I saw her for the first time since all of this happened.
Ahh! Hey, hey.
- What's up, girl? - My friend.
The first thing I'm gonna get you is a louder doorbell.
[laughter]
We're like night and day.
I don't know... we just grew to be friends for some reason,
you know?
I mean, she's a good person.
She really is.
- You want a cup of coffee? - A half a cup.
[chuckles]
♪ ♪
Once we all got indicted, I was the asshole.
I was an outcast because I got them involved.
[indistinct chatter]
You start over, you know?
I started over umpteen times.
♪ ♪
He never got any money. Nothing.
And then he lost his career.
I lost him as a friend.
It's one of the regrets that I have.
I mean, I got a lot of regrets in my life, but...
Michael was one of my big regrets.
♪ ♪
I was put at risk.
I was put at risk of maybe never seeing grandkids,
kids, wife, going to jail.
I mean, I'm not a dumb person, but I did a dumb thing.
And when I thought it was over, it was over.
I never...
And that hurt. That hurt.
We haven't spoken since.
We have not spoken since.
♪ ♪
Did I do stupid things? Yeah.
Do I regret it? Of course.
The only thing is, though, I met you.
That was a real benefit out of the whole thing.
The whole thing. I mean, I did it.
I could've got a real dick as a prosecutor.
I ended up making a personal friend,
so there's always a benefit in life.
I think one of the funniest
was when you invited my wife and I to your 60th birthday.
Yeah.
And then when you said,
"Well, this is the guy that prosecuted me,"
everybody's like...
They didn't know what to say.
[laughter]
♪ ♪
You learn to live with everything.
I've learned to live with cancer.
So I mean, you know,
your life changes.
Your priorities change.
♪ ♪
I was excommunicated from the Church and still am.
I hope to change that someday,
because I have a lot to still contribute.
Yeah.
♪ ♪
They always say you gotta fall before you can rise,
and I seen my dad grow so much stronger over time
because of the adversity that he had faced.
♪ ♪
I know McDonald's was victimized,
but they didn't lose anything here.
What are you gonna say, their sales dipped?
That's a loser.
But it's all the people that participated in this contest
and thought that it was legitimate.
And then the by-product victims:
Simon Marketing was one. Dittler Brothers.
I mean, some of these people, they lost their job in a day.
♪ ♪
I'm gonna go on to the next case,
but the people that depend on that job, they're gone,
all because of one man's greed,
Jerry Jacobson.
He's by himself on that.
♪ ♪
If somebody said to me that what he did
was a victimless crime...
I would tell them they've lost their mind.
How can you say that, you know?
I mean, you wrecked so many people's lives.
If he said that...
Honestly, it would just be...
It'd just be an excuse.
♪ ♪
[sniffles]
♪ ♪
Yeah, he definitely wants to put it in his past.
Uh...
probably about a month ago.
Yeah, he doesn't wanna think about it,
don't wanna talk about it, nothing.
So when I teased him, I said, "You got any tickets?"
[chuckles]
And, you know, he didn't even respond.
[laughs]
He violated the law. He went to jail.
He's got $12 million in restitution.
He's testified. He's been on the news.
This case keeps, now 18 years later,
getting attention,
and all they wanna do is live their life.
He wants to live his remaining life in peace
without having to answer for this
to everybody around him again.
I think he got off pretty easily.
You talked about he got a slap on the wrist.
Because he still has his life.
He still has his nice house.
He still has cars.
Unless they find the money
that he's got buried probably someplace.
Oh, yeah.
[laughing] Oh, yeah.
Contingency plan. Come on, it's him.
I would have money buried someplace.
Come on.
[laughter]
The truth of the matter is,
the vast majority of these winners,
they're good people.
They just did something stupid,
and there's not anybody that doesn't do something stupid.
♪ ♪
Many didn't recognize the severity of it
and probably had no idea
that they were committing a federal crime.
"It's so easy. This is all you have to do.
You're not hurting anybody."
They just wanted some free, easy money
to do something that we all know is wrong.
♪ ♪
The McDonald's case was what we call a career case.
Not all agents get a career case.
You're doing something that it seems like
they would make a movie about it.
[applause]
♪ ♪
I'm really happy that everything ended how it did,
that we were able to put the game back.
1 in 4 wins!
It's still today at McDonald's
and a very fun game.
Much more secure, and, you know,
we just wanna make sure that justice was served,
and I do feel that it was.
John Ashcroft, who was the attorney general,
thanked me for the service to the country,
and that was a really proud moment.
I have no letters from Doug. [laughs]
♪ ♪
When you look back now, which I don't really do much...
[laughs] For whatever reasons,
you're just like,
"This minefield of shit that we went around,
and somehow we were golden."
♪ ♪
I could've looked at that sticky note and said,
"Yeah, whatever. What is that?"
So without the informant on this case,
never would've happened.
Never would've happened. It started right there.
No. Why would I call the FBI?
I have no idea that that was even gonna be a factor.
I never heard from anyone again...
IRS, detectives, FBI, McDonald's,
Jerry, nobody.
It was like I never even was involved.
Can you imagine the IRS giving something to the FBI
that turns out to be a case... [chuckles]
That we didn't already know about?
