McMillions: When Uncle Jerry Rigged the McDonald's Monopoly Game

Imagine you have the power to mint millionaires. But to do it you have to engage in crime. Specifically, you have to rig the McDonald's Monopoly game. Now, would you pick as your partners in this crime a made man from the Colombo Crime family and a former cocaine smuggler? If you said yes, you are Uncle Jerry, who did just that!

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ridiculous crime. It's a production of iHeartRadio.

Speaker 2 (00:03):
Do you a Elizabeth? Why? How are you doing?

Speaker 3 (00:07):
I'm good, I'm good. How are you?

Speaker 2 (00:10):
How is your heart?

Speaker 3 (00:12):
My heart is full. How's your heart?

Speaker 2 (00:15):
It's still kicking. So that's all I ask?

Speaker 3 (00:18):
Is running in a pumpin?

Speaker 2 (00:19):
Yeah? So I got a question for you other than
about our cardiovascular health. Yes, sir, do you know it's ridiculous.

Speaker 3 (00:25):
I can tell you it's ridiculous.

Speaker 2 (00:26):
I was counting.

Speaker 3 (00:27):
Well, Actually it's not me. It's McKinley at the Bend
Beer Vault.

Speaker 2 (00:32):
Okay, is this a friend of yours?

Speaker 3 (00:33):
She's a friend of the show, she emailed us.

Speaker 2 (00:35):
Oh rude dude.

Speaker 3 (00:36):
Nice, Yeah, total rude dude. Seems like a really cool person,
she said. Love the show. My boyfriend and I have
been listening for three years and it's definitely our favorite.
We love having you two join along on our road trips.
Y'all always bring a smile to our faces. Take care
and stay ridiculous. It's McKinley. So McKenley sent us something, huh,

(00:58):
and I'm going to tell you it's not a mashup.

Speaker 2 (01:00):
Yes, McKinley, you rock you and your boy She.

Speaker 3 (01:04):
Referred to it as a mashup. But it's not a mashup.
It's m Kenley is still rock, She's still rockbous.

Speaker 2 (01:12):
I'm just suspicious of you.

Speaker 3 (01:14):
You should always be, all right, So this You like milkshakes? Yes,
I mean your milkshake brings all the boys to the art.

Speaker 2 (01:21):
I mean you've tasted it.

Speaker 3 (01:23):
No, the milkshakes you like them?

Speaker 2 (01:27):
Yes?

Speaker 3 (01:28):
What's your favorite flavor of.

Speaker 2 (01:29):
Milkshake these days? Yeah, don't laugh, but I'm really into
a vanilla.

Speaker 3 (01:35):
Oh really, I know.

Speaker 2 (01:36):
It's the flavor nobody nobody respects. Everyone acts like, oh,
that's so vanilla. But it's actually a really nice flavor.
So I've been really into, like it's not.

Speaker 3 (01:45):
Just like milk, like plain nothing flavor.

Speaker 2 (01:50):
Favorite My third favorite, thank you for asking, It would
probably be peach. What about you? I like what's your
third favorite? What's your second favorite?

Speaker 3 (02:02):
Chocolate?

Speaker 2 (02:02):
What's your first favorite?

Speaker 3 (02:03):
Milcha?

Speaker 2 (02:04):
Are? Okay?

Speaker 3 (02:05):
Well when as coffee one doesn't?

Speaker 2 (02:07):
Right? Right of course? Naturally?

Speaker 3 (02:09):
Yeah that's what I like. I like what I like.
I don't like certain kinds of milkshakes.

Speaker 2 (02:15):
What kind is that, Elizabeth?

Speaker 3 (02:17):
That would be the ultimate cheese at milkshake? Cheese it.
You didn't partner with anyone. This is cheese It did
this to them, damnselves. It's on the recipes on their website.
And they have other, like, you know, questionable recipes.

Speaker 2 (02:35):
I'm sure they do.

Speaker 3 (02:36):
But the ultimate cheese At Milkshake saren. Prepare your taste
buds to sip it with this absurdly indulgent milkshake made
with your favorite cheesy salty snack vanilla shake. Look you
like that? Blended with cheese it crackers and the crushed
cheese it cracker rim and topped with whipped cream, chocolate

(02:57):
sauce and garnished with a cheese it cracker. Here's a picture.
We'll have them put that on Instagram.

Speaker 2 (03:03):
I literally shuddered, like my whole body.

Speaker 3 (03:06):
Jesus in a vanilla of shake is just that I don't.
I don't like that one bit.

Speaker 2 (03:12):
So it's it's a Cheddar shake.

Speaker 3 (03:14):
They have they it's a Cheddar shake, and they have
other recipes like the non alcoholic cheese a rita.

Speaker 2 (03:20):
Wait, why would I want that? Pour in some brandy?

Speaker 3 (03:23):
I a Seltzer cheese it hot and spicy cracker infused
simple syrup, lime and pineapple. It's made to spice up
your dance moves. That's what it says. That's not me
saying that. That's the cheese It. That's you know, the
cheese talking Captain cheese It himself, the founder of cheese
It's I'm just scrolling through here, and it's there's a

(03:45):
lot of it's a lot of things that explain why
our society's falling apart that these are acceptable things to
put online. Cheese it's s'mores brownies. Those go with a milkshake.

Speaker 2 (03:57):
So Rome had bread and circuses. We have cheese hikes.

Speaker 3 (04:00):
We have cheese it's and milkshakes extra big. Cheese It's
moores cookies. Make them extra big because you know you
can't get enough.

Speaker 2 (04:08):
Zaren the test kitchen a cheese It must be a
wild place.

Speaker 3 (04:13):
Saron cheese at Lemon Bars. I'll stop, Actually no, I won't.
You'll never stop anyway. That's that's cheese at apple Pie.
That's ridiculous.

Speaker 2 (04:29):
For your restraint, No.

Speaker 3 (04:30):
I have no you know me, I have zero restraint.

Speaker 2 (04:33):
I should have been yeah.

Speaker 3 (04:35):
Yeah, So anyway, it's ridiculous, ridiculous.

Speaker 2 (04:40):
Well do you know what else is ridiculous? A lot
of things go well, okay, I got a question, another
question for you to start it off. Okay, do you
remember the Monopoly game from McDonald's. I do, Yeah, did
you play it?

Speaker 3 (04:51):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (04:52):
Well, like the semi regular return of the Nick Rib, Elizabeth,
I got good news for you. McDonald's Monopoly game is back.

Speaker 3 (04:59):
Baby. It was like in the eighties, right, yeah, eighties, nineties.
I remember that as a kid.

Speaker 2 (05:05):
Yeah, it's wild because, yeah, as you point out, you
remember when you're a kid, if you know what happened
back when it was first a popular game to play
at the Golden Arches. Huh, it's wild that it's coming back. Really,
And if you don't know, well you're in for a treat,
because that's what I want to tell you about.

Speaker 4 (05:18):
I'm about to know today.

Speaker 5 (05:40):
This is Ridiculous Crime, a podcast about absurd and outrageous capers,
hece and cons. It's always ninety nine percent murder free
and one hundred percent ridiculous.

Speaker 3 (05:56):
Ridiculous, Elizabeth, ridiculous.

Speaker 2 (05:58):
Yes, what do you know about the story of lotteries? Uh?

Speaker 3 (06:01):
Lottery, I don't know. They're old. They're old as heck.

Speaker 2 (06:05):
They did them in the caves pretty close.

Speaker 3 (06:08):
But that was to kill a community member.

Speaker 2 (06:10):
Yes, it's like who survives the winter?

Speaker 3 (06:12):
Well, and that's what is it? The short story of
the lottery. Oh, Shirley Jackson, Sure, there you go. There's that.
That's a dim, dark lottery.

Speaker 2 (06:22):
Yeah. I was gonna say that's not really a fun one,
but well, har I'll inform you about the history lottery.
Still briefly, one of the first lotteries in history took
place in the Han dynasty in ancient China. Okay, so
roughly two oh five b c. So not in the caves,
no post caves. The money was raised for this lottery
by the Han dynasty, and the money that they generated

(06:42):
from the lottery was used to pay for the construction
of the Great Wall of China. Great Wall of China
was paid for by gambling.

Speaker 3 (06:49):
They're like, you know, it's for a good cause, guys,
it's for the wall. Like how people are like, it's
for the schools, and that's not why you're buying a
lottery ticket.

Speaker 2 (06:55):
The next time someone says gambling is a degenerate form
of entertainment, you can tell them, I guess you don't
like the Great Wall at China, right, because gambling built
that wonder of the ward. Okay, so My point is
gambling has been around for a very long time, right,
and especially the lottery, and it's often been used to
pay for the running of the government or to fund
construction of grand endeavors. Of course, this is not always
the case. Sometimes lotteries were designed to curry favor, like

(07:19):
for instance, in ancient Rome in the time of the Empire,
gambling was permitted only during special occasions like the celebrations
of Saturnalia, which was not sure if you're familiar, I
didn't know about this exactly, but it was the holiday
time that Christmas would later replace. Oh really, okay, So
when the Roman Empire adopted Christianity, they're like, well, it's

(07:40):
just slot that right into Saturnalia and keep it balking.

Speaker 3 (07:43):
Big coincidence, Yeah, birthday.

