November 2, 2025 • 59 mins
In the second installment of this episode, the FBI starts to close in and put the pieces of the puzzle together before doling out justice to the masterminds of the McDonald's Monopoly scam that lasted from 1989-2001.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
For over three hundred and fifty years, the state of
South Carolina has been the setting for some of the
most horrendous crimes ever committed. Some have gained global notoriety,
some have been forgotten, and others have been swept under
the rug completely. Now, two South Carolina natives and true
(00:26):
crime enthusiasts have teamed up to examine these heinous acts
in detail, giving their perspective of the evil that has
resided in the Palmetto State. You're listening to Carolina Crimes.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
And welcome back to Carolina Crimes, Episode two forty six,
Part two of this amazing tale about the McDonald's monopoly
McDonald's Millionaire game, the promotional promotion, I guess you call
it the promotion that they did between nineteen eighty seven
(01:06):
and two thousand and one. There, of course, we went
into depth about exactly what the FBI thought was happening
in the first part of this, and we left you
off on kind of a cliffhanger that Agent Doug Matthews
of the FBI had this brilliant idea to try to
get radio chatter back started between these winners and some
(01:28):
of these people they thought were potentially stealing these tokens
and running a scam of the whole thing, although they
couldn't quite put everything together of how this thing worked. Well,
welcome back here in a Part two. I'm one of
your hosts, Matt Hyres.
Speaker 3 (01:42):
Along with Danielle Myers.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
We're over the moon thrill that you joined us here today.
We're just really gonna jump right back into this story.
If you haven't listened to part one, make sure you
go back and listen to that so you'll know exactly
what we're talking about and fill you in. We're gonna
answer a lot of questions. Probably after episode one you're.
Speaker 4 (02:00):
Saying, well, what in the hell is this guy to
do with South Carolina. We'll get there. We'll get there.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
Some very interesting cats and tails yet to come. And
this is wild. This is absolutely wild how this went down.
So when we left off, Agent Doug Matthews of the FBI,
he had this idea. He said, well, you know, we.
Speaker 4 (02:24):
Got to get these people start talking again.
Speaker 2 (02:26):
We've got we're playing catch up on this thing from
possibly all the way back to nineteen eighty seven. It's
two thousand and one. We need to see what's going on.
And he had the brilliant idea to get a reunion
of all past big money winners of the McDonald's monopoly
game together in Las Vegas. So he got in touch
(02:49):
with Amy Murray, one of the marketing directors for McDonald's Global,
and he said, hey, this is what we're gonna do,
and he ran that the chain of the FBI and
they said, so your idea is to get all these
people together, all expenses paid to Las Vegas on the
(03:12):
government's dime, and then just kind of arrest them all
in one fail suite. He said, absolutely, that's exactly what
I want to do. I have it at He even
said the word he's at embassy suites. And a lot
of this information is coming from the mcmillion's documentary. We
talked about that. There's been several podcasts. They produced one
as well, but I'm getting the producer, well, the producer
(03:38):
was Mark Wahlberg, and the directors were sorry, I should
have had this written down and we'll get to that.
But anyway, this information is coming from that documentary. The
FBI said, hey, man, this is going to be cost prohibitive.
Is there any other way we can go about this?
(03:59):
And he said, okay, Well, here's what we're gonna do.
We're gonna say that eventually down the road, we're gonna
have this reunion of winners. What we're gonna do beforehand
is contact them and say, hey, what we want to
do is, and I think Doug Matthews loved doing this,
We're gonna go and film an interview with you, and
(04:19):
of course he was gonna pose as the director again
and get your story. What we're gonna do is have
a huge banquet for all you winners, something real nice
at one of the nice resorts there in Vegas. And
we are going to thank you, Daniel, and we are
going to play your story on the big screen, play
your interview, and everybody's gonna clap. It's gonna be fantastic. Yes,
(04:42):
I'm sorry. The mcmillions documentary was directed by James Lee
Hernandez and Brian Lazarte.
Speaker 4 (04:48):
Thank you and that'll be in the show notes too.
It's a great watch.
Speaker 2 (04:54):
So then Amy Murray was tasked with con contacting these
past winners again. She still had a lot of legwork
to do, recording the conversations with them, saying hey, this
is what we want to do. We'll take you somewhere local,
will meet you. We'll set up a local hotel or
(05:15):
somewhere and then we'll we'll film your.
Speaker 4 (05:18):
Interview and it'll be great.
Speaker 2 (05:21):
Well, what they were trying to do the FBI with
these interviews was lot these.
Speaker 4 (05:27):
Winners into a story on camera.
Speaker 2 (05:30):
Okay, you know, tell me how you won, just like
they did with a more gentleman last episode. The interviews,
of course we're going to be conducted. Doug Matthews was
the director, and of course he had his fake production
company of all FBH agents that was with him, and
they started getting in contact with these folks and the
(05:53):
stories they were telling were wild.
Speaker 4 (05:58):
One man.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
Was Buddy Fisher, older gentlemen. They noted during his interview,
and they showed about the whole thing, his inconsistencies and stories,
and he didn't He would say things and not have
all the facts. And what was really telling was his stuttering,
(06:21):
his sweating. This guy was poor and sweat. When they
started grilling him, especially about questions, they were like, well,
you wants to wipe your forehead a little bit, let's
get your forehead wiped in this shot. And you know
he said, they said, well, what's the first thing you did?
When he found out you were a winter. He said, well,
I went and hired an attorney, uh, to protect myself.
And they were like, really, what was which attorney did
(06:42):
you go to? Well, and he couldn't remember the name
of the attorney. There started being some inconsistencies, but it
was all on film. One one lady, and this is
kind of I think maybe she was a victim to circumstance.
(07:06):
I'm not saying she didn't know right from wrong. But
her name was Gloria Brown. She did live in Jacksonville, Florida,
but got entangled with this got a call from a friend,
which was Robin Colombo. She was very dear friends with her.
She had met her through a mutual friend years before
(07:28):
and they had really bonded. Robin needed a friend at
this point when she and Gloria Brown met, so Gloria Brown,
she agreed to be interviewed. She was a million dollar
winter and she goes in depth. She was in need
of money. She was making around twenty four thousand dollars
(07:51):
a year. What she did was she said that she
wanted at a Hilton Head's, South Carolina McDonald's. She had
temporarily moved from Jacksonville, was staying with a friend in
Hilton Head, had a hilton Head Post office box which
was her mailing address, so you know, winners would kind
(08:14):
of be dispersed other places.
Speaker 4 (08:17):
And Gloria Brown went into this story.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
She's very put together lady, very matter of fact, and
what agent Matthews did was just kind of kept ignorant. Well,
tell me about this, you know, tell me about this story,
locking her into those details.
Speaker 4 (08:35):
Gloria Brown.
Speaker 2 (08:36):
She told the story about how she got the ticket
from the McDonald's in Hilton Head, how she went in
and let him know that she thought she was a
winner for a million dollars, how the staff reacted everything
like that. She retold the story and he said, well
(08:57):
does this place look familiar? And he had a picture
printed out and he said, you know, is this the
McDonald's where you want it? Yes, she said, that's the
McDonald's in Hilton Head. He said, all right, he said,
do me a favor, would you sign that picture and
just put this is where I won or something, you
(09:17):
know something, and she put on there thanks a million McDonald's,
Gloria Brown. And they're like, all right, well you pose
with that and say a little something about the store.
And she said, this is where I won my million dollars.
I'm paraphrasing here, this is where I won, and I'm
a big winner, and thanks a million McDonald's and pointed
(09:37):
to her name up on a poster with a star
that said Gloria Brown a million dollars. Well, that picture
that agent Matthews had her sign, had her pose with
say all those wonderful things about it wasn't the McDonald's
in Hilton Head, Oh, it was a picture of the
McDonald's of McDonald's in Florida. So he got her there. Now,
(10:05):
after that interview, they started really looking into Gloria Brown's
phone records, and her records linked her with Jerry Columbo,
her friend Robin's husband. They started looking at the winner's
phone records and there were a lot of consistencies, like
(10:26):
we talked about in the last episode, calls between Jerry
Colombo to Jerry Jacobson Simon Marketing, and a gentleman a j.
Speaker 1 (10:36):
Glomb.
Speaker 2 (10:38):
Then they also started to see some calls with some
other winners to a man named Dwight Baker, a developer
in South Carolina.
Speaker 4 (10:46):
But we'll get to him a little later.
Speaker 2 (10:50):
So the FBI began to suspect organized crime may have
had a play in this. Maybe this uncle Jerry. Maybe
it wasn't Jerry Colombo. Maybe it wasn't Jerry Jacobson, maybe
someone else. The name Jerry Colombo of course stood out.
Speaker 4 (11:11):
We said.
Speaker 2 (11:11):
He was married to his wife, Robin, and they met
in nineteen eighty five and married in Panama City, Florida.
They had one child. He by trade was a bookie.
He had connections to organized crime. He was one time
the head of security attic at Atlantic City's taj Mahal Casino.
(11:34):
He enjoyed gambling and he aspired to be an actor.
Speaker 4 (11:37):
Remember he was the.
Speaker 2 (11:37):
Guy last week or last episode we talked about. His
family described him as, you know, a combination of al
Capone and Rodney Davis. Just this congenial, big guy, always
getting a laugh and liked by a lot of people.
But he had his hands. He dabbled in some nefarious
activities that sounded like now Colombo. He was living in
(12:00):
Florida with his wife, Robin, and he kind of got
antsy and soon wanted to get back involved in where
the action was, and for him, that was with his
family in New York City. Well, he contacted some family
members there and his uncle Dominic back in New York City,
(12:21):
and Jerry Colombo. He went and met with his uncle
to see if he had any work that could be done.
And Uncle Dominic he told Colombo about the opportunity in
these McDonald's things, these tokens that could win a lot
of money, these instant sweepstakes winners, and that this would
(12:44):
be something he needed to head up for. He had
a contact a guy by the name of Uncle Jerry
down south who could get these pieces and give them
to him and for a price, of course, and then
he could take some of the winnings, take a portion
of the winnings upfront, and make some money, give his
(13:05):
tribute to Uncle Dominic in the family.
Speaker 4 (13:08):
And that's how that was gonna work.
Speaker 2 (13:11):
Well. Uncle Dominic he introduced Colombo to Jerry Jacobson, and
this was in the late nineties, and on wiretaps there
were several several conversations between aj Glom, Jerry Colombo, and
(13:32):
Jerry Jacobson in some some kind.
Speaker 4 (13:36):
Of order there.
Speaker 2 (13:39):
Now, the FBI was trying to trying to connect the
dots here, and what they were starting to find out
is that the gentleman that McDonald's went and filmed the
Sweating Guy, Buddy Fisher.
Speaker 4 (13:54):
In fact, he.
Speaker 2 (13:56):
Was Robin Colombo's father, so Jerry Columbo's father in law. Okay, now, Jerry,
remember he decided to cash in a ticket himself and
want a Dodge Viper. Yes, that his family kind of
laughingly said, you know, he couldn't even he couldn't fit in,
so it was cool.
Speaker 4 (14:18):
They started looking into.
Speaker 2 (14:20):
Gloria Brown, the lady who posed with the picture, and
they realized she was a friend of Robin Colombo. She
had several phone conversations with Jerry Colombo. So the FBI
they know who's involved, but how exactly are they getting
this done. They can't take things to Mark Devereux, the
(14:41):
prosecuting attorney for the US for.
Speaker 4 (14:44):
The United States, and just give him this.