Holy shit, I hope we're better than that.
My understanding was, it was a compliant duty call.
Some disgruntled nonparticipant but bystander
decided to burn the whole house down
and call the FBI.
I'll tell you this. This is how you know.
If the IRS had even... Even tinily,
just a minute, scratched the surface of this case,
it would've been a joint takedown, okay,
and they would've been right there beside us,
so go back and look.
It's Ashcroft, and there's no IRS there,
so I'll promise you that did not happen that way.
Yeah, no... Not in a million years.
So good try. No sale.
[laughter]
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
And I don't think anybody thought for a second
that it was gonna get as big as it did.
And it got really big
and it got really big really fast.
But I told them if it ever goes south,
I said, "I don't wanna be caught up in this."
♪ ♪
Had I taken the McDonald's ticket and cashed it in,
I honestly, in my heart,
believe she still would have called the FBI
and I would be in prison right now.
- Hello. - Hey.
Hello, Francesco.
♪ ♪
The informant was Frank's mother.
♪ ♪
After Jerry passed away
and I seen all the nonsense going on
and all the manipulation
and people backstabbing each other and...
There was a lot of things back then that happened.
At that point, Frank's mother had custody of Francesco,
but it became more and more evident that...
when Robin got out of prison,
Robin was going to have her son,
and that didn't go over well with Frank's mother.
So because her son was dead
and because she blamed whoever
for whatever occurred to her son,
she then turned into the vengeful mode:
"I'm going to now take the one thing that Robin has
away from her, and that's her son."
[soft dramatic music]
So she called the FBI.
She's the one that decided to break it.
Her son's dead. There was no link back.
She called the FBI
and ratted everybody out.
That was the way it had to be.
- Laugh. Laugh. - [laughs]
♪ ♪
- [cooing] - [chuckles]
I went from living with my mom.
And I've lived with my mom's parents.
I've lived with my dad's parents.
Honestly, that's been the biggest struggle of my life
is being torn between the two families.
I felt like a pawn because a lot of it
was pointing fingers at that point.
And it was just a battle of them back and forth,
and I was just kind of caught in the middle of it.
Hey!
Hey, birthday girl. [clapping]
At this point in life, I just...
I wanna avoid conflict.
I had so much of it in my childhood.
I don't wanna hear any negativity
from anybody anymore.
♪ ♪
My mom and my grandma, surprisingly now,
they have a pretty good relationship.
♪ ♪
In the long run, I ended up being
their favorite daughter-in-law.
I don't know if it's because I stood up to them.
[indistinct chatter]
Yeah, yeah.
She tells me everything, and she wants me to be the one,
if Papa goes first,
to be the one she... Takes care of her.
And I would be.
No matter what, I would be there for them.
They know that.
That's who I am.
♪ ♪
She only gave them information on Robin,
Robin's father, and Gloria.
[dramatic music]
If she could get rid of Robin,
maybe not death, but disappear,
then there was no one to take care of Francesco.
But then there still remained Robin's parents,
whom could have raised,
so they all had to go to be able to have Francesco.
♪ ♪
She was gaining her grandson.
- Yeah. - That was the reward.
- Yeah. - The reward was her grandson.
My mother didn't realize
that the FBI was gonna go after...
Everybody.
Jerome and wiretap his house and so forth and so on
and then make another Monopoly game
and started connecting the dots
and then to Texas and then Rhode Island,
and he did all these other tickets for a couple of years.
So this story has got revenge.
It's got everything all wrapped up into one.
Now you guys are the only people outside of us
that knew that one.
- We have not told anyone. - Anyone.
No one on this planet.
We just figured it was time to tell the truth.
♪ ♪
[door shuts] That's my youngest.
That's Vinny.
Hey, Vin.
My son just came home from work, and...
- Hello. - This is Vintonio.
How are you?
He just happens to work for McDonald's now.
[laughter] - Holy shit.
So McDonald's has treated the family very well.
Yup.
[laughter]
[Billy Joel's "Easy Money"]
♪ Unh ♪
♪ All right ♪
♪ Ah... ha ♪
♪ Unh ♪
♪ You don't have to talk all night ♪
♪ I'm a man who can't say no ♪
♪ You don't have to twist my arm ♪
♪ Just point me where you wanna go ♪
♪ Take me to the action ♪
♪ Take me to the track ♪
♪ Take me to a party if they're bettin' in the back ♪
♪ I been working all my life ♪
♪ Can't afford to wait ♪
♪ Let me call my wife so I can tell her I'll be late ♪
♪ I want the easy, mm ♪
♪ Easy, easy money ♪
♪ I could get lucky ♪
♪ Oh, things could go right ♪
♪ I want the easy, ay, unh ♪
♪ Easy, easy money ♪
♪ Maybe this one time ♪
♪ Maybe tonight ♪
♪ ♪
♪ Ah... ha ♪
♪ Easy money ♪
♪ I don't want no hard cash ♪
♪ I just want the easy money ♪
♪ Oh, I could get lucky ♪
♪ Easy money ♪
♪ Oh, gotta, gotta, gotta ♪
♪ Ha, ha ♪
[bright tone]