Speaker 2 (07:46):
Well that and also the soul and Victis. But I'll
get to that in a second. So way back in
the fourth century CE.

Speaker 3 (07:51):
Wait, when does memit the second making.

Speaker 2 (07:55):
Appearance not in this episode? Surprisingly, Yeah, okay, So in
the fourth century CE, or if you prefer ad on
O Dominus, Yes, Pope Julius, the first issue a decree
that Christmas, the celebration of the birth of baby Jesus
was to be celebrated on December twenty fifth. It's thought
that this was the to replace the pagan gift giving
of Saturnalia with the new Christian gift giving of Christmas.

(08:19):
It was also intended to combine celebrations. There was the
Saturnalia and then also, as they said, the birthday celebration
of Soul Invictus, who was the son god of the
Roman Empire. His birthday was honored on when December twenty fifth.

Speaker 3 (08:33):
Nice.

Speaker 2 (08:33):
Yeah, So anyway back to Saturnalia as it plays out,
The earliest European lotteries date back to Saturnalia the Roman Empire.
So wealthy families they would hold these extravagant dinner parties
and there's a lot of role reversal, like where the
slaves get to be the master and that kind of stuff,
and so rich people would invite all their friends over.
Then they would try to like curry favor by then
helding a lottery and everybody, guess, would all be given

(08:56):
a lottery ticket when they entered the dinner party or whatever,
and each ticket holder would win a gift, and some
of the gifts were more lavish than others, and that
was like the beginning of the lottery. This idea is
then expanded upon by the first Great Roman Emperor, Augustus Caesar.
He switched up the game by selling tickets for prizes
and to the public instead of at like a dinner party,

(09:18):
and some of the gifts that he was giving out
were more spectacular than others. The funds that were generated
he used those to rebuild the aging city of Rome.
So Rome was also built on lottery win not in
a day, well yeah, not in a day, or I
guess lottery funds. Anyway, fast forward to colonial America, you
could argue that the colonies were also built off the
funds generated by gambling. Oh really, because oh my goodness, yes,

(09:43):
tons liket like hundreds of them. Back in sixteen twelve,
King James of England, King James the First he allowed
the Virginia Company to offer a lottery in England to
raise money for the struggling settlement because like they you know,
post James Stower Jamestown's founding, They're like, this is not
going well. These rich kids are not doing what we
thought they would do. You mean to raise some money.
So they do. And so from that very first English

(10:04):
settlement aka Jamestown gambling has been part of America's story. Now,
this holds true all the way through colonial times. Lotteries
were used to raise money to build roads, canals, bridges.
You want to build a church, let's hold a lottery.
You want a library, Let's hold a lottery. And then
the first universities in America, so like the earliest ones,
not Harvard, but Princeton and Columbia, were both paid for

(10:27):
with money generated from lotteriesday same for the University of Pennsylvania.
So nearly half of the Ivy League was paid for
off of gambling profits. That's what I mean by say
America has always been cozy with gambling, so you know,
enjoy that crypto anyway, When you have so much money
generated by a lottery, some folks obviously will do what cheat? Yes,
and then fraud follows, which is why in eighteen ninety

(10:49):
in the United States, lotteries were officially pretty much banned
in all but two states. You want to guess which
two states are? Like, nope, we're keeping this. This is
really good. Eighteen ninety Yes, obviously there's no Utah, Arizona exists,
New Jersey, good guess. No, think of more corrupt than

(11:10):
New Jersey more corrupt. Yeah Jersey not like you know
a movie. Pennsylvania close, Delaware the home of the corporation.
Yeah right.

Speaker 3 (11:21):
Louisiana, well that's its own thing.

Speaker 2 (11:25):
Like, yes, Louisian especially New Orleans. No Orleans like a
city state in America, and Louisiana is like, we are
different than New Orleans. You're still corrupt anyway. Once lotteries
were banned, folks conspired to find new ways to gamble.
They're like, okay, well we'll keep this rock and so
thus the era of the sweep steaks was born. Difference,
so the sweep The difference between lottery and a sweep

(11:47):
sticks is that a sweep stakes it doesn't require the
gambler to purchase the tickets. You've heard all your life, no.

Speaker 3 (11:52):
Purchase, purchase necessary, Okay, So.

Speaker 2 (11:55):
Instead the gambling tickets are part of a giveaway for
like a product or a person can even also end
in a request for a free ticket to place and
self a dress stack?

Speaker 3 (12:04):
Isn't it like where it will be on like product packaging?
But it's just nope. But like so you can like
ask for a thing without buying exactly, but no one
ever does.

Speaker 2 (12:12):
Yeah, so with sweepstakes. Sometimes the prize is a product,
or sometimes it's a service like oh, get a free
massage or whatever.

Speaker 5 (12:19):
Right.

Speaker 2 (12:19):
Other times it's a big cash prize aka gambling. Yeah,
So sweepscakes. They become a very popular way for a
business to drive traffic to come in and buy their whatever.

Speaker 3 (12:29):
My grandpa loved those.

Speaker 2 (12:31):
Really.

Speaker 3 (12:32):
If he could send in a ticket for a sweepstakes,
he would, and he would send in multiples with variations
on spellings on everyone's name in the household. Interesting and
so like when I was a little kid, they had
a Tony the Tiger baseball sweepstakes with what was that, yeah,
frosted flakes. No one in the house ate frosted flakes.

(12:54):
He went out and he bought a bunch of boxes
of frosted flakes, and then he filled all of them out,
and all of us had like variations on our names.
You know, it was like Elizabeth Button and oh yeah.
And so it's like because it was like one per household,
one for whatever it was. So he sent all of
these in and then we got inundated with Tony the

(13:15):
Tiger baseballs. We got so many of them.

Speaker 2 (13:18):
Do you won baseball?

Speaker 3 (13:20):
We won baseballs. And then what was kind of cool
is like later on, like after he passed away, about
a month later, I got a puzzle book in the
mail and his name m H that he had won
in a sweepstakes.

Speaker 2 (13:32):
Do you still have it?

Speaker 3 (13:33):
Yeah? And it's like I love puzzles, and I was
just like, this is incredible, like you know, still still
raking it in.

Speaker 2 (13:41):
Well, you know who else loves sweepstakes? No fast food companies?

Speaker 3 (13:46):
Oh yeah, Well that's what we were talking about.

Speaker 2 (13:50):
Just like a lottery, the winner selected at random, and
just like a lottery, sweepstakes become this theater for fraud
and abuse because you can get to say a ticket
or whatever the product is dan and you can win
possibly a big cash prize, sometimes millions of dollars. Yeah,
that's what I want to tell you about. The Great
Monopoly scam for McDonald's. It's one of the most famous

(14:10):
sweepsticks aside from Publishers clearing House. It's just like all
true sweepstakes, it was a no purchase necessary form of gambling.
Oh yeah, Now do you remember the Monopoly game for McDonald's.
Did you ever play it? I mean, like we know
how it worked on the title.

Speaker 3 (14:23):
Because you would get and I feel like you had
to go inside and there was like the police mat
on the tray, was the board or maybe they gave
you the board. I don't remember how it works, but
they was like the monopoly board.

Speaker 2 (14:34):
Yes. So there was the early forms, yes, and then
later on you just have to basically collect the like
say the colors of a property on Monopoly.

Speaker 3 (14:43):
So you had to have the board so you knew
like how many collector the only.

Speaker 2 (14:47):
Did you need to win, like say like like three, say,
like you know, if you pick like Baltic Avenue, you
only need the other light blue ones. I think Baltic
Avenue is black, but anyway, and then if you have
park Place on Boardwalk and you have those bright blue ones, right, yeah,
that's all you need, just those two, you would win
a million dollars.

Speaker 3 (15:04):
Right, But like the lesser ones you would collect and
it was like, oh, you got some.

Speaker 2 (15:08):
Fries, yeah, well exactly you've been like yeah, free happy
meal or you got some large.

Speaker 3 (15:13):
Fries yeah, Marvin Gardens ext.

Speaker 2 (15:16):
So this new Monopoly game for McDonald's was announced in
September of this year, and it starts on October sixth,
and as always, it's available for a limited time only.
Now for the new rebooted version, there are still the
same peeloy stickers that you would find on the cups
and the fries, and those are the game pieces, just
like it used to be. But now it's an app
based game you play on your smartphone.

Speaker 3 (15:36):
Oh to scan the yes, exactly.

Speaker 2 (15:40):
It kind of ruins some of the fun for me
because but you still get to peel them off, and
then you scan onto your phone. Then it keeps track
of them for you.

Speaker 3 (15:47):
But I saw a Reddit post where someone ordered McDonald's
through like door dash or something, and the guy who
delivered it had peeled the stickers off and it arrived
denuded of its.

Speaker 2 (16:00):
That's amazing.

Speaker 3 (16:01):
You don't have to collect those little, tiny little things.

Speaker 6 (16:03):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (16:03):
I loved collecting those. I mean back when cars had ashtrays,
we kept all the McDonald's Monopoly pieces and.

Speaker 3 (16:11):
It was like we would use it as like, come on,
we got Grandma. We're so close, yeah, so close to
getting this Pennsylvania. I swear to god, you cannot have
any more. Come on.