Speaker 2 (14:47):
Hey, we know these people won, but they're kind of
calling the same people's that's not enough to follow war. Well,
it seemed that Jerry Jacobson they were able to tell.
Now he's the guy with Simon Marketing. He's being able
to get the tickets and he's getting the surrogates to
cash them in or sell them or pass them along
some somehow, and he's going to be getting a kickback probably,
(15:10):
and of course it's Jerry Colombo and aj Blom. Well,
the price structure was broken down later as to exactly
what was going on, and for a one million dollar ticket,
Jerry Jacobson was getting anywhere between fifty and one hundred
thousand dollars upfront, just cash, and then whoever sold them,
(15:35):
such as like Jerry Colombo to the suspected winner, would
be getting half. So really you're winning about five hundred
thousand dollars, okay, but he was getting his half of that.
Speaker 4 (15:51):
Well.
Speaker 2 (15:51):
Colombo he would fly to Atlanta to meet with Jerry
Jacobson to pick up his tickets or tokens, and since
he was the seller, he was actually making a ton
of money on this. Even gave one to pretty lady
lady he thought was pretty in the airport.
Speaker 4 (16:09):
Okay, I mean.
Speaker 2 (16:10):
Stuff crazy stuff like that. Well, in nineteen ninety seven,
his wife, Robin, she.
Speaker 4 (16:17):
Was in on this as well.
Speaker 2 (16:19):
And Jerry Colombo we said, he was this just affable
man and it seemed like he was wanting to hook
up his friends, as we all do. And Robin finally
had to sit him down his wife and say, hey,
you know all these winners that are winning these McDonald's millions,
(16:42):
they're all Italian Americans from the East Coast, the males.
So hey, why don't and I like it? He said,
why don't you get some women involved? How about some
people of color? Because yeah, you're making this pretty obvious, Jerry.
You know, you got to kind of spread the wealth around.
(17:04):
And in fact, that's how Gloria Brown got involved. One
of Robin's friends and Gloria for her upfront money, she
actually mortgaged her home, which put her in a in
a very.
Speaker 4 (17:19):
Tight financial spot. But she looked at this.
Speaker 2 (17:22):
She's a very good church going lady and she saw
this as you know, this is an opportunity for a blessing.
Speaker 4 (17:28):
It.
Speaker 2 (17:29):
She didn't know they were stolen, but she was getting
them through kind of nefarious reason or manner. Yeah, So
while the Columbos were living in Charleston, South Carolina, that's
when they had Gloria come up to visit and they
floated this idea to her. So the Columbos lived in
Charleston for a period of time and this Jerry Colombo,
(17:54):
he you're gonna find out more about what a character
he was, and we're gonna do a little dive into
his character and his activities, especially around the Charleston area.
Right when we come back from this break, folks will
be right back and welcome back to Carolina Crimes, Episode
(18:30):
two forty six, Part two, the McDonald's Scam of Millions.
And when we left off, we were talking about this
interesting character, Jerry Columbo. Well Colombo, like we said, he
had a couple different his hands and a couple different things,
kind of a renaissance man when it came to his
(18:51):
jobs and bookie. He worked at the taj Mahal in
Atlantic City for a while, connected to the Colombo family
and one of the Five Families of New York. And
while he was in Charleston, and some low country residents
may remember this, but around ninety seven ninety eight, he
(19:12):
opened an establishment in Ladson, South Carolina called the Fuzzy Bunny.
Oh no, no me either. But what the Fuzzy Bunny
was was it sounds like a strip club, but it wasn't.
It was similar. They had dancing young ladies. They did
(19:36):
not get fully nude, according to Colombo. He said, they
danced around in some daisy duke shorts and you know
they had pasties on and not not nude, but neked enough,
nudish neckd enough.
Speaker 4 (19:52):
I guess that's.
Speaker 2 (19:54):
Nude light Well, County zoning and residents around the Ladson
area started given him fits about it. And this is
just a side note on Colombo for those listening. They
were like, Hey, we don't want this kind of establishment
around here. It's within certain feet of a school and
a church. Even though it's non nude. We don't want to.
Speaker 4 (20:18):
See it here. We don't think it belongs here.
Speaker 2 (20:21):
So a court order came actually shutting down the Fuzzy
Bunny because it didn't meet certain requirements. Well, Jerry Colombo,
he was always a good sport for a good loophole.
So what he did was make it the Church of
the Fuzzy Bunny.
Speaker 4 (20:42):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (20:44):
He had the dancers allegedly read the Bible before going
on stage, not to the public, but I mean and
in private.
Speaker 3 (20:54):
And he while they were backstage.
Speaker 2 (20:57):
Yes, and called it the Church the Fuzzy Bunny. There's
there's a lot wrong I guess with that. That's yeah, okay,
so the.
Speaker 4 (21:09):
Church of the Fuzzy Bank.
Speaker 2 (21:11):
Eventually it did close down, and Jerry Colombo, he got
deeper and deeper into this monopoly scam. He was considered
I guess a recruiter is a word that the FBI
kept using over and over again, that he would find
people to sell these tickets too. He didn't really have
(21:31):
a problem. It was a good return on investment. These people,
you know, splitting the money with him. I mean half
a million dollars for free. I'm gonna get that, Okay, Yeah,
I'll take it.
Speaker 4 (21:42):
Yeah, not a bad deal. Well.
Speaker 2 (21:44):
In nineteen ninety eight, Colombo with his wife Robin and
their son Frankie. They were traveling in their vehicle. Frankie
getting a little fussy in the back seat and Jerry
turned around to take him out of his carse eat
and they got t boned by a truck on the
passenger side. This accident, Robin she did have five stitches
(22:13):
in her head. Little Frankie did have a broken arm,
but but Jerry, he was pretty banged up. He was
put into ICU, but was able to communicate. He told
his brother when he spoke to him, told him about
the tickets where he could find some where he had
(22:37):
money stashed in his home. All the things you're telling
if if you got a lot of irons in the
fire you got a lot of business to take care
of before you pass away.
Speaker 4 (22:45):
He was.
Speaker 2 (22:45):
He was trying to unload this just in case something happened. Well,
something did, and unfortunately Jerry Colombo, he did lose his
life due to this accident. Well, his brother, a very
upstanding guy, found the tickets and he disposed of them.
(23:08):
He didn't want anything to do with that. He wouldn't
about that life. Trying to do the right thing. He said, Okay,
this is the end of it. We you know, I've
known he's doing this monopoly thing. I've heard Robin's involved too.
So we're gonna we're gonna get We're gonna get rid
of this. So after the death of Jerry Colombo, the
(23:30):
FBI saw a spike in phone activity between Jerry Jacobson
and a man who we mentioned his name several times,
Andrew aj Glom. Yes, we mentioned aj Glom. He had
been convicted for drug charges drug trafficking back in the
(23:50):
early eighties. He got into the drug trade around nineteen
seventy nine. First he started selling kayludes and then he
got popped. In nineteen eighty two, he was caught dropping
off cocaine to someone who was being watched by the
DEA at the time at an airport. He was given
(24:12):
twelve years in federal prison and they said, hey, you
can report sometime within these sixty days. I didn't know
that's how that worked, but he was sentenced and they said, okay,
well you need to report to this prison in.
Speaker 4 (24:25):
Alabama instead of like instantly again said of come on,
you're coming with us and putting shackles.
Speaker 3 (24:31):
That's putting a lot of trust.
Speaker 2 (24:33):
Yes, and him and Andrew Glom burned him. Apparently he
had He was pretty independently wealthy, seemed to be traveled
a lot. I don't know if you got those gains
through business or family ties or any of that. But
he didn't report to federal prison in nineteen eighty two
like he was supposed to, and he went on the
(24:54):
lamb and he fled to Europe for sixteen months. Okay, well,
Glom while he was in Germany bought a Ferrari and
he had it shipped over to Long Beach, California, and
he actually got nabbed by the authorities when he went
to pick it up in California. Okay, Well, once he
(25:16):
served his time, a friend had contacted him about this
Monopoly McDonald's scam.
Speaker 4 (25:26):
Aj Glom.
Speaker 2 (25:27):
He became a recruiter just like Jerry Colombo was, and
phone records they started to show winners like the one
we discussed last week calling Glomb Michael Hoover, the gentleman
in Florida that gave the first interview to agent Doug Matthews.
Speaker 4 (25:49):
That guy so so.
Speaker 2 (25:54):
Another number that started popping up in all these phone calls,
and we mentioned him briefly, was a man by the
name of Dwight Baker. Now he's another player in this game.
And Dwight Baker he was a real estate developer in
upstate South Carolina. He had actually sold property to Jerry
(26:16):
Jacobson on Lake Hartwell Well in the year two thousand.
Dwight Baker, he was approached about these monopoly game tokens
by Jerry Jacobson after Baker had.
Speaker 4 (26:30):
Been in a backo accident.
Speaker 3 (26:33):
Okay, he was.
Speaker 2 (26:35):
Unable to work. He had to stay in the hospital
several weeks down in his back and he said, you know,
I'm down on your You know I knew you're down
on your luck. You make your money by being present.
Here's maybe another opportunity you might want to look into
Dwight and so Baker he in an interview he said,
(26:59):
maybe it was his luck, but maybe it was the
pain medication that might have clouded his judgment a little bit.
Speaker 4 (27:06):
And he went ahead and he did agree. DWIGHTE. Baker
normally a very moral man.
Speaker 2 (27:16):
He was a member of the LDS Church, and he
kind of put that aside and said, I see some
dollar signs, and I think maybe I can make some
money doing all this, or maybe I can have a
token myself. Well, in June of two thousand, lo and Behold,
a man by the name of George Chandler of Wahalla
(27:39):
won an instant million dollar jackpot in the McDonald's monopoly promotion. Well,
George Chandler, funny enough, he just so happened to be
the foster son of DWIGHTE.
Speaker 4 (27:54):
Baker.
Speaker 2 (27:55):
Oh, okay, George himself. The the documentary, it went into
a lot of depth, and I like George again. He
seems like somebody would have hung out with. He was
kind of an unassuming, simple, hard working man. He grew
(28:16):
up in a poor family. He even mentioned that his
family didn't have running water until nineteen eighty six. They
were also a member of the LDS Church with the Bakers,
and he was a friend of one of White Baker's sons,
and so the Bakers really adopted.
Speaker 4 (28:34):
Him and took him into raise well.
Speaker 2 (28:38):
George Chandler, he dropped out of school at the age
of sixteen and went straight to work. He would lie
about his age a little bit on some job applications
to get work. He was very smart. He was an entrepreneur.
He said, I figure normal people worked eight hour days.
(28:58):
I'm gonna work at sixteen hour day just to show
him how how hard, how hard I'm working. So now
this George Chandler was a winner. He had been approached
by Dwight and Dwight at the time of this. He
got hold of this million dollar ticket. Dwight himself was
(29:19):
going through a divorce. He was separated from his wife.
This wasn't I don't know if it be considered marital
property that was, but that was the excuse he gave
to George. He said, I got this ticket. I don't
want my wife to get half of it. You're like
(29:39):
a son to me.
Speaker 4 (29:42):
Here.
Speaker 2 (29:42):
I'm gonna give this to you, but all I ask
for in exchange is a brand new Lincoln Navigator. And
a brand new laptop, which was kind of a well,
if you think about the Jerry Columbo thing, he wanted
half of the money, half a million dollars for every
million dollar ticket he gave, So it was kind of
a bargain. And if you're gonna get a million dollars,
(30:03):
sure you're gonna provide this opportunity for me to be
a millionaire. So you want a you know, maybe forty
fifty thousand dollars car at the time, and and a laptop.
Speaker 3 (30:14):
Uh, okay, I want a little something of return.
Speaker 2 (30:17):
Yeah, And so George he didn't have said, no problem,
let's go and I'm gonna be a monopoly millionaire for McDonald's.
Speaker 4 (30:24):
Cool.
Speaker 2 (30:26):
So in August of two thousand and one, the FBI
they started trying to They said, you know, this monopoly
game that we let them run with, that they knew
was rigged, is starting to run out. We got to
start making some moves we need to get We need
to get some more information to start making some arrests
(30:48):
in this.
Speaker 4 (30:49):
Okay, So the FBI.
Speaker 2 (30:54):
They intercepted a phone call between Dwight Baker and Jerry
Jacobson out of it, and they were a lot of
small talk, but you can tell they were saying they
were about to exchange a big game piece. Okay, they
(31:14):
didn't have. The FBI didn't have a lot to go
off of because they said, Hey, we're going to meet
at the usual spot, and they had to figure out
where this usual spot was. So frantically they knew when
they were meeting, they knew the time. They were trying
to tell these guys from whereever they may be at,
and finally they figured it out.
Speaker 4 (31:35):
They were looking at rest.
Speaker 2 (31:36):
Areas everywhere all along the way from Lake Hartwooll To Atlanta,
and they finally got to a winery and they were
able to physically film the exchange between Jacobsen and Dwight Baker,
both from the ground and from a helicopter overhead. They
(31:59):
actually were able to zoom in. I didn't know they
had cameras this great in two thousand and one and
swap this thing out. So due to this footage, the
FBI they decided they had enough. Mark Devereaux, the US attorney,
he decided he had enough to go ahead and issue
(32:20):
some arrest warrants. So they decided they said, hey, if
we're gonna bust these people, if we just get one
or two, word's gonna spread. These people do have an
exorbitant amount of money that they've won in air quotes
from McDonald's. They're probably gonna run. So what we're gonna
(32:41):
need is a multi jurisdictional arrest team to go out
after all these people and arrest them all at the
same exact time.
Speaker 3 (32:54):
Wow, that's a you know, you have to be very
communicate very well on that you do.
Speaker 2 (33:00):
And this is going to be This is gonna be
another wild part of this. So the warrants that were
issued they were for conspiracy and mail fraud federal offenses
because of course the tickets were mailed back in to
Simon Marketing to be claimed. So those charges they would
(33:24):
they would net somebody up to twenty years in federal prison.
So this elaborate plan was put into place by the
FBI surveillance everything it was put into place, and everything
was going to happen at once. The plan itself was
about thirty pages and how they were going to communicate this.
(33:47):
They faxed the plan, all thirty pages to each individual
FBI local office that was going to be involved.
Speaker 4 (33:57):
But they hit a snack and when.
Speaker 2 (34:00):
We get back from this word from our sponsors. We're
going to talk about this unbelievable turn of events that happened.
Folks will be right back after this quick word from
our sponsors, and welcome back to Carolina Crimes, Episode two
(34:33):
forty six, Part two about them and McDonald's monopoly scamter.
Speaker 4 (34:41):
Yes it is, Yes, it is.
Speaker 2 (34:44):
So when we left off, we talked about the FBI
being ready to roll on this. They're like, Okay, we're
gonna have to arrest these alleged winners. We're gonna have
to arrest the recruiters. We've got this big plan in place,
but it all has to happened simultaneously, so they can't
tip each other off. They can't warn each other that
(35:04):
the FBI is coming. So this thirty page plan was
put into place, and it was going to be distributed
to all the local FBI offices that were going to
be involved, particularly the Greenville, South Carolina FBI office. So
they were faxing these plans and there was a misstep.
(35:24):
The speed dial on the facts had Greenville FBI, but
that button wasn't pushed. Where the facts was sent to
was the Greenville News.
Speaker 4 (35:39):
Oh lord, yeah, so I.
Speaker 2 (35:48):
Covert and I just popped over. I talked to our
local newsman, Tyler Cupp told him that, and I said,
what would.
Speaker 4 (35:56):
You do if you received that. So a young twenty.
Speaker 2 (36:01):
Four year old crime in court reporter by the name
of John boit Nawski, he did receive the facts. It
was put on his desk, and the more he looked
at it, the more he said, Uh, this probably wasn't
supposed to come here. This is talking about and Uncle
Jerry and who these people are, and surveillance and a
(36:24):
plan to a recipe this.
Speaker 4 (36:27):
I better sit.
Speaker 2 (36:29):
On this for a minute before I find out exactly
what it is. So the FBI, they once they figured
out what happened, they immediately tried to contact him. Agent Matthews,
Doug Matthews, the one that's so over zealous about this
whole thing. He and Prosecutor Mark Devereaux. They actually flew
(36:50):
in a Sessana to Greenville. They were like, look, we
got to fix this. You cannot release this. Please don't
release this.
Speaker 4 (36:55):
No, no, no, no, no no.
Speaker 2 (36:57):
And they said maybe some monetary consideration might have changed hands,
but probably not.
Speaker 4 (37:03):
We're speculating.
Speaker 2 (37:04):
They were speculating too, but they did promise the Greenville News.
Speaker 4 (37:09):
We will give you the exclusive.
Speaker 2 (37:10):
We will let you know where these arrests will happen
so you can have photographs. We will cater to you,
be your concierge through this whole thing.
Speaker 4 (37:20):
Just shut up for twenty four hours. Please, that's a
hard ask. Please, we know this is your job and
we know that this could make you a mint.
Speaker 3 (37:33):
You can see them on their knees with their hands
like folded the come on.
Speaker 2 (37:38):
So the FBI they negotiated for the Greenville News to
keep quiet about this while we set this operation into
play in exchange for the exclusive. So now the arrests
were set to happen. This whole operation had to be
signed off on by the United States Attorney General at
the time, John Ashcroft. So here's how it went. There
(38:04):
was a large blow up with Dwight Baker and his
stranged wife and his strange wife's sister, Brenda Fennis, who
did have a ticket as well. So Janet Pelasiatti one
of the FBI agents. She was set to arrest Brenda
Finnis in Indiana, agent Timothy Adams. He was going to
(38:29):
go after Gloria Brown in Jacksonville, agent Doug Matthews, who
may or may not have been the one to send
the facts to the Greenville News instead of Greenville FBI.
Speaker 4 (38:43):
They can laugh about it now.
Speaker 2 (38:44):
Twenty five years later, he was put in charge of
arresting aj Glomb. He was the runner, He was the
one that was involved in the drug trafficking. He was
considered the most dangerous ones. So they were like, you
want to mess up our facts to dude, here, this
is yours, go for it. Or he may have been
(39:04):
the one most capable of getting him, I believe the latter,
Agent Estra Laga. He was assigned to upstate South Carolina
to arrest Dwight Baker and his a strange wife, Linda Baker,
and Rick Dent.
Speaker 4 (39:20):
He was assigned to Atlanta.
Speaker 2 (39:26):
He and Mark Devereaux were going to be in Atlanta
to arrest fifty eight year old Jerry Jacobson. Also set
for arrest was Buddy Fisher and Robin Colombo, the widow
of Jerry Colombo, who was actually incarcerated at that time
(39:47):
for another offense fraud. Some shoplet we can get really
into the weeds about those. So all these went down.
Agent Doug Matthews, who was going after ag he said
you know, I'm competitive. He's the spitfire. He was like,
I wanted to be first to arrest my person.
Speaker 4 (40:08):
He wasn't. He was last.
Speaker 2 (40:10):
But everybody they ended up arresting these folks. Some cooperated immediately,
they went ahead and told their stories. Some did not
want to cooperate at all. Aj Glom being one, he
of course had a long history with law enforcement, pretty
(40:33):
seasoned in the criminal world, I think. But they actually
had to lure him out of his home. They wanted
to nab him when he came down the driveway to
get the paper that morning, but it was his wife.
Speaker 4 (40:46):
He had a gate, a wall all the way around
his home.
Speaker 2 (40:51):
So what they did was get the local Bridwood County
Sheriff's department to come and contact Glomb and they were like, hey,
there's been a lot of breakings in the neighborhood. We've
got some folks down here. We want to know if
you've seen them in the area. And he said, that's
none of my business. I don't want to come. No,
I'm not coming into my driveway for that. They didn't
rob me, Yeah, no, I don't want to do that.
(41:12):
So they continued and they said, hey, just come down
we need you to come down. He said, fine, you're
gonna keep sweating me. I'm gonna come down. And of
course waiting there was the trap and the FBI and
they arrested him. Jerry Jacobson when he was arrested at
his home in Atlanta, he clammed up.
Speaker 4 (41:34):
Uh, he had a Honda.
Speaker 2 (41:35):
Sports car in the driveway, just so having to have
three hundred thousand dollars cash in the trunk.
Speaker 4 (41:43):
Okay, yeah, like that.
Speaker 2 (41:47):
Buddy Fisher was arrested, Robin Columbo's dad, as we mentioned.
And Dwight Baker, he did something. He's the developer, remember that,
his foster son he gave the ticket to. We'll talk
about that in a minute. But he he ended up
placing all the blame on George Chandler, the ones that
(42:11):
did cooperate with authorities.
Speaker 4 (42:14):
George Chandler.
Speaker 2 (42:15):
Of course, when he was called, he was like, I
didn't know it was stolen. I didn't know anything about it.
When they told him, Dwight Baker was of all, he said,
you've got the wrong person. He said, he's a kind man,
he's always been kind to me. There's no way he
could be involved. Gloria Brown, she's a good church going woman,
and she hit hard times and saw this as a
(42:35):
blessing or an opportunity. But she said, you know what,
the lion's over. Here's exactly what happened. And I like
her a lot.
Speaker 4 (42:44):
I got a lot. I got a lot of time
for her.
Speaker 2 (42:48):
And Buddy Fisher also he was the one poor and
sweat the entire time, couldn't remember the lawyer that he got.
Speaker 4 (42:55):
He also cooperated as well.
Speaker 2 (42:58):
Now Mark Dever Citadel Class of nineteen eighty and US attorney.
He was set to prosecute this case. And when all
this hit the media about what happened, it was national news.
Everybody was talking about, oh my gosh, here it is
(43:19):
two thousand and one. We've been dedicated to play in
this silly sweepstakes monopoly promotion from McDonald's since nineteen eighty seven.
It's been rigged the whole time. And Simon Marketing that
was in charge of this, they were essentially shut down.
(43:40):
McDonald's was ninety eight percent of their business. Dedler Printing
was looked at as well. This stock for Simon Marketing
went from about one hundred dollars a share down to
fifty cents a share overnight They said that was the
largest drop in one stock in American history for one day.
Speaker 4 (44:00):
At the time.
Speaker 2 (44:01):
That's insane. So the suspects they were released on bond.
That the eight a little concern of course about aj
Glom as well. He had run before, but they kept
close tabs on him. And then there were some residual arrests.
(44:25):
One was Marvin Brawn. He was Jerry Jacobson's step brother
and he was eventually believed to be the first person
kind of the guinea pig for Jerry Jacobson. Oh okay,
and he gave him a twenty five thousand dollars game token.
Speaker 3 (44:43):
You can't start big right away?
Speaker 2 (44:45):
Yeah, he cashed that in, was like, okay, this is
a little weird. I still think this is shady, but
I'm gonna do it. And then later on a few
years later, Jerry approached him with a million dollar ticket
and he flushed it down the toilet in front of Jerry.