Speaker 2 (16:20):
So back to the new app. You still get the
same game pieces as we said, and then you scan them,
but then you also have to get the McDonald's app, right,
and you have to join the McDonald's loyalty program, which
I'm never gonna do, so I guess I'm just not
going to play this time around anyway. If you do
have the app, you collect all your digital game pieces.
Just like with Monopoly, if you collect the properties of
the color coded neighborhood boom, you can win prizes, so

(16:40):
like for now, this time you can win a brand
new Jeep Grand Cherokee, and for one lucky winner there'll
be a big cash prize of one million dollars, which
is what it used to be. Of course, a million
dollars is a lot more money back when, totally like,
do you know, do you remember the first McDonald's Monopoly game?
Do you want to guess what year that first iteration

(17:02):
came out?

Speaker 3 (17:03):
To see? Eighty five?

Speaker 2 (17:07):
Close? Really good? Eighty seven? Eighty seven April of nineteen
eighty seven to be exact, okay, which coincidentally is also
the same year as a Big Wall Street crash.

Speaker 3 (17:16):
Oh yeah, right?

Speaker 2 (17:17):
In October, right, you have the Black Monday or Black Tuesday,
depending on which one has both names. Did you know
that Black Monday and Black Tuesday? I always I keep
it as Black Monday, but I looked it up on
Wikipedia both. Yeah, because people are like, well, I really
lost more money the next day, so we call it
black Tuesday here. I guess.

Speaker 3 (17:33):
I totally thought it was earlier than that. That's funny.

Speaker 2 (17:35):
Yeah, So anyway, do you want to guess the last
year the McDonald's offered its monopoly game before bringing you back?

Speaker 3 (17:41):
Nineties? Right?

Speaker 2 (17:42):
Twenty fourteen?

Speaker 3 (17:43):
Twenty fourteen? Yeah, I don't really keep up with McDonald
I haven't kept up with McDonald since I was a child.

Speaker 2 (17:48):
I know you haven't. Now you may be thinking that,
you know, what does this have to do with crime?
Great question, Elizabeth, because I'm about to tell you about
that question. But the McDonald's Monopoly game, you know it
was revealed to be rigged earlier than twenty fourteen. It
was back in two thousand and one. Oh really, that's
when the revelation came about, right, And it's hard of

(18:09):
them limped along until twenty fourteen when it finally fizzled
out as a promotion. So what happened back in two
thousand and one?

Speaker 3 (18:15):
I don't know.

Speaker 2 (18:15):
Great question, Elizabeth, And after this break, I will tell
you excellent, Elizabeth.

Speaker 3 (18:40):
There.

Speaker 2 (18:41):
So McDonald's Monopoly you were telling me about that.

Speaker 3 (18:43):
Yeah, I was telling you all there was Okay, so
here's what you need to know. So there was fraud,
and it started in two thousand and.

Speaker 2 (18:50):
One, and I got revealed in two thousand and one,
and it was.

Speaker 3 (18:54):
Spoke, it was revealed. You know, I don't know words.

Speaker 2 (18:58):
So nineteen eighty seven, it starts right now. You want
to guess what year the insider fraud started. No, two
years later. It took two years. Nineteen eighty nine is
when our crime story begins.

Speaker 3 (19:10):
Only two It only went two beautiful years.

Speaker 2 (19:12):
Totally before someone's like, I can rig there.

Speaker 3 (19:14):
I got an idea.

Speaker 2 (19:15):
Yeah, so a first little bit about how you could
win the McDonald's Monopoly game. Obviously you have you have
to collect the game pieces, and you had to collect
a complete set. You know, we've covered that, and then
you could win a million dollars. So park Place and
Boardwalk were the way to win a million dollars. But
there was another way to win, which is you could
find the elusive instant win game piece. Okay, so this
piece that you would pull it off, it just says, oh, congratulations,

(19:36):
you've won a million dollars, you won five hundred thousand dollars,
you won twenty there's a bunch of big, big prizes.
Now do you remember how wild it would be when
people get park place and then all they needed was
boardwalk and they would just be going back.

Speaker 3 (19:49):
I was firm believer that boardwalk was never printed, you
know what I mean, Or they printed one and it
was in a special cup, like in a safe so
they could say.

Speaker 2 (19:58):
Oh, we printed technically did well. Obviously, the easier path
to the million dollar cash prize was to find one
of those hyper elusive instant win game piece, which meant
it was to your benefit to go back to McDonald's
as often as possible.

Speaker 3 (20:11):
Well, yeah, and that's especially with kids.

Speaker 2 (20:13):
They're the oh yeah, or teenagers who think they can win.

Speaker 3 (20:17):
Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 2 (20:19):
This is how monopoly became easily, by far, the most
profitable marketing campaign for McDonald's since they invented the happy meal.
Those are like the two high points, right. It was
the most lucrative marketing stunt in like the history of
fast food. But what folks never knew at the time
was the game was rigged like you weren't gonna find
one of those instant win stickers, at least not after
nineteen eighty nine. Oh no, you may be thinking, well

(20:40):
why not, Zaren, great question, Elizabeth. The reason why was
a man known as Uncle Jerry and Jerry Garcia of
the Great Back. I'm talking about Jerry Jacobson from my
first hometown, Atlanta, Georgia. Now, this Uncle Jerry, who was
eventually the man responsible for defrauding the McDonald's monopoly game,
was wait for it, a former cop.

Speaker 3 (21:02):
Okay.

Speaker 2 (21:03):
He was born at the end of the Silent Generation,
nineteen forty three. He was raised in Youngstown, Ohio. Like
you know that, he enjoyed this all American upbringing. When
he's a teen, his family moves to Miami, Florida. And
then when he's of age, he's ready to leave home
and he goes to join the US Marines. But he
gets kicked out of the core and basic training due
to having high arches.

Speaker 3 (21:22):
All right, crazy, I know.

Speaker 2 (21:24):
Right, So my friend got kicked out for having flat feet.
His feet were two flactually they were like convex. They
were like bowed out.

Speaker 3 (21:30):
He had like a little rocker. He was like a
rocking horse when he walked down the street, completely he
stood still, he'd rock.

Speaker 2 (21:37):
You followed his footprints down the beach. It looked like
what creature am I following your kid? Yeah? That's wow.
There was no like normal footprint. It was the exact opposite.
It was like the only the art fascinating. Yeah. So
so at this point, right, this guy gets kicked out.
He bounces around for a bit, and then Uncle Jerry
in nineteen seventy six, he's he has his dream of
becoming a cop, and that comes to pass. He joins

(21:57):
the Hollywood, Florida Police Department. With Florida is the less
famous Hollywood. Yeah, obviously located between Miami and Fort Lauderdale
right there on like the eastern coast of Florida. Right, Okay, Now,
much like his dream to be a marine, his time
in the Hollywood Police Department didn't last long. Yeah, this
time it was his wrist. He got into some altercation.
I couldn't find out what it was. He injures his wrist.
He goes out on medical leave. Right, this lasts for

(22:18):
a long time because in nineteen eighty, still on medical leave,
he collapses from paralysis and he loses feeling in his eyes,
his arms, his legs, and his lungs. He has a
hard time breathing.

Speaker 3 (22:31):
Oh, you're kidding me.

Speaker 2 (22:31):
He has this rare neurological condition. Right, So, in order
to take care of her husband, his wife, Marcia, also
a cop, she leaves the force and then, you know,
since he'll never be a cop again, the department lets
him go. So now they're both former cops.

Speaker 3 (22:44):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (22:45):
In order to start their new life together, in nineteen
eighty one, Jerry and Marcia moved to Atlanta, Georgia. That's
where Jerry gets this new job as a mechanic. Right.

Speaker 3 (22:53):
Wait, but he was like he can't breathe.

Speaker 2 (22:55):
Well, he eventually was able to walk again and the
pass rehability. Yeah, it took him a while, but they've
actually he got back on his speech now. Marsha, she
gets the job as a security auditor for this accounting firm, right,
and after she establishes herself at the firm, she finagles
a job for her husband, Jerry, and she's like, you know,
he's also a former cup really great guy. Fortunately, working

(23:15):
and living together led to stress in their marriage. Two
years later, they divorce. So Jerry those days at the firm, Yeah,
so he's working private security for a client of this firm,
this place called Dittler Brothers, right, and for them, he's
working security for their big client, a company called Simon Marketing.
That's the company that would later have a five hundred

(23:36):
million dollar client called McDonald's. Yeah, Simon Marketing that they're
responsible for making the Monopoly game pieces for McDonald's new
promotion Sweake. Jerry gets put in charge of overseeing the
security for the winning game pieces, and he was real diligent.
He was like super, I'm a marine, I'm a cop, right.

Speaker 3 (23:54):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (23:54):
The former coworker of his recalled that Jerry was suspicious
of anybody who would get near the game piece and
anybody who's on the floor. He thought anybody could be
a possible cheater. For instance, according to one former co worker,
Jerry quote inspected worker's shoes to check that they weren't
stealing McDonald's game pieces.

Speaker 3 (24:11):
Oh my god.

Speaker 2 (24:11):
Yeah, he was officious and real delta.

Speaker 3 (24:13):
He should have been like the cartels and made everyone
work naked.

Speaker 2 (24:17):
There you go, that would have done it. McDonald's loves that.
I bet they.

Speaker 3 (24:20):
I think that's you know, it's definitely part of their.