Really yeah.
Speaker 4 (45:02):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (45:03):
But Marvin, when he found out they were looking for
him the FBI, he turned himself in and he said here.
Speaker 4 (45:10):
He laid it all out. Okay, a good fella.
Speaker 2 (45:14):
Now, George Chandler, remember the foster son of Dwight Baker.
There's a lot of players in this, folks. I'm sorry,
George Chandler. The finger was pointed at him by Dwight Baker.
Dwight implicated and said, well he was part of this too. Well, George,
(45:35):
this was a man that he trusted, that he loved,
and of course he was hurt and upset that he
would implicate him. So what George Chandler did. He obtained
representation and they asked Mark Devereux to drop the charges,
but he said initially, he said, I cannot if I
dropped the charges against you. You say you didn't know,
(45:58):
other people are going to say they didn't know. We're
gonna have to go to trial. So Jerome Jacobson, now
known as Uncle Jerry, he was the real Uncle Jerry.
He faced nine counts of conspiracy and his attorneys actually
advised him against cooperating with authorities. They said, nope, don't
(46:18):
say a word. Let's try to fight this thing. Make them, yeah,
make them prove it. But the FBI and McDonald's and
everyone involved, they really wanted to know how. They were like,
we have got to get this information from Jerry Jacobson
as to how he went through all this stringent security.
(46:42):
He had an auditor that went around the country with him.
He held a Bennett. They had the game pieces in
a locked, sealed, handcuffed briefcase. He also but we'll get
into how he did it a little later. But they
were just befuddled. So the trial, Jerry Jacobson he pled
(47:03):
not guilty, and the trial was set to start September tenth,
two thousand and one.
Speaker 4 (47:12):
M Well, the.
Speaker 2 (47:16):
World as we know it, of course, was turned upside
down the next day, nine to eleven, two thousand and one,
and the national attention shifted. The trial was put on
hold for a little while, and it was finally reset
to convene in Jacksonville, Florida, in two thousand and two. Well,
(47:40):
Jerry Jacobson and his attorneys, they had stuck to their
guns for quite a while.
Speaker 4 (47:44):
Hey, we're not cooperating. We're not going to tell you
how we did this.
Speaker 2 (47:49):
But the more, after about three weeks, Jerry Jacobson said, Hey,
I've changed my mind. Strike a plea deal. I will
tell you exactly how this went down. I will tell
you everything, I will implicate anybody, and I will be
(48:10):
at your disposal.
Speaker 4 (48:12):
Okay, So the deal.
Speaker 2 (48:16):
He struck was that he was going to spill the
beans on everybody and everything, including himself, in exchange for
thirty seven months in a federal prison.
Speaker 4 (48:26):
Instead of twelve years or twenty years. The result of
that was fifty three people.
Speaker 2 (48:34):
Became indicted, and almost all of them pled guilty except
seven of them. And of the seven that went to trial,
two of them they went ahead and said, you know,
after hearing the opening statements and seeing some of this evidence,
we're gonna go ahead and plead guilty too. We're gonna
(48:55):
we're gonna change that up. But one of those that
did go to trial was George Chandler. It became a
big discussion in court of actual laws versus game rules
because initially McDonald's they said, the tickets aren't transferable, you know,
(49:16):
you can't have this thing and give it to another person.
Then they'd be the winner. But that wasn't a law,
it was a game rule. And then they went back
they said, well, a couple of years ago, Jerry Jacobson
or an anonymous person actually sent a million dollar winning
(49:38):
ticket to Saint Jude's Hospital. Okay, as like a donation,
like put it in an envelope. And send it to
Saint Jude for Christmas, which.
Speaker 4 (49:51):
Is I mean wow. Yeah, And it was a big deal.
Speaker 2 (49:55):
They had a huge press conference, They had Ronald McDonald
there at Saint Jude's and I was like.
Speaker 4 (49:59):
Yeah, of course, yes, we can have that. And that
came into play.
Speaker 2 (50:03):
They were like, well that time that ticket was transferable,
So why doesn't this apply to this guy when he
didn't know. He didn't steal the ticket, he just knew
his foster dad said, I found this. I don't want
it to get tangled up in my divorce. All I'm
asking for is a Lincoln Navigator and a laptop.
Speaker 1 (50:22):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (50:22):
It was given to him by someone else.
Speaker 2 (50:25):
Yes, And they said it's no different than finding one
on the street, one in the gutter that had blown
out of somebody's car, or anything like that. Well, it
ended up that George Chandler was convicted. He got some leniency,
He received house arrest and probation in two thousand and three,
but in two thousand and four that sentence was overturned
(50:46):
and rightfully so, yeah, I think, So, how did Jerry
Jacobson do this? What everybody is thinking? He went ahead
and confess. He came and testified in court. They of
course these tickets, these winning tickets, were under a lot
(51:08):
of scrutiny. Everybody knew when they were being printed. It
was like Fort Knox around Dittler Printing and Simon Marketing.
When Simon got these winning tickets, what they did they
put them with what they called the seed tokens, so
a couple of non winners, so you had about twenty
(51:29):
of them. You didn't know which one was the winner.
You put the winner in with these seeds. You put
it in an envelope and you put a unbreakable.
Speaker 4 (51:38):
Seal on it.
Speaker 2 (51:39):
Okay, it was put into a locked briefcase. Jerry Jacobson
himself had a security for Simon Marketing and an auditor,
a lady by the name of Hilda Bennett. They would travel,
they would fly first class to these different locales where
(52:00):
they would then deliver all the tokens at once. The
people they were delivering them to didn't know which one
was the winter which was not, and they put it
on the cups, the fry packages there at the production
It was very secure when those were put on as well.
But it was the travel portion you see some folks,
(52:21):
some sources say it was by accident. Some say maybe
Jerry Jacobson got these in a nefarious manner, But he
got his hands on the McDonald's unbreakable seals. He had
his own bevy of those. So under his clothes he
(52:42):
would wear a protective vest where he would carry an
envelope that had a pocket on the inside. When they
would get to the airports. Hilda Bennett is a female,
he is a male. He would need to go to
the restaurant which people need to go. Yep, she could
(53:06):
not follow him into the restroom. He would go there,
switch out the envelope that he had or unseal it,
take out the one he knew was the winner or
the winner he had, or put the blanks in and
seal it back with those seals that he had he
would put. He would carry another envelope on his person
(53:32):
and then make the old switch there. And so it
would be if it was one winner and twenty of
the seed tokens, it would be twenty seed tokens he
was delivering wo and he'd have that one winner inside
his protective vest in the inner pocket. That's the way
he was getting all these Wow. And they believe it
(53:56):
started in nineteen eighty nine. It could have started in
eighty seven when the promotion started, but it took a
lot of cajones. Yeah, to try to do this. And
you're not only playing with the law with fraud, you're
also playing with your career, your reputation. And now Jerry Jacobsen,
(54:22):
he has served as prison sentence and he is living
in State of Georgia.
Speaker 4 (54:29):
Assumedly he's learned his lessons on the straight arrow.
Speaker 2 (54:34):
Yes, and through that documentary that we keep referencing. Now,
there were podcasts that went along with it, some companion pieces,
also some independent podcast YouTube videos where I watched the
graphics of the switching out the letters and the seals.
That's where I got that from a lot of a
(54:56):
lot of accusations about Jerry Jacobson's character from his ex wife,
from Robin Colombo, the widow of Jerry Colombo. They they
didn't have very kind things to say. Again, this is
we got one side of the story. There's always three
(55:17):
sides to every story. But yeah, Jerry Jacobson's ex wife,
she did not care for him whatsoever, and she alleged abuse,
child abuse, some stalking, and then others that worked with
Jerry said he's a nice guy in the world, so
somewhere in the middle lies the truth. But he did
(55:38):
pull off this scam on the McDonald's monopoly game that
all in total twenty four million dollars.
Speaker 4 (55:48):
Was scammed.
Speaker 3 (55:49):
Wow. And he has he ever done an interview, not.
Speaker 4 (55:54):
That I know of, not that I know.
Speaker 2 (55:58):
I mean I think he that's a chapter in his
life that is like happened he got caught.
Speaker 3 (56:04):
You can find the information. I don't need to tell
you anything.
Speaker 4 (56:08):
Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (56:10):
So now, I mean he would be up in age
if he's still with us. And again, he was fifty
eight when he was arrested, so that's he'd be in
his eighties by now, well into his eighties.
Speaker 4 (56:24):
So I wonder unpacked there, I.
Speaker 3 (56:27):
Wonder what's changed as far as what they do now, because,
like you said, this is back out.
Speaker 4 (56:32):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (56:33):
So it just would be interesting to see like the
different things that they've done to I mean, I don't know.
It already sounded like it was pretty.
Speaker 4 (56:43):
Yeah, it was legit. I mean it's secure.
Speaker 3 (56:45):
Yeah, I mean, you've had eyes on you at all times,
and so I'd be interested to know how they changed that.
Speaker 2 (56:52):
Or tried to make it maybe at random like, Hey,
we're going to have five people go to five different manufacturers.
We're gonna have a machine dump the winner into one
of these envelopes. You're not gonna know anything. Yeah, you're
gonna have a team of people just carrying this envelope
up in the air, like, oh gosh, everybody watched.
Speaker 4 (57:13):
Us at all times.
Speaker 2 (57:13):
Yeah, I don't know, I don't know, but I'm sure
this This was embarrassing for McDonald's. They got a ton
of bad press until nine to eleven. Then it really
you know, it went to the back page of the
papers and oh yeah, that McDonald's thing is still going on.
(57:35):
I remember before and one of the one of the
first guys they they did the fake interview with one
of the fake winners. He had a People magazine with
Chandra Levy on the front. I remember remembering that story.
It was a Congressman Gary Content allegedly an affair with
an intern. Then the intern went missing, and that.
Speaker 4 (57:59):
Was huge news.
Speaker 2 (58:00):
That was something every day up until nine to eleven,
and then I don't even know there was resolution of that.
I mean, maybe I'll go and go down the rabbit
hole this afternoon, but I don't know.
Speaker 3 (58:09):
What happened with the Chandra Levy case. Yeah, I saw
something I do not think. I don't know if he
was officially convicted, but I don't quit me on that.
Speaker 2 (58:20):
Yeah, but I was like, oh wow, that was going
on at the same time, and that that was one
of those stories too that just kind of went by
the wayside, but an incredible story. Yeah, it's got some
loose ties to South Carolina. I mean we got people,
we got Wahalla, lake hartwool Hilton Head involved in there,
some lads, and some Fuzzy Bunnies, the Church of the
Fuzzy Bunny. We got a lot around the Palmetto State.
(58:42):
But a friend of mine, Chad Cruise, brought that up
to me and he was like, have you heard about
this this guy, Uncle Jerry? And I was like no,
I'm sitting there eating a pack of fries looking for
my free and he's like, yeah that McDonald's think, Yeah,
have you ever seen that?
Speaker 3 (58:58):
And I was like no, and yeah, I don't think
i'd ever heard of it.
Speaker 2 (59:01):
No, And it's that's insane. That's one of the wildest,
wildest stories to ever come out of South Carolina.
Speaker 4 (59:09):
Via Jacksonville, of.
Speaker 2 (59:11):
Course, but we hope you enjoyed this one. We're going
to tie a bow on it. I encourage you to
go look at the documentary to watch that, listen to
the podcast the Companion Pieces.
Speaker 4 (59:25):
It's absolutely fantastic.
Speaker 2 (59:27):
So we hope you enjoyed this one, and until next week,
we hope to see you back on Carolina Crimes
For over three hundred and fifty years, the state of
South Carolina has been the setting for some of the
most horrendous crimes ever committed. Some have gained global notoriety,
some have been forgotten, and others have been swept under
the rug completely. Now, two South Carolina natives and true
(00:26):
crime enthusiasts have teamed up to examine these heinous acts
in detail, giving their perspective of the evil that has
resided in the Palmetto State. You're listening to Carolina Crimes.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
And welcome back to Carolina Crimes, Episode two forty six,
Part two of this amazing tale about the McDonald's monopoly
McDonald's Millionaire game, the promotional promotion, I guess you call
it the promotion that they did between nineteen eighty seven
(01:06):
and two thousand and one. There, of course, we went
into depth about exactly what the FBI thought was happening
in the first part of this, and we left you
off on kind of a cliffhanger that Agent Doug Matthews
of the FBI had this brilliant idea to try to
get radio chatter back started between these winners and some
(01:28):
of these people they thought were potentially stealing these tokens
and running a scam of the whole thing, although they
couldn't quite put everything together of how this thing worked. Well,
welcome back here in a Part two. I'm one of
your hosts, Matt Hyres.
Speaker 3 (01:42):
Along with Danielle Myers.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
We're over the moon thrill that you joined us here today.
We're just really gonna jump right back into this story.
If you haven't listened to part one, make sure you
go back and listen to that so you'll know exactly
what we're talking about and fill you in. We're gonna
answer a lot of questions. Probably after episode one you're.
Speaker 4 (02:00):
Saying, well, what in the hell is this guy to
do with South Carolina. We'll get there. We'll get there.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
Some very interesting cats and tails yet to come. And
this is wild. This is absolutely wild how this went down.
So when we left off, Agent Doug Matthews of the FBI,
he had this idea. He said, well, you know, we.
Speaker 4 (02:24):
Got to get these people start talking again.
Speaker 2 (02:26):
We've got we're playing catch up on this thing from
possibly all the way back to nineteen eighty seven. It's
two thousand and one. We need to see what's going on.
And he had the brilliant idea to get a reunion
of all past big money winners of the McDonald's monopoly
game together in Las Vegas. So he got in touch
(02:49):
with Amy Murray, one of the marketing directors for McDonald's Global,
and he said, hey, this is what we're gonna do,
and he ran that the chain of the FBI and
they said, so your idea is to get all these
people together, all expenses paid to Las Vegas on the
(03:12):
government's dime, and then just kind of arrest them all
in one fail suite. He said, absolutely, that's exactly what
I want to do. I have it at He even
said the word he's at embassy suites. And a lot
of this information is coming from the mcmillion's documentary. We
talked about that. There's been several podcasts. They produced one
as well, but I'm getting the producer, well, the producer
(03:38):
was Mark Wahlberg, and the directors were sorry, I should
have had this written down and we'll get to that.
But anyway, this information is coming from that documentary. The
FBI said, hey, man, this is going to be cost prohibitive.
Is there any other way we can go about this?
(03:59):
And he said, okay, Well, here's what we're gonna do.
We're gonna say that eventually down the road, we're gonna
have this reunion of winners. What we're gonna do beforehand
is contact them and say, hey, what we want to
do is, and I think Doug Matthews loved doing this,
We're gonna go and film an interview with you, and
(04:19):
of course he was gonna pose as the director again
and get your story. What we're gonna do is have
a huge banquet for all you winners, something real nice
at one of the nice resorts there in Vegas. And
we are going to thank you, Daniel, and we are
going to play your story on the big screen, play
your interview, and everybody's gonna clap. It's gonna be fantastic. Yes,
(04:42):
I'm sorry. The mcmillions documentary was directed by James Lee
Hernandez and Brian Lazarte.
Speaker 4 (04:48):
Thank you and that'll be in the show notes too.
It's a great watch.
Speaker 2 (04:54):
So then Amy Murray was tasked with con contacting these
past winners again. She still had a lot of legwork
to do, recording the conversations with them, saying hey, this
is what we want to do. We'll take you somewhere local,
will meet you. We'll set up a local hotel or
(05:15):
somewhere and then we'll we'll film your.
Speaker 4 (05:18):
Interview and it'll be great.
Speaker 2 (05:21):
Well, what they were trying to do the FBI with
these interviews was lot these.
Speaker 4 (05:27):
Winners into a story on camera.
Speaker 2 (05:30):
Okay, you know, tell me how you won, just like
they did with a more gentleman last episode. The interviews,
of course we're going to be conducted. Doug Matthews was
the director, and of course he had his fake production
company of all FBH agents that was with him, and
they started getting in contact with these folks and the
(05:53):
stories they were telling were wild.
Speaker 4 (05:58):
One man.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
Was Buddy Fisher, older gentlemen. They noted during his interview,
and they showed about the whole thing, his inconsistencies and stories,
and he didn't He would say things and not have
all the facts. And what was really telling was his stuttering,
(06:21):
his sweating. This guy was poor and sweat. When they
started grilling him, especially about questions, they were like, well,
you wants to wipe your forehead a little bit, let's
get your forehead wiped in this shot. And you know
he said, they said, well, what's the first thing you did?
When he found out you were a winter. He said, well,
I went and hired an attorney, uh, to protect myself.
And they were like, really, what was which attorney did
(06:42):
you go to? Well, and he couldn't remember the name
of the attorney. There started being some inconsistencies, but it
was all on film. One one lady, and this is
kind of I think maybe she was a victim to circumstance.
(07:06):
I'm not saying she didn't know right from wrong. But
her name was Gloria Brown. She did live in Jacksonville, Florida,
but got entangled with this got a call from a friend,
which was Robin Colombo. She was very dear friends with her.
She had met her through a mutual friend years before
(07:28):
and they had really bonded. Robin needed a friend at
this point when she and Gloria Brown met, so Gloria Brown,
she agreed to be interviewed. She was a million dollar
winter and she goes in depth. She was in need
of money. She was making around twenty four thousand dollars
(07:51):
a year. What she did was she said that she
wanted at a Hilton Head's, South Carolina McDonald's. She had
temporarily moved from Jacksonville, was staying with a friend in
Hilton Head, had a hilton Head Post office box which
was her mailing address, so you know, winners would kind
(08:14):
of be dispersed other places.
Speaker 4 (08:17):
And Gloria Brown went into this story.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
She's very put together lady, very matter of fact, and
what agent Matthews did was just kind of kept ignorant. Well,
tell me about this, you know, tell me about this story,
locking her into those details.
Speaker 4 (08:35):
Gloria Brown.
Speaker 2 (08:36):
She told the story about how she got the ticket
from the McDonald's in Hilton Head, how she went in
and let him know that she thought she was a
winner for a million dollars, how the staff reacted everything
like that. She retold the story and he said, well
(08:57):
does this place look familiar? And he had a picture
printed out and he said, you know, is this the
McDonald's where you want it? Yes, she said, that's the
McDonald's in Hilton Head. He said, all right, he said,
do me a favor, would you sign that picture and
just put this is where I won or something, you
(09:17):
know something, and she put on there thanks a million McDonald's,
Gloria Brown. And they're like, all right, well you pose
with that and say a little something about the store.
And she said, this is where I won my million dollars.
I'm paraphrasing here, this is where I won, and I'm
a big winner, and thanks a million McDonald's and pointed
(09:37):
to her name up on a poster with a star
that said Gloria Brown a million dollars. Well, that picture
that agent Matthews had her sign, had her pose with
say all those wonderful things about it wasn't the McDonald's
in Hilton Head, Oh, it was a picture of the
McDonald's of McDonald's in Florida. So he got her there. Now,
(10:05):
after that interview, they started really looking into Gloria Brown's
phone records, and her records linked her with Jerry Columbo,
her friend Robin's husband. They started looking at the winner's
phone records and there were a lot of consistencies, like
(10:26):
we talked about in the last episode, calls between Jerry
Colombo to Jerry Jacobson Simon Marketing, and a gentleman a j.
Speaker 1 (10:36):
Glomb.
Speaker 2 (10:38):
Then they also started to see some calls with some
other winners to a man named Dwight Baker, a developer
in South Carolina.
Speaker 4 (10:46):
But we'll get to him a little later.
Speaker 2 (10:50):
So the FBI began to suspect organized crime may have
had a play in this. Maybe this uncle Jerry. Maybe
it wasn't Jerry Colombo. Maybe it wasn't Jerry Jacobson, maybe
someone else. The name Jerry Colombo of course stood out.
Speaker 4 (11:11):
We said.
Speaker 2 (11:11):
He was married to his wife, Robin, and they met
in nineteen eighty five and married in Panama City, Florida.
They had one child. He by trade was a bookie.
He had connections to organized crime. He was one time
the head of security attic at Atlantic City's taj Mahal Casino.
(11:34):
He enjoyed gambling and he aspired to be an actor.
Speaker 4 (11:37):
Remember he was the.
Speaker 2 (11:37):
Guy last week or last episode we talked about. His
family described him as, you know, a combination of al
Capone and Rodney Davis. Just this congenial, big guy, always
getting a laugh and liked by a lot of people.
But he had his hands. He dabbled in some nefarious
activities that sounded like now Colombo. He was living in
(12:00):
Florida with his wife, Robin, and he kind of got
antsy and soon wanted to get back involved in where
the action was, and for him, that was with his
family in New York City. Well, he contacted some family
members there and his uncle Dominic back in New York City,
(12:21):
and Jerry Colombo. He went and met with his uncle
to see if he had any work that could be done.
And Uncle Dominic he told Colombo about the opportunity in
these McDonald's things, these tokens that could win a lot
of money, these instant sweepstakes winners, and that this would
(12:44):
be something he needed to head up for. He had
a contact a guy by the name of Uncle Jerry
down south who could get these pieces and give them
to him and for a price, of course, and then
he could take some of the winnings, take a portion
of the winnings upfront, and make some money, give his
(13:05):
tribute to Uncle Dominic in the family.
Speaker 4 (13:08):
And that's how that was gonna work.
Speaker 2 (13:11):
Well. Uncle Dominic he introduced Colombo to Jerry Jacobson, and
this was in the late nineties, and on wiretaps there
were several several conversations between aj Glom, Jerry Colombo, and
(13:32):
Jerry Jacobson in some some kind.
Speaker 4 (13:36):
Of order there.
Speaker 2 (13:39):
Now, the FBI was trying to trying to connect the
dots here, and what they were starting to find out
is that the gentleman that McDonald's went and filmed the
Sweating Guy, Buddy Fisher.
Speaker 4 (13:54):
In fact, he.
Speaker 2 (13:56):
Was Robin Colombo's father, so Jerry Columbo's father in law. Okay, now, Jerry,
remember he decided to cash in a ticket himself and
want a Dodge Viper. Yes, that his family kind of
laughingly said, you know, he couldn't even he couldn't fit in,
so it was cool.
Speaker 4 (14:18):
They started looking into.
Speaker 2 (14:20):
Gloria Brown, the lady who posed with the picture, and
they realized she was a friend of Robin Colombo. She
had several phone conversations with Jerry Colombo. So the FBI
they know who's involved, but how exactly are they getting
this done. They can't take things to Mark Devereux, the
(14:41):
prosecuting attorney for the US for.
Speaker 4 (14:44):
The United States, and just give him this.
Speaker 2 (14:47):
Hey, we know these people won, but they're kind of
calling the same people's that's not enough to follow war. Well,
it seemed that Jerry Jacobson they were able to tell.