Speaker 2 (24:22):
Hr sweatshop rules. Baby bye lo. So the diligence of
the Jerry impresses Simon Marketing. So in nineteen eighty eight
they hire him away from Dittler Brothers and put him
in charge of the security for all the Monopoly game pieces.
Because now McDonald's like, this is a huge hit. We're
going to keep doing this. Yeah, Fast Food Giant decides
they'll run two limited Monopoly games each year. Oh wow, Yeah,

(24:44):
I didn't realize that they're just it.

Speaker 3 (24:46):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (24:46):
So to create the random winning game pieces, Dittler Brothers
relies on this supercomputer, the Omega three. Right from there,
the game piece suits, they talk to it, they get
printed by a traditional printing press that runs twenty four
hours a day. How many Monopoly game pieces were they
cranking out, great question.

Speaker 3 (25:03):
Elizabeth, only in the United States, also Canada.

Speaker 2 (25:07):
Yeah, five hundred million game pieces, which was enough game
pieces that that's basically two game pieces for every American
in the US at the time. So Jerry, he's in
charge of overseeing the creation of everything, including the ultra
rare instant winner game pieces.

Speaker 3 (25:22):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (25:22):
Once created these instant winner game pieces, they would be
locked away in a vault. Like they took the security
very seriously. They're talking like they had multiple security apparatus. Namely,
they had two combination locks, a coded keypad. It was
like a nuclear sub where you had to turn two
keys at the same time.

Speaker 3 (25:37):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (25:37):
So when it's time for him to deliver the instant
winner game pieces, Jerry would take like a pair of
scissors and he would cut them out from the printing
press paper. Then he'd placed the instant winners in an envelope.
Then he'd seal that envelope with a tamper proof sticker.
Right then, that's not all then, since he's the one
who's going to carry this to the places to be
like to the companies that make the cups and the

(25:58):
fries and be a fit. He carries the sealed envelope
over to the McDonald's factories and then says, okay, you know,
bring me a palette of fries and then he picks one,
puts it on, mixes it all up, and goes, okay,
distribute these no way totally. So to get to these factories,
he would fly on commercial airlines, first class all the way. Baby.

(26:19):
But he didn't fly alone. He was escorted by a
second security official and an accountant. Like I said, like
a nuclear submarine. They always got the two keys.

Speaker 3 (26:27):
Do you like the suit case, the briefcase with the.

Speaker 2 (26:31):
Handcuffs, Yeah, totally.

Speaker 3 (26:32):
I mean I would have requested that just because it
looks so cool.

Speaker 2 (26:35):
Oh my god, and people know you're important. Yeah. So
the security team Jerry and the other security official goes unnamed,
would travel to a McDonald's factory where they would then
have like us, he's had a whole forkload of like
drink cups or French fried cadamos brought over, and then
they would select a random cup and then add the
instant winter game piece, both of them watching right. Everything
has to be done in doubles, and then this is
ensuring that the winner is actually a random customer. So

(26:58):
he does this legitimately a few times in nineteen eighty eight.
Then in nineteen eighty nine he decides why should he
send out the instant winners to be randomly found by
some chinook when he could just as easily pretend to
affix it to a French fry container and keep it
for himself. Yeah, and then he could select the winner
of say like a big cash.

Speaker 3 (27:17):
Prize, which would be him.

Speaker 2 (27:19):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (27:19):
Well no, no, he could.

Speaker 2 (27:20):
That would be too obvious. Yeah, so that's one. I
keep that in.

Speaker 3 (27:23):
Mind a lot of times with all these kind of
sweepstakes and stuff like if you are if you work
in a certain industry or you have Yeah, so he'd
have to be like outside of the family exactly.

Speaker 2 (27:33):
I thought, you're usually it's the imediate family, but really
McDonald's is going to be your family. Yeah, and your neighbors,
your block, you know.

Speaker 3 (27:40):
And you've ever made iicon this period in time.

Speaker 2 (27:44):
His salary was seventy thousand dollars, which was good.

Speaker 3 (27:46):
It's a lot.

Speaker 2 (27:47):
That was good pay. In nineteen eighty eighty eight. That
would be equivalent to one hundred and ninety one twenty
five a lot, like, that's good pass that is a lot.
But that's seventy grand. Wasn't much compared to a million dollars.

Speaker 3 (28:00):
God, what was a million? What's a million dollars in
eighty eight worth?

Speaker 2 (28:03):
Now, I do not know. I didn't look that up.

Speaker 3 (28:05):
Look it up.

Speaker 2 (28:06):
I'm so sorry here to live for that. Let me
look that up for you, Elizabeth, because I know you do.

Speaker 3 (28:12):
Look you look helps me get oriented, It helps me
understand the world, because you know, I'm like, I don't
know what does that mean to me? What's time to
a pick?

Speaker 2 (28:22):
That would be two point seven million dollars, Elizabeth.

Speaker 3 (28:25):
That's the only inflation from eighty eight to.

Speaker 2 (28:27):
Two point seven four? Is that better? No?

Speaker 3 (28:30):
That's it should be like, that's be one hundred and
eighty billion dollars.

Speaker 2 (28:34):
Two and seventy percent increase.

Speaker 3 (28:36):
That's not enough for me.

Speaker 2 (28:37):
Okay? Well, Jerry at this point, right, he realizes the
only cost to him would be his integrity. So I
got so and I've already you know what, what's that
to a pig? So he starts out small. He doesn't
hand out a million dollar Instant Winter right off the bat.
He doesn't. He's like, that would be too obvious. So

(28:57):
at first, he starts out with a twenty five thousand
dollars Instant Winner game piece. He takes one, swipes it,
takes it home. But Jerry, you know, he's like, oh,
do I give this too? So he's at a family
function in nineteen eighty nine and he slyly hands over
to his stepbrother the winning game piece. He's like, he's
got a different last name. Oh yes, Jerry later said, quote,
I don't know if I just wanted to show him

(29:18):
I could do something, or was bragging or has he
also put it He may have just wanted to quote
to see if I could do it.

Speaker 3 (29:24):
Yeah, just take a test run.

Speaker 2 (29:26):
So then fate with a capital F stepped in. It
arrived in the form of his butcher. His trusted meat
supplier heard that Jerry was the man who ran security
for the McDonald's monopoly game, and being an ambitious and
unscrupulous man, his butcher tells Jerry he sure would like
to win that McDonald's monopoly game. And Jerry tells him,
you know, he happened to have the power to make

(29:47):
that happen, and so he's like, really is solid. But
he's like, but you know, I couldn't do that because
we're friends and they you know, not only that, were neighbors,
and so they'll figure it out if you're my friend
and name the butcher listens to him, he goes, you
know what, I got an idea. What if it wasn't
me who won, but instead a trusted friend of mine

(30:08):
who lives far away. No one would suspect that he
doesn't have to be the million dollar prize. I'm not greedy.

Speaker 3 (30:18):
I like to imagine that He's like an old style
like cartoon butcher. He's like holding like a string of sausages.

Speaker 2 (30:26):
He's talking a string of sausage. So he's like, well,
what if it was like a lesser instant winter game piece,
they probably wouldn't even do investigations into that, Like maybe
like one of the ten grand game pieces. Yeah, if
you could arrange that. The butcher tells them, I'd split
the winnings with you, Jair. He says, I'll give you
two grand of the winnings.

Speaker 3 (30:44):
Yeah, because someone's got to pay taxes on it.

Speaker 2 (30:47):
There's that. I don't think they were thinking about the text.
So at this point they're thinking it's a surefire plan
and makes some quick cash. Right, So Jerry does it
and their fraud works perfectly, But then with the capital
left stepped back in this time, it had nothing to
do with Jerry directly, but it affected his power to
pick winners. You can see, Elizabeth. Other folks had the

(31:08):
same idea. They're like, what have I kept these game pieces?
So there was this guy who worked for McDonald's who
was a seventeen year old. Yeah, and he stole about
three thousand game pieces from like a restaurant. He gets caught,
he gets arrested, so McDonald's like, oh, we got to
have to come up with new security protocols. So it
would take years later for Jerry to have another chance.

(31:28):
In nineteen ninety five, he's finally back in a position
to get his hands on them instant Winter.

Speaker 3 (31:34):
Game pill doing the same job.

Speaker 2 (31:36):
Oh yeah, still doing the same job. They see Elizabeth.
The technology McDonald's used had changed. Now the winning game
pieces were fixed through a new process, and Jerry was
responsible for delivering the instant Winner game pieces to the
people who did the affixing. And he decides this is
his big chance to get paid. Yeah, so if you
can believe it, Fate with the capital left steps back
into his life. The maker of the tamper proof stickers

(31:58):
was located overseas in Hon Kong. By a mistake, one day,
the company sent a bunch of the tamper proof stickers
to Jerry directly. So now he's got a way to
seal the envelope after he opens the envelope, and nobody
would be the wiser. So he's in this enviable position
to being the one guy who can decide who could
win the big cash prizes. Forget you supercomputer. It's all

(32:18):
about jer Bear. So at this point, remember how he
traveled with a second security official an accountant, So there's
this double fail safe, right, so that'd be no cheating.
Jerry would just have to think of a way to
get around this one person. That's all he to do.
And then, you know, or he could cut them in
on the deal. That would be an ancientous But you
know what they say about the one fool proof way

(32:40):
for two people to keep a secret, right is to
kill one of the other people or kill the other person.
And since we have a ninety nine percent murder free guarantee,
I can promise you this Jerry didn't murk anyone good.
So how does Jerry get around this second security official?
Really great question, Elizabeth. To answer that, I'd like you
to close your eyes and I'd like you to picture it.