Now he's the guy with Simon Marketing. He's being able
to get the tickets and he's getting the surrogates to
cash them in or sell them or pass them along
some somehow, and he's going to be getting a kickback probably,
(15:10):
and of course it's Jerry Colombo and aj Blom. Well,
the price structure was broken down later as to exactly
what was going on, and for a one million dollar ticket,
Jerry Jacobson was getting anywhere between fifty and one hundred
thousand dollars upfront, just cash, and then whoever sold them,
(15:35):
such as like Jerry Colombo to the suspected winner, would
be getting half. So really you're winning about five hundred
thousand dollars, okay, but he was getting his half of that.
Speaker 4 (15:51):
Well.
Speaker 2 (15:51):
Colombo he would fly to Atlanta to meet with Jerry
Jacobson to pick up his tickets or tokens, and since
he was the seller, he was actually making a ton
of money on this. Even gave one to pretty lady
lady he thought was pretty in the airport.
Speaker 4 (16:09):
Okay, I mean.
Speaker 2 (16:10):
Stuff crazy stuff like that. Well, in nineteen ninety seven,
his wife, Robin, she.
Speaker 4 (16:17):
Was in on this as well.
Speaker 2 (16:19):
And Jerry Colombo we said, he was this just affable
man and it seemed like he was wanting to hook
up his friends, as we all do. And Robin finally
had to sit him down his wife and say, hey,
you know all these winners that are winning these McDonald's millions,
(16:42):
they're all Italian Americans from the East Coast, the males.
So hey, why don't and I like it? He said,
why don't you get some women involved? How about some
people of color? Because yeah, you're making this pretty obvious, Jerry.
You know, you got to kind of spread the wealth around.
(17:04):
And in fact, that's how Gloria Brown got involved. One
of Robin's friends and Gloria for her upfront money, she
actually mortgaged her home, which put her in a in
a very.
Speaker 4 (17:19):
Tight financial spot. But she looked at this.
Speaker 2 (17:22):
She's a very good church going lady and she saw
this as you know, this is an opportunity for a blessing.
Speaker 4 (17:28):
It.
Speaker 2 (17:29):
She didn't know they were stolen, but she was getting
them through kind of nefarious reason or manner. Yeah, So
while the Columbos were living in Charleston, South Carolina, that's
when they had Gloria come up to visit and they
floated this idea to her. So the Columbos lived in
Charleston for a period of time and this Jerry Colombo,
(17:54):
he you're gonna find out more about what a character
he was, and we're gonna do a little dive into
his character and his activities, especially around the Charleston area.
Right when we come back from this break, folks will
be right back and welcome back to Carolina Crimes, Episode
(18:30):
two forty six, Part two, the McDonald's Scam of Millions.
And when we left off, we were talking about this
interesting character, Jerry Columbo. Well Colombo, like we said, he
had a couple different his hands and a couple different things,
kind of a renaissance man when it came to his
(18:51):
jobs and bookie. He worked at the taj Mahal in
Atlantic City for a while, connected to the Colombo family
and one of the Five Families of New York. And
while he was in Charleston, and some low country residents
may remember this, but around ninety seven ninety eight, he
(19:12):
opened an establishment in Ladson, South Carolina called the Fuzzy Bunny.
Oh no, no me either. But what the Fuzzy Bunny
was was it sounds like a strip club, but it wasn't.
It was similar. They had dancing young ladies. They did
(19:36):
not get fully nude, according to Colombo. He said, they
danced around in some daisy duke shorts and you know
they had pasties on and not not nude, but neked enough,
nudish neckd enough.
Speaker 4 (19:52):
I guess that's.
Speaker 2 (19:54):
Nude light Well, County zoning and residents around the Ladson
area started given him fits about it. And this is
just a side note on Colombo for those listening. They
were like, Hey, we don't want this kind of establishment
around here. It's within certain feet of a school and
a church. Even though it's non nude. We don't want to.
Speaker 4 (20:18):
See it here. We don't think it belongs here.
Speaker 2 (20:21):
So a court order came actually shutting down the Fuzzy
Bunny because it didn't meet certain requirements. Well, Jerry Colombo,
he was always a good sport for a good loophole.
So what he did was make it the Church of
the Fuzzy Bunny.
Speaker 4 (20:42):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (20:44):
He had the dancers allegedly read the Bible before going
on stage, not to the public, but I mean and
in private.
Speaker 3 (20:54):
And he while they were backstage.
Speaker 2 (20:57):
Yes, and called it the Church the Fuzzy Bunny. There's
there's a lot wrong I guess with that. That's yeah, okay,
so the.
Speaker 4 (21:09):
Church of the Fuzzy Bank.
Speaker 2 (21:11):
Eventually it did close down, and Jerry Colombo, he got
deeper and deeper into this monopoly scam. He was considered
I guess a recruiter is a word that the FBI
kept using over and over again, that he would find
people to sell these tickets too. He didn't really have
(21:31):
a problem. It was a good return on investment. These people,
you know, splitting the money with him. I mean half
a million dollars for free. I'm gonna get that, Okay, Yeah,
I'll take it.
Speaker 4 (21:42):
Yeah, not a bad deal. Well.
Speaker 2 (21:44):
In nineteen ninety eight, Colombo with his wife Robin and
their son Frankie. They were traveling in their vehicle. Frankie
getting a little fussy in the back seat and Jerry
turned around to take him out of his carse eat
and they got t boned by a truck on the
passenger side. This accident, Robin she did have five stitches
(22:13):
in her head. Little Frankie did have a broken arm,
but but Jerry, he was pretty banged up. He was
put into ICU, but was able to communicate. He told
his brother when he spoke to him, told him about
the tickets where he could find some where he had
(22:37):
money stashed in his home. All the things you're telling
if if you got a lot of irons in the
fire you got a lot of business to take care
of before you pass away.
Speaker 4 (22:45):
He was.
Speaker 2 (22:45):
He was trying to unload this just in case something happened. Well,
something did, and unfortunately Jerry Colombo, he did lose his
life due to this accident. Well, his brother, a very
upstanding guy, found the tickets and he disposed of them.
(23:08):
He didn't want anything to do with that. He wouldn't
about that life. Trying to do the right thing. He said, Okay,
this is the end of it. We you know, I've
known he's doing this monopoly thing. I've heard Robin's involved too.
So we're gonna we're gonna get We're gonna get rid
of this. So after the death of Jerry Colombo, the
(23:30):
FBI saw a spike in phone activity between Jerry Jacobson
and a man who we mentioned his name several times,
Andrew aj Glom. Yes, we mentioned aj Glom. He had
been convicted for drug charges drug trafficking back in the
(23:50):
early eighties. He got into the drug trade around nineteen
seventy nine. First he started selling kayludes and then he
got popped. In nineteen eighty two, he was caught dropping
off cocaine to someone who was being watched by the
DEA at the time at an airport. He was given
(24:12):
twelve years in federal prison and they said, hey, you
can report sometime within these sixty days. I didn't know
that's how that worked, but he was sentenced and they said, okay,
well you need to report to this prison in.
Speaker 4 (24:25):
Alabama instead of like instantly again said of come on,
you're coming with us and putting shackles.
Speaker 3 (24:31):
That's putting a lot of trust.
Speaker 2 (24:33):
Yes, and him and Andrew Glom burned him. Apparently he
had He was pretty independently wealthy, seemed to be traveled
a lot. I don't know if you got those gains
through business or family ties or any of that. But
he didn't report to federal prison in nineteen eighty two
like he was supposed to, and he went on the
(24:54):
lamb and he fled to Europe for sixteen months. Okay, well,
Glom while he was in Germany bought a Ferrari and
he had it shipped over to Long Beach, California, and
he actually got nabbed by the authorities when he went
to pick it up in California. Okay, Well, once he
(25:16):
served his time, a friend had contacted him about this
Monopoly McDonald's scam.
Speaker 4 (25:26):
Aj Glom.
Speaker 2 (25:27):
He became a recruiter just like Jerry Colombo was, and
phone records they started to show winners like the one
we discussed last week calling Glomb Michael Hoover, the gentleman
in Florida that gave the first interview to agent Doug Matthews.
Speaker 4 (25:49):
That guy so so.
Speaker 2 (25:54):
Another number that started popping up in all these phone calls,
and we mentioned him briefly, was a man by the
name of Dwight Baker. Now he's another player in this game.
And Dwight Baker he was a real estate developer in
upstate South Carolina. He had actually sold property to Jerry
(26:16):
Jacobson on Lake Hartwell Well in the year two thousand.
Dwight Baker, he was approached about these monopoly game tokens
by Jerry Jacobson after Baker had.
Speaker 4 (26:30):
Been in a backo accident.
Speaker 3 (26:33):
Okay, he was.
Speaker 2 (26:35):
Unable to work. He had to stay in the hospital
several weeks down in his back and he said, you know,
I'm down on your You know I knew you're down
on your luck. You make your money by being present.
Here's maybe another opportunity you might want to look into
Dwight and so Baker he in an interview he said,
(26:59):
maybe it was his luck, but maybe it was the
pain medication that might have clouded his judgment a little bit.
Speaker 4 (27:06):
And he went ahead and he did agree. DWIGHTE. Baker
normally a very moral man.
Speaker 2 (27:16):
He was a member of the LDS Church, and he
kind of put that aside and said, I see some
dollar signs, and I think maybe I can make some
money doing all this, or maybe I can have a
token myself. Well, in June of two thousand, lo and Behold,
a man by the name of George Chandler of Wahalla
(27:39):
won an instant million dollar jackpot in the McDonald's monopoly promotion. Well,
George Chandler, funny enough, he just so happened to be
the foster son of DWIGHTE.
Speaker 4 (27:54):
Baker.
Speaker 2 (27:55):
Oh, okay, George himself. The the documentary, it went into
a lot of depth, and I like George again. He
seems like somebody would have hung out with. He was
kind of an unassuming, simple, hard working man. He grew
(28:16):
up in a poor family. He even mentioned that his
family didn't have running water until nineteen eighty six. They
were also a member of the LDS Church with the Bakers,
and he was a friend of one of White Baker's sons,
and so the Bakers really adopted.
Speaker 4 (28:34):
Him and took him into raise well.
Speaker 2 (28:38):
George Chandler, he dropped out of school at the age
of sixteen and went straight to work. He would lie
about his age a little bit on some job applications
to get work. He was very smart. He was an entrepreneur.
He said, I figure normal people worked eight hour days.
(28:58):
I'm gonna work at sixteen hour day just to show
him how how hard, how hard I'm working. So now
this George Chandler was a winner. He had been approached
by Dwight and Dwight at the time of this. He
got hold of this million dollar ticket. Dwight himself was
(29:19):
going through a divorce. He was separated from his wife.
This wasn't I don't know if it be considered marital
property that was, but that was the excuse he gave
to George. He said, I got this ticket. I don't
want my wife to get half of it. You're like
(29:39):
a son to me.
Speaker 4 (29:42):
Here.
Speaker 2 (29:42):
I'm gonna give this to you, but all I ask
for in exchange is a brand new Lincoln Navigator. And
a brand new laptop, which was kind of a well,
if you think about the Jerry Columbo thing, he wanted
half of the money, half a million dollars for every
million dollar ticket he gave, So it was kind of
a bargain. And if you're gonna get a million dollars,
(30:03):
sure you're gonna provide this opportunity for me to be
a millionaire. So you want a you know, maybe forty
fifty thousand dollars car at the time, and and a laptop.