(33:12):
It's mid morning, and at the moment you are waiting
for some action, you hear the familiar sound of water
splashing against a sink basin. This is soon followed by
the bang of a hand against an oversized metal button,
which is followed by the hum and below of a
hand dryer, then the sound of a man's shoes across
a tiled floor, punctuated by a door opening and then closing,

(33:34):
and finally silence, and you you go back to waiting.
A moment later, though, you hear the door open again,
you eagerly perk up your attention. You hear a man's footsteps,
the rhythm of dress shoes as they crossed the tile floor,
and then the squeak of hinges as a partition door
swings open to a bathroom stall. It's your stall, and

(33:54):
then you see him, a middle aged man a little heavy, said,
he looks like a regular business traveler. He closes the
stall behind him, and you wait, eager to be of
assistance because you, Elizabeth, are a roll of toilet paper
in an airport men's room. The man takes off his
blazer hangs it on the hook of the stall door.
But then he doesn't unzip and drop his slacks and
take a seat on the toilet. No, Instead, you watch

(34:16):
as he puts on a pair of disposable latex gloves.
Then he reaches into his vest and he retrieves an envelope.
That's odd, you think, But it's not drugs or even
money that he pulls out. Instead, he carefully opens the
envelope and pulls out what looks to be a small
printed sticker. You're unsure what you're looking at. He rifles
through the printed squares until he's satisfied. A wide smile

(34:36):
spreads across his face. One of his latex hands reaches
into his slacks pocket pulls out a ziplock sandwich bag.
He carefully places the small printed square into the ziplock
sandwich bag. He seals that and shoves it into a
pocket of his slacks. Then he reaches into the other
pocket and pulls out a similar looking printed square and
places that one in the envelope, taking the place of

(34:57):
the one he's just taken out. And then you watch it.
He pulls out from his pants pocket an iridescent metal sticker.
He holds it in his teeth. That's curious. Then you
watches he reseals the envelope. He uses the metal sticker
to secure it closed. Ah, it's a security sticker. You
think you're a smart roll at toilet paper. The man
chuckles to himself proudly, and he says, too easy. Then

(35:20):
he returns the envelope to his vest pocket. He reaches back,
grabs his blazer, pulls an arm for a sleeve, and
then another. He chuckles again to himself, and he says,
a perfect crime. He flushes the toilet as cover, but
he never touches a square of your soft white toilet paper. Instead,
he opens a stall door. You just hear him walk off.
The door opens, he doesn't wash his hands, and then

(35:41):
it closes. You don't know it, but you just watched
a man steal a million dollars.

Speaker 3 (35:46):
Oh my god.

Speaker 2 (35:47):
So there you go, Elizabeth. That's how Jerry worked his scam.
He used the men's room at the airport. Why because
the second security expert, the accountant, was a woman.

Speaker 3 (35:57):
Oh well, even so he could go into the stall
totally total privacy.

Speaker 2 (36:01):
But then he like you would hear maybe the envelope
when any other guy came in, like, oh bathroom, What
a good.

Speaker 3 (36:07):
Idea, right right, that's amazing.

Speaker 2 (36:08):
So now that he has his method all worked out,
the only other thing he needs to do was to
salve his soul from what he plans to do with
these big cash prize winners. Yeah, and also he wanted
to do some sort of like you know, grand gesture,
something that might help him out down the line, like
say that with a judge should he ever get caught
in the future. Sure, So what did Uncle Jerry do
to both salve his soul and to look out for
his future legal defense?

Speaker 3 (36:29):
That's a great question, SARAE.

Speaker 2 (36:30):
Well. On November twelfth, nineteen ninety five, working at these
Saint Judes Children's Research Hospital in Tennessee, a donation's clerk
opened an envelope that had a greeting card in it.
The donation clerk spotted secreted away inside of the greeting
card a McDonald's Monopoly game piece. It was an instant winner.
And not just any instant winner, Elizabeth, it was the

(36:51):
big one, a one million dollar instant winner, that's right.
And he sent it to Saint Jude's.

Speaker 3 (36:57):
Oh my god.

Speaker 2 (36:58):
The donation clerk, she can't believe her eyes. Right, she's
like losing it. And if you can believe it, she
didn't keep it for herself. She's like recognized this is
gonna be so much for the kids she works at
Saint Jus, so she hands it over to her boss.
They're equally flabbergasting. Who on earth would get the million
dollar instant Winder game piece and then give it away?
They can't believe Saint Jude's incredible luck, the warm hearted

(37:20):
generosity of this anonymous donor, because there was no note,
no signature, nothing, just a postmark that later revealed that
it was sent from Dallas on the day after Thanksgiving.
Inside of the unmarked envelope was just the instant winter ticket.
That was it. Because The New York Times would later
report officials from McDonald's flew out to Saint Jude's to
authenticate the winning game piece, it was confirmed to be legit.

(37:42):
After that they hold a press conference.

Speaker 3 (37:44):
Yeah, because that's a great story.

Speaker 2 (37:46):
Right, they loved it. Saint Jude's children to hospital a bunch
officials that you've got Ronald McDonald with his red fright
wig out there doing like they a pr although.

Speaker 3 (37:53):
They're like duking it out the Ronald McDonald house and
saintscho good point they were handed him.

Speaker 2 (37:58):
They probably do now some they were like happy to
now some kind heart had donated one of the three
one million dollar prizes from this semi annual monopoly game.
Now Saint Jude's would receive annual installments of fifty thousand
dollars to be paid over twenty years. So while both
the Saint Jud's McDonald's opted to honor the wishes of

(38:19):
the anonymous donor. The New York Times is like, no, no, no,
let's see if we can figure out where this is.

Speaker 3 (38:23):
Well, you know, because like they've got to be just
so relieved that it's not some dirt bag who like
smacks his kids on TV and from like hitting it
like just some horrible person.

Speaker 2 (38:33):
Keep that thought in mind.

Speaker 3 (38:34):
Oh boy, try try the.

Speaker 2 (38:38):
New York Times might They couldn't figure out who'd given
away a million dollars. They do a full on investigation.
They can't find Jerry. Uncle Jerry's secret is safe yea.
So now he's feeling confident he can get away with
it again. The New York Times couldn't find him. Oh Butler,
He makes plans to select a new big winner. This
time it would be someone he knew, and just like
as Butcher had pitched it to him way back in

(38:59):
the day, he would get a cut of the winnings.

Speaker 3 (39:01):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (39:01):
So, Elizabeth, let's say you had the power to hand
out big cash prizes, like in the neighborhood of one
hundreds of thousands of dollars or even a million dollars,
how would you go about arranging it. Who would you trust? Like,
who would you even want to help out like that?

Speaker 3 (39:12):
If I'm going to be criminal about it, I don't know.
I don't know. Why would I announce that on this platform?
You're not going to trap me?

Speaker 2 (39:21):
Well, I'll tell you this much. Uncle Jerry goes back
to his butcher Nicess, So take a little break, and
after these messages, I'll tell you how it plays out
for Uncle Jair and his meat supplier. Elizabeth. You're ready

(39:53):
to hear more about Uncle Jair and how it all
goes down.

Speaker 3 (39:56):
I am. He has a very close relationship with his Brodcher.

Speaker 2 (39:58):
He does, they were tight.

Speaker 3 (40:00):
No, I don't know my butcher like that. I don't
have a butcher. But if I did, I wouldn't know him.

Speaker 2 (40:04):
Like, oh, you gotta have a guy guy. So Uncle Jerry,
since it worked so well the first time, right, he
pitches his butcher on the idea of rigging the game again.
His butcher, though, he's like, you know you can't win
it for the same reason as before. You're my friend,
you're my neighbor, you live down the street from me,
Like it'll be too obvious, Yeah, but if you can
find someone you trust, I can make it happen. So

(40:24):
his butcher's like, yeah, totally, my sister I can trust her.
She lives in Maryland, that states away. Yeah, So their
plan is simple. The butcher would go visit his sister
and she would be the one to buy some food
from McDonald's and then she would say, oh, my goodness.

Speaker 3 (40:38):
I won the instant winner game guyes.

Speaker 2 (40:40):
And unlike with Saint Jude's, he didn't, you know, go
with a million dollar prize. He started small. He offered
his butcher and the sister a two hundred thousand winning
game piece. Okay right, and in his for his cut,
he wanted forty five grand. Not bad, right. The only
trouble was his butcher went up to Maryland and instead
of his sister, he claimed he won the two hundred
dollars tramps. Jerry has no idea he's doing this. He

(41:02):
finds out when he sees his butcher on tight TV
celebrating his big win. Oh no, but worse than that,
the butcher stiffed Jerry for his cut. He only gave
him four grand instead of forty five. He has, what's
Jerry gonna do? Yeah, he gotta called cops exactly. So
Jerry learned a hard lesson about crime that day. He
also learned that he needed someone he could trust if

(41:23):
he wanted to keep rigging the Big Tunnel's Monopoly game.
But when you know it, yet again, Fate with a
capital F steps in. He's in the Atlanta airport and
he meets a man named Gennaro Colombo, who was described
as looking a lot like my man al Capone and
had the morality to match. So the two men they
get to talking. Jerry asked Colombo, Hey, where are you
flying to? And Gennaro Columbu's like, hey, yeah. He pulls

(41:47):
out this huge wad of one hundred dollars bills and
he says, I'm headed to Atlantic City and this gets
the men talking, like this is my kind of guy.
So Colombo tells the former cop that he is a
member of the Colombo crime Family aka one of the
Five Families of.

Speaker 3 (42:01):
These things.

Speaker 2 (42:02):
He's like, I'm a made man, a real life mobster. Right,
but he lives in South Carolina.

Speaker 3 (42:06):
Okay, so no so, because that's where he ran.

Speaker 2 (42:09):
An underground casino and sports book. He also had a
strip club like the Bottom Bang Run Sopranos, Right, But
in the South, things were a little weird, like they
especially about strip clubs. So when he wanted to expand
his business into Georgia, Colombo had to find a way
to get around the laws like the like the zoning.
So when he opened his strip club in Georgia, he
called it a church. Yes, he named his new strip

(42:31):
club the Church of the Fuzzy Bunnies.

Speaker 3 (42:33):
Stop.

Speaker 2 (42:34):
He told Jerry, you know what I got to He
came to me. I had this dream and God came
to me and told me to start a church.

Speaker 3 (42:42):
It's called the Church of the Fuzzy Bunny Bunnies.

Speaker 2 (42:45):
So this impresses Jerry. He's like, man, you're a real criminal.

Speaker 3 (42:48):
Oh wait, So Jerry, do you not have any close friends.
Like You're going up to people in the airport that
you meet who claimed to be mobsters, look like al Capone,
look like a Capone and tell you, hey, nice to
meet you. I'm a mobster.

Speaker 2 (43:02):
Well they took a little bit, but they got there. Yeah.
So he's like, well, this guy, he's like me. He
likes to get around the rules. He knows how to
do it. So at some point Jerry tells Colombo but
he does for a living and naturally a made man
like Colombo. He sees dollars signed, right, So the two
get to talking more, and then later that year they
reconnect and Jerry gives Colombo an instant Winter Game piece.

(43:22):
Not like recently we got the grand Jeep, Grand Cherokee
Dodge Viper. Yeah. So but once he's confirmed as the
winner instead of the car, Colombo takes the cash. He's like,
what's the cash value? So it's Colombo. He becomes Jerry's
new trusted confidant, right, he's on the inside that he
becomes such fast friends. He gives Jerry a new nickname, Uncle.

(43:43):
Jerry becomes totally together. The two then get into work, right,
they distribute instant Winter game pieces and not more cars.
Now they start going for real money. And so Jerry
trusts this mobster Colombo to help.

Speaker 3 (43:55):
Him find legitimate mobster.

Speaker 2 (43:57):
Yeah he is. He is a legitimate member of the
columb Both. No, but you know he's a South Carolina
He tacked the family, kicked him out in New Jersey.

Speaker 3 (44:04):
Totally kicked him out and sent him to South.

Speaker 2 (44:06):
Carolina totally not too far south because we can't get
into the traffic conti way, you know, exactly you can't
go all the way to Florida Miami. It's gonna be
a problem.

Speaker 3 (44:15):
Where you're going to stick out like a sore thumb.
So South Carolina.

Speaker 2 (44:19):
Exactly, you would think. So one of the winners that
Colombo picks because he's the one now in charge of
finding new winners that they can trust, and they both
now get to take a big cut from him, he's like, oh,
I got the perfect one. My wife's father. So he
becomes the million dollar winner, right.

Speaker 3 (44:34):
So wait, he wins a car in his name, and
then his father in law is going to.

Speaker 2 (44:38):
Be and then it gets better because the next million
dollar winter he picks out is his brother in law.

Speaker 3 (44:43):
These are just a brain trusts.

Speaker 2 (44:47):
And this time, unlike his butcher, they pay Jerry his cut. Right,
So this is starts a run of million dollar winners.

Speaker 3 (44:53):
So wait, so his brother, his father in law.

Speaker 2 (44:58):
All these winners are hand selected by Colombo and his wife, right,
his wife Robin. Now, in nineteen ninety seven, Jerry meets
a new potential big winner in an Applebee's in Jacksonville, Florida.

Speaker 3 (45:08):
What is wrong with this man? Is he just also?
Is he just chatty?

Speaker 2 (45:13):
Like?

Speaker 3 (45:14):
When's the last time you made a friend in an airport.

Speaker 2 (45:17):
Oh, don't ask me these questions. You know, I make
friends with places.

Speaker 3 (45:21):
Nobody.

Speaker 2 (45:22):
I told her this, I will talk to an airport.
I talked to more people in public than I do
like in my private life.

Speaker 3 (45:26):
I I'll chat with people, but I'm not going to
like share my information with them.

Speaker 2 (45:32):
Oh no, people I trustworthy. I don't tell HI much
about me.

Speaker 3 (45:35):
No what I'm saying, I'm not going to make a
friend in an airport. Get out of here. I got
enough friends. I don't need you people. I'm not gonna
go Well, first of all, I wouldn't go on an
Applebee's if I were in there. I'm not going to
make friends. To get out of there as fast as
I can.

Speaker 2 (45:48):
So Columbo's wife, Robin, introduces Jerry to her friend, a
woman named Gloria. Now, Jerry asked her, like, how much
would you pay for an instant winter game piece? She
says she could get him forty grand in cash. Jerry's
like deal. So a few weeks later he meets her
alongside Interstate ninety five. That's the one that runs up
and down the Eastern seaboard, the Big Dog ninety five. Yes,

(46:08):
so Gloria hands him forty grand in cash. He hands
her a tiny bottle I imagine like a liquor bottle,
like one of those air like airplane liquor bottles, with
a with a winning piece inside. And you have to
assume he used gloves to make sure he left a
fingerprints on the game piece.

Speaker 3 (46:22):
Make sure it's fully dry inside, right.

Speaker 2 (46:24):
One of the thing. Now, Gloria drives back to South
Carolina to buy a McDonald's meal deal and discover her
winning game. Pole on.

Speaker 3 (46:31):
So this is just a rando from Applebee's.

Speaker 2 (46:34):
No, No, robin is is the Columbo's wife. The new
rando is Gloria her friend. He doesn't know.

Speaker 3 (46:42):
Her, Okay, I get it, okay, right, So.

Speaker 2 (46:44):
She goes back to South Carolina, buys a McDonald's meal
deal and then goes, oh my goodness, look I won.
And then she goes to Colombo with He takes her
to the fast food spot and then he coaches her
on how to fake find the instant winners. Okay, look,
here's what you want to do, right, And then he
waits in the car well. She goes in and buys
her big Mac or whatever. And because she's a terrible liar.
Nervous about getting caught, Gloria does what all liars do.

(47:05):
She tells this rambling story about how she found the
winning game piece while she was cleaning out her car.
And it was a kind of like a child would tell, right,
but it works perfectly, So far, so good.

Speaker 3 (47:15):
All these are collected in South Carolina.

Speaker 2 (47:17):
For the most part, so or even.

Speaker 3 (47:19):
If McDonald's were so stupid that they just thought, oh,
then it makes it makes Jerry look bad like you're
not mixing these up enough. They're all going for the
same truck, yeah, to these various restaurants.

Speaker 2 (47:32):
So how long can your luck hold out when your
partner is a made man from Sicily who's a member
of the club with crime family and you're working he's
working a strip club, underground casinos in his South.

Speaker 3 (47:41):
Carolina everything, his whole existence.

Speaker 2 (47:44):
Yeah, not to mention he's the proprietor of the Church
of the Fuzzy Bunny, right exactly. Anyway, if you want
to keep a secret between two people, only way to
do that is to kill the other person. Right, But
now Uncle Jerry has this growing circle looking huge who
know about a secret? And the butcher Yeah, and one
of them is a legitimate made man from the five family.
So yeah, exactly. So at this point the late nineties,

(48:06):
Uncle Jerry is minting new millionaires with his stolen game pieces,
but still no one's the wiser. So what does he do?
Of course, he gets sloppy with it. He didn't only
work with Colombo because he liked to be like the
fairy godmother of stolen monopoly money. So he decides he'd
give a step brother another instant.

Speaker 3 (48:23):
Winner game piece out of here, so he didn't win twice.

Speaker 2 (48:26):
Yes, when that works, he gave you the first time,
he gives him another, and get this, Jerry goes here broke.
He gives his brother in law a million dollar instant winner. What, yes,
but his brother in law claims he never cashed it in.
He says he put it in the toilet and flushed it.
He's like, he's an idiot. I don't want to get caught.

Speaker 3 (48:43):
Yeah right, that's smart.

Speaker 2 (48:45):
So Jerry moves on to other family members. He's at
a family wedding and he gives his nephew a two
hundred grand instant winner in exchange for forty five grand
and so yeah, and then while they're talking about it,
a cousin. Hears them talking and he's like, you know,
I could use an instant win. Your uncle jer Jerry
hooked him up too.

Speaker 3 (49:02):
So now he's he's.