Speaker 3 (30:14):
Uh, okay, I want a little something of return.
Speaker 2 (30:17):
Yeah, And so George he didn't have said, no problem,
let's go and I'm gonna be a monopoly millionaire for McDonald's.
Speaker 4 (30:24):
Cool.
Speaker 2 (30:26):
So in August of two thousand and one, the FBI
they started trying to They said, you know, this monopoly
game that we let them run with, that they knew
was rigged, is starting to run out. We got to
start making some moves we need to get We need
to get some more information to start making some arrests
(30:48):
in this.
Speaker 4 (30:49):
Okay, So the FBI.
Speaker 2 (30:54):
They intercepted a phone call between Dwight Baker and Jerry
Jacobson out of it, and they were a lot of
small talk, but you can tell they were saying they
were about to exchange a big game piece. Okay, they
(31:14):
didn't have. The FBI didn't have a lot to go
off of because they said, Hey, we're going to meet
at the usual spot, and they had to figure out
where this usual spot was. So frantically they knew when
they were meeting, they knew the time. They were trying
to tell these guys from whereever they may be at,
and finally they figured it out.
Speaker 4 (31:35):
They were looking at rest.
Speaker 2 (31:36):
Areas everywhere all along the way from Lake Hartwooll To Atlanta,
and they finally got to a winery and they were
able to physically film the exchange between Jacobsen and Dwight Baker,
both from the ground and from a helicopter overhead. They
(31:59):
actually were able to zoom in. I didn't know they
had cameras this great in two thousand and one and
swap this thing out. So due to this footage, the
FBI they decided they had enough. Mark Devereaux, the US attorney,
he decided he had enough to go ahead and issue
(32:20):
some arrest warrants. So they decided they said, hey, if
we're gonna bust these people, if we just get one
or two, word's gonna spread. These people do have an
exorbitant amount of money that they've won in air quotes
from McDonald's. They're probably gonna run. So what we're gonna
(32:41):
need is a multi jurisdictional arrest team to go out
after all these people and arrest them all at the
same exact time.
Speaker 3 (32:54):
Wow, that's a you know, you have to be very
communicate very well on that you do.
Speaker 2 (33:00):
And this is going to be This is gonna be
another wild part of this. So the warrants that were
issued they were for conspiracy and mail fraud federal offenses
because of course the tickets were mailed back in to
Simon Marketing to be claimed. So those charges they would
(33:24):
they would net somebody up to twenty years in federal prison.
So this elaborate plan was put into place by the
FBI surveillance everything it was put into place, and everything
was going to happen at once. The plan itself was
about thirty pages and how they were going to communicate this.
(33:47):
They faxed the plan, all thirty pages to each individual
FBI local office that was going to be involved.
Speaker 4 (33:57):
But they hit a snack and when.
Speaker 2 (34:00):
We get back from this word from our sponsors. We're
going to talk about this unbelievable turn of events that happened.
Folks will be right back after this quick word from
our sponsors, and welcome back to Carolina Crimes, Episode two
(34:33):
forty six, Part two about them and McDonald's monopoly scamter.
Speaker 4 (34:41):
Yes it is, Yes, it is.
Speaker 2 (34:44):
So when we left off, we talked about the FBI
being ready to roll on this. They're like, Okay, we're
gonna have to arrest these alleged winners. We're gonna have
to arrest the recruiters. We've got this big plan in place,
but it all has to happened simultaneously, so they can't
tip each other off. They can't warn each other that
(35:04):
the FBI is coming. So this thirty page plan was
put into place, and it was going to be distributed
to all the local FBI offices that were going to
be involved, particularly the Greenville, South Carolina FBI office. So
they were faxing these plans and there was a misstep.
(35:24):
The speed dial on the facts had Greenville FBI, but
that button wasn't pushed. Where the facts was sent to
was the Greenville News.
Speaker 4 (35:39):
Oh lord, yeah, so I.
Speaker 2 (35:48):
Covert and I just popped over. I talked to our
local newsman, Tyler Cupp told him that, and I said,
what would.
Speaker 4 (35:56):
You do if you received that. So a young twenty.
Speaker 2 (36:01):
Four year old crime in court reporter by the name
of John boit Nawski, he did receive the facts. It
was put on his desk, and the more he looked
at it, the more he said, Uh, this probably wasn't
supposed to come here. This is talking about and Uncle
Jerry and who these people are, and surveillance and a
(36:24):
plan to a recipe this.
Speaker 4 (36:27):
I better sit.
Speaker 2 (36:29):
On this for a minute before I find out exactly
what it is. So the FBI, they once they figured
out what happened, they immediately tried to contact him. Agent Matthews,
Doug Matthews, the one that's so over zealous about this
whole thing. He and Prosecutor Mark Devereaux. They actually flew
(36:50):
in a Sessana to Greenville. They were like, look, we
got to fix this. You cannot release this. Please don't
release this.
Speaker 4 (36:55):
No, no, no, no, no no.
Speaker 2 (36:57):
And they said maybe some monetary consideration might have changed hands,
but probably not.
Speaker 4 (37:03):
We're speculating.
Speaker 2 (37:04):
They were speculating too, but they did promise the Greenville News.
Speaker 4 (37:09):
We will give you the exclusive.
Speaker 2 (37:10):
We will let you know where these arrests will happen
so you can have photographs. We will cater to you,
be your concierge through this whole thing.
Speaker 4 (37:20):
Just shut up for twenty four hours. Please, that's a
hard ask. Please, we know this is your job and
we know that this could make you a mint.
Speaker 3 (37:33):
You can see them on their knees with their hands
like folded the come on.
Speaker 2 (37:38):
So the FBI they negotiated for the Greenville News to
keep quiet about this while we set this operation into
play in exchange for the exclusive. So now the arrests
were set to happen. This whole operation had to be
signed off on by the United States Attorney General at
the time, John Ashcroft. So here's how it went. There
(38:04):
was a large blow up with Dwight Baker and his
stranged wife and his strange wife's sister, Brenda Fennis, who
did have a ticket as well. So Janet Pelasiatti one
of the FBI agents. She was set to arrest Brenda
Finnis in Indiana, agent Timothy Adams. He was going to
(38:29):
go after Gloria Brown in Jacksonville, agent Doug Matthews, who
may or may not have been the one to send
the facts to the Greenville News instead of Greenville FBI.
Speaker 4 (38:43):
They can laugh about it now.
Speaker 2 (38:44):
Twenty five years later, he was put in charge of
arresting aj Glomb. He was the runner, He was the
one that was involved in the drug trafficking. He was
considered the most dangerous ones. So they were like, you
want to mess up our facts to dude, here, this
is yours, go for it. Or he may have been
(39:04):
the one most capable of getting him, I believe the latter,
Agent Estra Laga. He was assigned to upstate South Carolina
to arrest Dwight Baker and his a strange wife, Linda Baker,
and Rick Dent.
Speaker 4 (39:20):
He was assigned to Atlanta.
Speaker 2 (39:26):
He and Mark Devereaux were going to be in Atlanta
to arrest fifty eight year old Jerry Jacobson. Also set
for arrest was Buddy Fisher and Robin Colombo, the widow
of Jerry Colombo, who was actually incarcerated at that time
(39:47):
for another offense fraud. Some shoplet we can get really
into the weeds about those. So all these went down.
Agent Doug Matthews, who was going after ag he said
you know, I'm competitive. He's the spitfire. He was like,
I wanted to be first to arrest my person.
Speaker 4 (40:08):
He wasn't. He was last.
Speaker 2 (40:10):
But everybody they ended up arresting these folks. Some cooperated immediately,
they went ahead and told their stories. Some did not
want to cooperate at all. Aj Glom being one, he
of course had a long history with law enforcement, pretty
(40:33):
seasoned in the criminal world, I think. But they actually
had to lure him out of his home. They wanted
to nab him when he came down the driveway to
get the paper that morning, but it was his wife.
Speaker 4 (40:46):
He had a gate, a wall all the way around
his home.
Speaker 2 (40:51):
So what they did was get the local Bridwood County
Sheriff's department to come and contact Glomb and they were like, hey,
there's been a lot of breakings in the neighborhood. We've
got some folks down here. We want to know if
you've seen them in the area. And he said, that's
none of my business. I don't want to come. No,
I'm not coming into my driveway for that. They didn't
rob me, Yeah, no, I don't want to do that.
(41:12):
So they continued and they said, hey, just come down
we need you to come down. He said, fine, you're
gonna keep sweating me. I'm gonna come down. And of
course waiting there was the trap and the FBI and
they arrested him. Jerry Jacobson when he was arrested at
his home in Atlanta, he clammed up.
Speaker 4 (41:34):
Uh, he had a Honda.
Speaker 2 (41:35):
Sports car in the driveway, just so having to have
three hundred thousand dollars cash in the trunk.
Speaker 4 (41:43):
Okay, yeah, like that.
Speaker 2 (41:47):
Buddy Fisher was arrested, Robin Columbo's dad, as we mentioned.
And Dwight Baker, he did something. He's the developer, remember that,
his foster son he gave the ticket to. We'll talk
about that in a minute. But he he ended up
placing all the blame on George Chandler, the ones that
(42:11):
did cooperate with authorities.
Speaker 4 (42:14):
George Chandler.
Speaker 2 (42:15):
Of course, when he was called, he was like, I
didn't know it was stolen. I didn't know anything about it.
When they told him, Dwight Baker was of all, he said,
you've got the wrong person. He said, he's a kind man,
he's always been kind to me. There's no way he
could be involved. Gloria Brown, she's a good church going woman,
and she hit hard times and saw this as a
(42:35):
blessing or an opportunity. But she said, you know what,
the lion's over. Here's exactly what happened. And I like
her a lot.
Speaker 4 (42:44):
I got a lot. I got a lot of time
for her.
Speaker 2 (42:48):
And Buddy Fisher also he was the one poor and
sweat the entire time, couldn't remember the lawyer that he got.
Speaker 4 (42:55):
He also cooperated as well.
Speaker 2 (42:58):
Now Mark Dever Citadel Class of nineteen eighty and US attorney.
He was set to prosecute this case. And when all
this hit the media about what happened, it was national news.
Everybody was talking about, oh my gosh, here it is
(43:19):
two thousand and one. We've been dedicated to play in
this silly sweepstakes monopoly promotion from McDonald's since nineteen eighty seven.
It's been rigged the whole time. And Simon Marketing that
was in charge of this, they were essentially shut down.
(43:40):
McDonald's was ninety eight percent of their business. Dedler Printing
was looked at as well. This stock for Simon Marketing
went from about one hundred dollars a share down to
fifty cents a share overnight They said that was the
largest drop in one stock in American history for one day.
Speaker 4 (44:00):
At the time.
Speaker 2 (44:01):
That's insane. So the suspects they were released on bond.
That the eight a little concern of course about aj
Glom as well. He had run before, but they kept
close tabs on him. And then there were some residual arrests.
(44:25):
One was Marvin Brawn. He was Jerry Jacobson's step brother
and he was eventually believed to be the first person
kind of the guinea pig for Jerry Jacobson. Oh okay,
and he gave him a twenty five thousand dollars game token.
Speaker 3 (44:43):
You can't start big right away?
Speaker 2 (44:45):
Yeah, he cashed that in, was like, okay, this is
a little weird. I still think this is shady, but
I'm gonna do it. And then later on a few
years later, Jerry approached him with a million dollar ticket
and he flushed it down the toilet in front of Jerry.
Really yeah.
Speaker 4 (45:02):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (45:03):
But Marvin, when he found out they were looking for
him the FBI, he turned himself in and he said here.
Speaker 4 (45:10):
He laid it all out. Okay, a good fella.
Speaker 2 (45:14):
Now, George Chandler, remember the foster son of Dwight Baker.
There's a lot of players in this, folks. I'm sorry,
George Chandler. The finger was pointed at him by Dwight Baker.
Dwight implicated and said, well he was part of this too. Well, George,
(45:35):
this was a man that he trusted, that he loved,
and of course he was hurt and upset that he
would implicate him. So what George Chandler did. He obtained
representation and they asked Mark Devereux to drop the charges,
but he said initially, he said, I cannot if I
dropped the charges against you. You say you didn't know,
(45:58):
other people are going to say they didn't know. We're
gonna have to go to trial. So Jerome Jacobson, now
known as Uncle Jerry, he was the real Uncle Jerry.
He faced nine counts of conspiracy and his attorneys actually
advised him against cooperating with authorities. They said, nope, don't
(46:18):
say a word. Let's try to fight this thing. Make them, yeah,
make them prove it. But the FBI and McDonald's and
everyone involved, they really wanted to know how. They were like,
we have got to get this information from Jerry Jacobson
as to how he went through all this stringent security.
(46:42):
He had an auditor that went around the country with him.
He held a Bennett. They had the game pieces in
a locked, sealed, handcuffed briefcase. He also but we'll get
into how he did it a little later. But they
were just befuddled. So the trial, Jerry Jacobson he pled
(47:03):
not guilty, and the trial was set to start September tenth,
two thousand and one.
Speaker 4 (47:12):
M Well, the.
Speaker 2 (47:16):
World as we know it, of course, was turned upside
down the next day, nine to eleven, two thousand and one,
and the national attention shifted. The trial was put on
hold for a little while, and it was finally reset
to convene in Jacksonville, Florida, in two thousand and two. Well,
(47:40):
Jerry Jacobson and his attorneys, they had stuck to their
guns for quite a while.
Speaker 4 (47:44):
Hey, we're not cooperating. We're not going to tell you
how we did this.
Speaker 2 (47:49):
But the more, after about three weeks, Jerry Jacobson said, Hey,
I've changed my mind. Strike a plea deal. I will
tell you exactly how this went down. I will tell
you everything, I will implicate anybody, and I will be
(48:10):
at your disposal.
Speaker 4 (48:12):
Okay, So the deal.
Speaker 2 (48:16):
He struck was that he was going to spill the
beans on everybody and everything, including himself, in exchange for
thirty seven months in a federal prison.
Speaker 4 (48:26):
Instead of twelve years or twenty years. The result of
that was fifty three people.
Speaker 2 (48:34):
Became indicted, and almost all of them pled guilty except
seven of them. And of the seven that went to trial,
two of them they went ahead and said, you know,
after hearing the opening statements and seeing some of this evidence,
we're gonna go ahead and plead guilty too. We're gonna
(48:55):
we're gonna change that up. But one of those that
did go to trial was George Chandler. It became a
big discussion in court of actual laws versus game rules
because initially McDonald's they said, the tickets aren't transferable, you know,
(49:16):
you can't have this thing and give it to another person.
Then they'd be the winner. But that wasn't a law,
it was a game rule. And then they went back
they said, well, a couple of years ago, Jerry Jacobson
or an anonymous person actually sent a million dollar winning
(49:38):
ticket to Saint Jude's Hospital. Okay, as like a donation,
like put it in an envelope. And send it to
Saint Jude for Christmas, which.
Speaker 4 (49:51):
Is I mean wow. Yeah, And it was a big deal.
Speaker 2 (49:55):
They had a huge press conference, They had Ronald McDonald
there at Saint Jude's and I was like.
Speaker 4 (49:59):
Yeah, of course, yes, we can have that. And that
came into play.
Speaker 2 (50:03):
They were like, well that time that ticket was transferable,
So why doesn't this apply to this guy when he
didn't know. He didn't steal the ticket, he just knew
his foster dad said, I found this. I don't want
it to get tangled up in my divorce. All I'm
asking for is a Lincoln Navigator and a laptop.
Speaker 1 (50:22):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (50:22):
It was given to him by someone else.
Speaker 2 (50:25):
Yes, And they said it's no different than finding one
on the street, one in the gutter that had blown
out of somebody's car, or anything like that. Well, it
ended up that George Chandler was convicted. He got some leniency,
He received house arrest and probation in two thousand and three,
but in two thousand and four that sentence was overturned
(50:46):
and rightfully so, yeah, I think, So, how did Jerry
Jacobson do this? What everybody is thinking? He went ahead
and confess. He came and testified in court. They of
course these tickets, these winning tickets, were under a lot
(51:08):
of scrutiny. Everybody knew when they were being printed. It
was like Fort Knox around Dittler Printing and Simon Marketing.
When Simon got these winning tickets, what they did they
put them with what they called the seed tokens, so
a couple of non winners, so you had about twenty
(51:29):
of them. You didn't know which one was the winner.
You put the winner in with these seeds. You put
it in an envelope and you put a unbreakable.
Speaker 4 (51:38):
Seal on it.
Speaker 2 (51:39):
Okay, it was put into a locked briefcase. Jerry Jacobson
himself had a security for Simon Marketing and an auditor,
a lady by the name of Hilda Bennett. They would travel,
they would fly first class to these different locales where
(52:00):
they would then deliver all the tokens at once. The
people they were delivering them to didn't know which one
was the winter which was not, and they put it
on the cups, the fry packages there at the production
It was very secure when those were put on as well.
But it was the travel portion you see some folks,
(52:21):
some sources say it was by accident. Some say maybe
Jerry Jacobson got these in a nefarious manner, But he
got his hands on the McDonald's unbreakable seals. He had
his own bevy of those. So under his clothes he
(52:42):
would wear a protective vest where he would carry an
envelope that had a pocket on the inside. When they
would get to the airports. Hilda Bennett is a female,
he is a male. He would need to go to
the restaurant which people need to go. Yep, she could
(53:06):
not follow him into the restroom. He would go there,
switch out the envelope that he had or unseal it,
take out the one he knew was the winner or
the winner he had, or put the blanks in and
seal it back with those seals that he had he
would put. He would carry another envelope on his person
(53:32):
and then make the old switch there. And so it
would be if it was one winner and twenty of
the seed tokens, it would be twenty seed tokens he
was delivering wo and he'd have that one winner inside
his protective vest in the inner pocket. That's the way
he was getting all these Wow. And they believe it
(53:56):
started in nineteen eighty nine. It could have started in
eighty seven when the promotion started, but it took a
lot of cajones. Yeah, to try to do this. And
you're not only playing with the law with fraud, you're
also playing with your career, your reputation. And now Jerry Jacobsen,
(54:22):
he has served as prison sentence and he is living
in State of Georgia.
Speaker 4 (54:29):
Assumedly he's learned his lessons on the straight arrow.
Speaker 2 (54:34):
Yes, and through that documentary that we keep referencing. Now,
there were podcasts that went along with it, some companion pieces,
also some independent podcast YouTube videos where I watched the
graphics of the switching out the letters and the seals.
That's where I got that from a lot of a
(54:56):
lot of accusations about Jerry Jacobson's character from his ex wife,
from Robin Colombo, the widow of Jerry Colombo. They they
didn't have very kind things to say. Again, this is
we got one side of the story. There's always three
(55:17):
sides to every story. But yeah, Jerry Jacobson's ex wife,
she did not care for him whatsoever, and she alleged abuse,
child abuse, some stalking, and then others that worked with
Jerry said he's a nice guy in the world, so
somewhere in the middle lies the truth. But he did
(55:38):
pull off this scam on the McDonald's monopoly game that
all in total twenty four million dollars.
Speaker 4 (55:48):
Was scammed.
Speaker 3 (55:49):
Wow. And he has he ever done an interview, not.
Speaker 4 (55:54):
That I know of, not that I know.
Speaker 2 (55:58):
I mean I think he that's a chapter in his
life that is like happened he got caught.
Speaker 3 (56:04):
You can find the information. I don't need to tell
you anything.
Speaker 4 (56:08):
Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (56:10):
So now, I mean he would be up in age
if he's still with us. And again, he was fifty
eight when he was arrested, so that's he'd be in
his eighties by now, well into his eighties.
Speaker 4 (56:24):
So I wonder unpacked there, I.
Speaker 3 (56:27):
Wonder what's changed as far as what they do now, because,
like you said, this is back out.
Speaker 4 (56:32):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (56:33):
So it just would be interesting to see like the
different things that they've done to I mean, I don't know.
It already sounded like it was pretty.
Speaker 4 (56:43):
Yeah, it was legit. I mean it's secure.
Speaker 3 (56:45):
Yeah, I mean, you've had eyes on you at all times,
and so I'd be interested to know how they changed that.
Speaker 2 (56:52):
Or tried to make it maybe at random like, Hey,
we're going to have five people go to five different manufacturers.
We're gonna have a machine dump the winner into one
of these envelopes. You're not gonna know anything. Yeah, you're
gonna have a team of people just carrying this envelope
up in the air, like, oh gosh, everybody watched.
Speaker 4 (57:13):
Us at all times.
Speaker 2 (57:13):
Yeah, I don't know, I don't know, but I'm sure
this This was embarrassing for McDonald's. They got a ton
of bad press until nine to eleven. Then it really
you know, it went to the back page of the
papers and oh yeah, that McDonald's thing is still going on.
(57:35):
I remember before and one of the one of the
first guys they they did the fake interview with one
of the fake winners. He had a People magazine with
Chandra Levy on the front. I remember remembering that story.
It was a Congressman Gary Content allegedly an affair with
an intern. Then the intern went missing, and that.
Speaker 4 (57:59):
Was huge news.
Speaker 2 (58:00):
That was something every day up until nine to eleven,
and then I don't even know there was resolution of that.
I mean, maybe I'll go and go down the rabbit
hole this afternoon, but I don't know.
Speaker 3 (58:09):
What happened with the Chandra Levy case. Yeah, I saw
something I do not think. I don't know if he
was officially convicted, but I don't quit me on that.
Speaker 2 (58:20):
Yeah, but I was like, oh wow, that was going
on at the same time, and that that was one
of those stories too that just kind of went by
the wayside, but an incredible story. Yeah, it's got some
loose ties to South Carolina. I mean we got people,
we got Wahalla, lake hartwool Hilton Head involved in there,
some lads, and some Fuzzy Bunnies, the Church of the
Fuzzy Bunny. We got a lot around the Palmetto State.
(58:42):
But a friend of mine, Chad Cruise, brought that up
to me and he was like, have you heard about
this this guy, Uncle Jerry? And I was like no,
I'm sitting there eating a pack of fries looking for
my free and he's like, yeah that McDonald's think, Yeah,
have you ever seen that?
Speaker 3 (58:58):
And I was like no, and yeah, I don't think
i'd ever heard of it.
Speaker 2 (59:01):
No, And it's that's insane. That's one of the wildest,
wildest stories to ever come out of South Carolina.
Speaker 4 (59:09):
Via Jacksonville, of.
Speaker 2 (59:11):
Course, but we hope you enjoyed this one. We're going
to tie a bow on it. I encourage you to
go look at the documentary to watch that, listen to
the podcast the Companion Pieces.
Speaker 4 (59:25):
It's absolutely fantastic.
Speaker 2 (59:27):
So we hope you enjoyed this one, and until next week,
we hope to see you back on Carolina Crimes
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