Speaker 2 (49:04):
Really pressing his luck. It's nineteen ninety eight. It's only
a matter of time before Jerry's secret philanthropy for his
family gets discovered. Plus he's now handing out nearly all
of the big cash prize winners. At this point, there
are no legitimate winners anymore, so to make.

Speaker 3 (49:19):
Everyone else is just looking for fries pretty.

Speaker 2 (49:22):
Much, Jerry legit. There was no million.

Speaker 3 (49:25):
Dollars large soda.

Speaker 2 (49:27):
Yeah, that's all you're getting. Maybe a Dodge Viper.

Speaker 3 (49:30):
If you're lucky, big mac.

Speaker 2 (49:32):
So Jerry, at this point he does the thing you're
not supposed to do. He buys himself a new house
for he and his new wife, who, by the way,
claims she knew nothing about any of her husband's monopoly fraud.
And you know, because you know, I guess she just
believed Jerry's family was really lucky at Monopoliesonald's. By this point,
Uncle Jerry's tight with the Columbo crime family, right, so
tight that they give him a new nickname. They start

(49:54):
calling him Heraldo Constantino.

Speaker 3 (49:57):
Wait the stop why Italian?

Speaker 2 (50:00):
He goes from being Jerome Jacobson the Heraldo Constantino. Meanwhile,
Jerry's investing his cut from all the fake winners into
Lake front Land. He joins this like really hoity toity
club for classic car lovers, because you know that's the
big deal in the South. There he meets a member
of this club. He likes the guys are He's okay,
you want an instant winter Ka peson.

Speaker 3 (50:22):
He is so desperate for people to like it totally.

Speaker 2 (50:25):
The guy is like totally, and he uses it to
buy an ultimate Beile. I Remember Colombo. The mobster has
his wife Robin right Yeah, After she found out that
Colombo was banging his personal trainer, things grow a little
weird between them, but just before she could leave him,
they get into a really bad car accident. After weeks
in a hospital, the mobster Colombo dies from his injuries.

(50:47):
After that, Uncle Jerry he now needs a new agent
to help him find fake winners, so he tries partnering
with a few other morally compromised men in the southern
eastern United States. None of them really have it like
that mobster. A Lumba right until he meets Andrew Glom.
G l Omb Glam. He was a professional gambler and
a former cocaine smuggler.

Speaker 3 (51:09):
Perfect, absolutely perfect? Did he is that? How he met?
They met like a bus stop and he was like, Hi,
I'm Andy. I used to smuggle coke? What's your name?

Speaker 2 (51:20):
In eighty three and while he was out on bail,
he fled to Europe, stayed there for sixteen months, and
then eventually gets caught, sent back to America, does prison,
does his twelve year stretch inside, and once he gets free,
that's when he meets Uncle Jerry at a dinner party
in Atlanta.

Speaker 3 (51:34):
Oh my god, who's dinner party?

Speaker 2 (51:37):
What's that that?

Speaker 3 (51:39):
So that's a good question.

Speaker 2 (51:40):
So Uncle Jerry and Glam they go into business now
finding new fake winners. Instead of picking trusted confidants the
way Colombo had, or picking family members the way Jerry did,
Glom picked his former associates in the drug smuggling.

Speaker 3 (51:52):
Business because they want they want to be have the
spotlight on it.

Speaker 2 (51:57):
You probably imagine how that played out Nald's commercials.

Speaker 3 (52:01):
Oh my god, they're just like rubbing their noses, like
all of them.

Speaker 2 (52:08):
We put the next year, in nineteen ninety nine, one
of McDonald's monopoly million dollars winners was a junior gangster
who ran a numbers recket out of an Italian restaurant
in Pittsburgh. So he was smuggling four hundred pounds of cocaine.
So now this is his big comeback. So there he is,
like the leather jacket, their slick back hair, just total
dirt bag in it. So over time, Uncle Jerry gave

(52:29):
glom eight different million dollar winning game pieces to hand
out to his dirtbag associates. Eight of them.

Speaker 3 (52:36):
Well, you know, he gets the big thing, and McDonald's
is like, we're not gonna do when's the press conference.

Speaker 2 (52:41):
He's like, they run national ads and they're like in
People magazine. It's crazy. So McDonald's has all these goombog
gangster it just happened to be really big McDonald's eaters. Meanwhile,
Jerry is still handing out lesser prizes to the people
in his own life. For instance, his psychic who was
also his kind.

Speaker 3 (52:59):
Of wait wait wait wait.

Speaker 2 (53:01):
No, it's better than that. His psychic was also his chiropractor.

Speaker 3 (53:05):
Stop it, no, you stop this. Are you just pulling
these out of a bag. Do you have like a
crown royal bag full of crazy paper with crazy like
magnetic tiles, refrigerator, psychic chiro.

Speaker 2 (53:19):
He gave a second chiropractor a fifty thousand dollars instant
winter in exchange for some psychic readings and body alignments. No,
and get this, Elizabeth. His psychic chiropractor couldn't see that
Uncle Jerry's good fortune was about to change.

Speaker 3 (53:32):
Right.

Speaker 2 (53:33):
I remember how Colombo died from that really bad car accident. Right,
that family wasn't convinced that his wife, Robin didn't have
something to do with it, because she survived. She's in
the car.

Speaker 3 (53:43):
Was it like a Tony and Christopher?

Speaker 2 (53:45):
That's what she was. That's what the family's thinking. So
they cut her off. After Colombo passes then, which means
she gets, you know, to keep living a good life,
she has to turn to pulling forgery jobs, credit card fraud,
insurance fraud. She's not good at it. She gets caught,
she goes to prison. Oh well, she's inside. The Columbo
family takes care of her son, Frankie, who is their grandson. Yeah,
but when she gets out of prison, she wants her

(54:06):
son back. And as she put it, Frankie was their
first grandson. And you know how Sicilians are, sure we
all do. So it's no surprise to me that after
Robin tries to cut off contact with the Colombos and
then they have to take her son, and then she
gets out of prison and she wants her son back
and she tries to cut off contact again. I don't know,
they tried to take the grandson away from her, and
then she's like trying to fight this. And then suddenly

(54:27):
somebody anonymously reports to the FBI that Robin's father, her
best friend, her cousin had all won the McDonald's monopoly game.
Sure was a lucky.

Speaker 3 (54:36):
Family af rely very lucky.

Speaker 2 (54:38):
So in March to two thousand, the FBI launches an investigation.
By this point, there was a new game show on
TV that also gave that million dollar priz It's called
Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? So the FBI named
their investigation Final.

Speaker 3 (54:50):
Answer Stop itah so good.

Speaker 2 (54:53):
Especially Agent Richard Dent was on the case right working
with the nationwide team FBI agent's helping him chase down
every lead and investigating all these million dollar winners dating
back all the way through the nineties. Meanwhile, Uncle Jerry
still busy minting new millionaires as fast as he can.
So after a year, flash forward to July of two

(55:14):
thousand and one, McDonald's informs the FBI that they're about
to launch the second of their bi annual McDonald's Monopoly games.
Because they know about the FBI's investigation, they're working with them.
The folks a corporate They want to cancel the game
since they know it's rigged, and it's only a matter
of time before the news comes out and McDonald's gonna
have a pr nightmare. But the FBI is like, hey,
do one more game and we'll bust whoever's behind it soon.

(55:37):
We prompt it'll all be over. CEO McDonald's has to
make up their mind. He's like, let me think it over.
Eventually he's like, okay, sure, let's let's do it. So
the fast food Giant runs the new Monopoly game right
before single winner is announced. Uncle Jerry managed it to
steal both of the million dollar instant Winter games. He
hands over one to his partner, the former cocaine smuggler Glom,

(55:58):
and he gave the other instant winner to a friend
of who had had some hard times and could really
use the money, right, And he's like, so his friend's
able to get like seventy grand together, and he buys.

Speaker 3 (56:08):
The winning game in the Southeast.

Speaker 2 (56:10):
Yes. Total. Meanwhile, the FBI is on the case, right,
So thanks to wiretaps, they're now following Glom, the cocaine smuggler,
and Uncle Jerry. So the FBI follows Uncle Jerry to
a small town called Corbin, Kentucky, where the agents watch
him meet up with the new fake winner, this guy
Dwight Baker. His sister in law had already had a
five hundred thousand dollars instant winner. So now the FBI

(56:33):
is watching Baker and Uncle Jerry get this a McDonald's bag,
nice cute touch inside is the seventy grand. In return,
Jerry hands him the million dollar winner. So the FBI
watches it. They're like, okay, good to rights. Yeah, the
Baker passes a ticket off to a trusted confidant who
lives in Texas, right who then you know, they contact
McDonald's to inform them of their good luck. Folks from

(56:55):
McDonald's corporate call the FBI. They're like, and the FBI
is like, is the new winner? On Davis from Granbury, Texas.
They're like, whoa, you guys are good. The McDonald's court
people are totally impressed. The g men had been clocking
it all with their wire taps. They'd figured it all out.
So now they set their trap right. Not only do
they plan to celebrate the latest million dollar winter, but

(57:16):
they tell them that we're gonna invite all the previous
winners to Las Vegas for a winners reunion.

Speaker 3 (57:21):
Oh my god, this is so good.

Speaker 2 (57:23):
But the FBI is like, no, no, man, that'll probably
tip our hands. They're gonna talk, they're gonna think that
they know each other too obvious. So instead they focus
on the new winner that came forward, the one that
glom the former cocaine smuggler head selection. So they set
up a commercial shoot featuring this latest lucky winner. The
man's name is Michael Hoover. He's from producer D's home
state of Rhode Island. So August third, two thousand and one,

(57:46):
film crew shows up in Westerly, Rhode Island. Right they
arrived with one of those giant checks to be featured
in the commercial. Cameras are rolling. They knock on the
door of a town ass the home of the new winner,
this fifty six year old bachelor who also happens to
be a recently bankrupt casino pit boss. The big Lucky
writer Michael Hoop. The cameras rolling the folks from McDonald's

(58:07):
corporate hand Michael the giant check, and they asked him
to tell us about yours, you know, the stroke of
luck for you winning the monopoly millions. Right, Hoover tell
us some cock of amy story. Once again, another child's
lie about how he was. You know I was. I
was sleeping on the beach. Stop No, but I woke up.
I went down to the water's edge to like, you know,
wipe the sand from me, and he stooped over and

(58:29):
my copy of People magazine dropped into the water right
there in the Atlantic. Me being an avid read of
People Magazine, I went to a grocery store and I
got myself a fresh copy. So would you know inside
of that it's the second copy of People. I find
the instant win a game piece. What luck? That's his story? What? Yes,
it was in.

Speaker 3 (58:47):
A copy of People magazine.

Speaker 2 (58:48):
Because remember it's a sweepstake. So in this case, they
had put him out because they.

Speaker 3 (58:54):
Had game pieces in the.

Speaker 2 (58:56):
Most recent People.

Speaker 3 (58:57):
Why do we have to hear?

Speaker 2 (59:00):
So the folks from McDonald's corporate, they're trying to keep
straight faces as he tells his obvious lie. So is
the film crew. It turns out the film crew is
also undercover FBI agents. It's incredible a week and a
half later, satisfied that they have great courtroom evidence now,
especially because they have this fake commercial filmed and you
know Jerry's love that that kind of stuff. The sting operation,
this is great. With the pig check and the People

(59:23):
magazine form in the Atlantic to the FBI. They make
their move. And you know how the FBI they love
to show up at your front door for a pre
dawn raid and catch you sleeping. Well, that's how they
grabbed Uncle Jerry.

Speaker 3 (59:34):
Knock knock knock.

Speaker 2 (59:35):
They let him out of his house in his handcuffs
to embarrass him in front of all his neighbors, right
and instead, then they go and they arrest the five
most recent fraudulent winners. And then also they arrest Jerry's partner,
the former cocaine smuggler glom All. In all, fifty defendants
were arrested as part of this FBI's case fifty. When
the news breaks on this Elizabeth, it's huge national news.

(59:58):
The Attorney General at the time, John Ashcar and now
the news of the FBI bus. He informs the press
that those involved in this type of corruption will find
out that breaking the law is no game. How long
do you think he worked on that line up?

Speaker 3 (01:00:12):
A workshop that at home for a very long time.

Speaker 2 (01:00:15):
Now, while we're talking about John Ashcroft's abundant creativity, do
you remember John Ashcroft's song Let the Eagle Soar?

Speaker 3 (01:00:22):
I do? I also remember how the statues of Justice
he didn't like that they were bare breasted in the
severed and fabric.

Speaker 2 (01:00:28):
Do you know he also had a music group when
he was a US senator. I'm no surprise, barbershop quartet.
They were called Good Lord the Singing Senators. You want
to guess who was in the Singing Senators? It was
John Ashcroft. He sang baritone, Larry Craig he sang lead,
Jim Jefferts was the tenor, and Trent Lott sang bass.

Speaker 3 (01:00:47):
Wow Wow.

Speaker 2 (01:00:49):
They're known for their barbershop quartet redition of the Oakridge
Boys hit song Elvi. They sang it at the Kennedy Center.
They also sang it on the Today Shows sickening. The
group broke up in two thousand and seven after Senator
Larry Craig include contact and solicitation of sex in a
Minneapolis airport men's room tapping. Yeah exactly. He was busted

(01:01:11):
by an undercover cop and due to the scandal, he
had resigned office.

Speaker 3 (01:01:15):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:01:15):
Anyway, remember how Uncle Jerry gave that million dollar ticket
to Saint Jude's Children's Possible and he thought, if I
ever get busted, that will help me out. Yeah, it
did not, Elizabeth. He was looking at forty five years
behind bars. If he ever got out of prison, he'd
be one hundred and four years old. Right, So in staid,
he cuts a deal, right, He agrees to plead guilty
and receives a sentence of fifteen years behind bars. Of course,

(01:01:36):
he loses everything. He loses his home, his like front property,
his classic car collection, he loses it all wall in court,
Uncle Jerry confessed it. Over the course of his career
as a Monopoly game fixer, he handed out sixty winning
game pieces worth twenty four million dollars. And that's how
Uncle Jerry aka Heraldo Constantino gets busted for rigging the

(01:01:57):
McDonald's monopoly game. And get this. Of the reason why
this story got memory hold and a lot of people
have never heard of it is that the FBI's court
case began on September tenth, two thousand and one, you're kidding,
one day before nine to eleven. So the story gets
lost in the news. It pales in comparison to the
birth of the new post nine world.

Speaker 3 (01:02:18):
Keep happening, you keep hearing these things. That's wild.

Speaker 2 (01:02:20):
I should point out the McDonald's did agree to honor
the winning ticket that Uncle Jerry gave to Saint Jude's
Children Hospital, so that's good and good and the actually
they didn't even really play it up for pr but
some people did find out that McDonald it was just
to say it was like a good karma, right yeah.
But still people found out that McDonald's have been running
a rig game, but none of their customers had a

(01:02:43):
chance of winning for twice a year for at least
six years. That is what's a ridiculous takeaway here.

Speaker 3 (01:02:50):
Oh my god, if you're gonna crime like I don't know,
you can't. You can't spread it out that wide. And
if you are gonna if you have to spread it,
you can't like you cannot, and don't go to a
psychic Kira, don't go to a chiropractor, but especially his
psychic carap ridiculous tackling.

Speaker 2 (01:03:10):
Oh man, I think that he should have stayed with
the mob and not gone to the B level like
cocaine smugglers. I think they're just messy glom Definitely. I
think if you would have stayed with the Colombo crime family,
they either they would have whacked him when it was like, oh,
we're gonna run into trouble, this is gonna be bad news,
and then all of a sudden Fi is like, oh

(01:03:30):
her main suspect is gone or you know, I think
that you know, that would be where I think he
made his mistake. And also the other one is try
to limit who you talk to in airports because you
end up in a scenario. Absolutely, so you in the
moved for a talkback. We can watch this all down
like a nice tall soda.

Speaker 3 (01:03:50):
Um.

Speaker 2 (01:03:50):
Yes, PRIs, can you favor us with one? Oh my god,
did you just see the.

Speaker 3 (01:04:01):
Helled?

Speaker 6 (01:04:06):
Hello Sarn Elizabeth and producer Dee. This is Hannah. I
am a new listener, really enjoying the show, and I
just listened to the college Football Pranks episode and that
reminded me. You know what's ridiculous. My grandmother once stole
the Washington State University's mascot, which is a live cougar.
She and her friends drove down from Gonzaga University, picked

(01:04:26):
up the cougar, brought it back with them to Gonzaga,
and once they sobered up, thought better of it and
took it back. This is allegedly all true, or so
it says, Grandma.

Speaker 2 (01:04:35):
Your grandma Mountain Lion.

Speaker 3 (01:04:38):
Aha. That's incredible, amazing, amazing, so good.

Speaker 2 (01:04:46):
Props to grandma.

Speaker 3 (01:04:48):
Right, that was excellent, Oh my god, thank you for that.
Come from a long line of amazing women.

Speaker 2 (01:04:54):
It sounds like, well, thank you for listening. Always. You
can find us online at Ridiculous Crime on social media,
and now we have our Ridiculous Crime Pod on YouTube,
so go check that out. It's they're awesome. It's fun
to watch or listen. And also we have our website,
Ridiculous Crime dot com. And of course you know we
love your talkback, so go to the iHeart app downloaded

(01:05:15):
record one and maybe hear your voice here. We'd love
to hear it also email us if you want a
Ridiculous Crime at gmail dot com. We do love your
story suggestions and there you go. That's all I got
for you. Thanks for listening, and we will catch you
next crime. Ridiculous Crime is hosted by Elizabeth Dutton and

(01:05:39):
Zarin Brenette, produced and edited by the Singing Senator sound
engineer Dave Houston, and starring Annalys Rutger as Judith. Research
is by Burger King loyalists Marissa Brown and Jabari Davis.
Our theme song is by our resident house band, Ronald
and the McDonald's aka Thomas Lee and Travis Dutton. The
host wardrobe provided by Botany five hundred guest Haaron, makeup

(01:05:59):
by Barcleshot and mister Andre. Executive producers are the lead
vocalists of the Men's Choir for the Church of the
Fuzzy Bunnies, Ben Bolin and Blen Brown.

Speaker 1 (01:06:14):
Gus Cry Say It one More Times Cry. Ridiculous Crime
is a production of iHeartRadio four more podcasts. My Heart
Radio visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
listen to your favorite shows.