For years, the McDonald’s Monopoly game made people believe they could win big. From free fries to million-dollar prizes, millions of people peeled those little game pieces, hoping to strike it rich. But what if we told you that the biggest prizes were never actually up for grabs? This is the true story of how Jerry Jacobson stole millions of … Read More
The Mob Took $24 Million From McDonald’s | The Monopoly Scam Ep 276
Episode Transcription
00:00 Hey, welcome to things on the last night. This is a comedy podcast where Tim teaches me Jaron something new every single week and this week we're learning about Jerry Jacobson yeah and the monopoly game at McDonald's. I don't know if you played that one. It's a kind of an old one, but yeah it's coming back. It's like if you're our age old decrepit, then you'll remember that if you're young and spry, then nothing matters to you. So 00:22 This comes out June third, June third, hey third church, comedy tour starts this week. Come out yeah explosions and you to be stuff come hang out and I'll be in Jacksonville, Florida tomorrow. Wow, just kidding Thursday the fifth and then Friday I'll be in 00:43 could just roll the dates over the thing? I honestly can't remember where I'll be in Florida, North Carolina, Ohio, Texas, all that stuff this month in June. So if you're just now seeing this, there's probably still times like guarantee. These aren't sold out and so would love to see you there would be a good time. Yeah awesome. It's great. Let's get it. What you got any shows? What are we doing the episode? Yeah, I do. I'm on also. I can't overstate this. I love being here. 01:11 No, he doesn't. I love doing the show. I don't think so. I'm gonna be honest. I don't think he does. Let's get into it. 01:23 Hey man, hi, what's up man? I kind of say yeah that I am so excited to do this point, and then I love being here. Okay, have you ever got a YouTube comment and someone was like they were like they were like 01:48 feels like the show really fell off and it seems like Jaren doesn't even want to be here anymore. Yeah, it seems like he seems like he seems mad that he has to do this podcast. You think I do anything against my will 02:03 Of course I don't want to be here. 02:07 Come on, so I'm trying to be happier. I'm trying to be, you know, hey, listen, can I be honest with it? Can I be vulnerable? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, what it actually is? I'm depressed. 02:18 I'm not I'm not. Here's the thing following dreams is a difficult thing to do yeah and it's made even more difficult when the what you're gonna say. I agree. I don't think you know what I'm going to say. 02:40 Okay, tell me what you're gonna say. It's made even more difficult when the person you're following that dream with kind of sucks and if that's how you feel, I know I was going to say follow a dream like stand up or like trying to build this podcast is difficult because we started in thousand seventeen and then we have good growth and then the way that you grew through social media completely changed yeah and then and I'm not whining. That's the part of the part of the gig figuring out what works, but then 03:09 it used to be that social media would do like, you know, one change every couple of years. Now they're changing it every couple of weeks because they don't know. They don't know what the algorithm is anymore. Yeah, they're like we've lost control of it a hundred percent though, like not even yeah. And so yeah, it did make it made it so that our creativity was then geared toward trying to get on the algorithm. And I do agree. I don't think the show fell off, but we've talked. I think 03:35 I do think we had a moment where we were trying to figure out what would help us grow and hit the algorithm. But then as we did that, they started changing it so often and so much that it just, it's almost like when you get drifted offshore. And then all of sudden you're so far away from shore that you're like, wait, how did I get here? And that's not as a creative person. I want to be able to do creative stuff like the podcast. I to be able to do my stand up. But I'm 04:03 there used to be some simple structures that you knew you were making progress and doing the right things and moving in the right direction. Now all those things are just muddled. So if it seems like I'm sad sometimes, it's because I am. And that's okay. It's okay to be sad. Why don't you cry about it? 04:24 No, no, I agree. I think I think we were at a spot where we were kind of catching some wind and then our wings got clipped by some algorithm changes and some changes not just to the algorithm, but to like my career apple cove it for the yeah the apple podcast app and I think we we tried to pivot to you to do YouTube yeah and in that pivot. I think we pendulum swung a little too hard yeah. 04:51 and so we heard you. We have heard you. We've read your comments for real though we're trying to figure out 04:59 because you guys aren't going to share with your friends. We got to figure out how to find new listeners because you guys were fure not going to do your job. I'm going to do your part. The show's going to get worse and worse. I'm ching come on. I'm joking. We don't you I'm not joking. I'm not comply share comply. Don't share this episode because the beginning of this one's kind of inside lingo and a little. If you're a new person, you're brand new. You see what I say. What's the option we got? We got to sacrifice complete new people to satisfy the regs the regs 05:29 that's an ear rags at the other side of this too is that we used to film like every week when I lived in Kansas City yeah and now we film like once a once every couple weeks yeah film like two or three is closer to once a month. 05:43 yeah, but I'm saying like now we are riding or a cram in no, we're not even cramming. I'm saying now it's like this weird thing where if we show up on our one day to shoot and there's just some weird energy, whether I'm off or you're off or we're both off, yeah, then that's like three episodes. It's off, so that's that's something that's been a learning curve as well. All of that to say, which is why we've been getting into supplements. That's what I was just going to do to athletic greens, not an official sponsor. 06:11 but I'll tell you who's not an official sponsor as well. Anybody and is it that the show has fallen off or is it that I have personally fallen into a deep crevice of my own making that I cannot climb out of? What is it listener? Oh gods of the algorithm, 06:34 Anyways, well, roll the intro. 06:41 They were like, You're telling me! You're telling me! Did somebody rig the game? No! Not our game! No! He either has a very large bladder. Well, this guy's stealing the tickets. 07:02 Things I learned last night. 07:11 anyway yeah. Hey man, you have heard of yeah. Have you ever heard of online data brokers? This episode is brought to you by that is not where I thought that sentence was going. I thought you were online dating. I've heard of online dating. No, have you ever heard of Jerome P Jacobson? 07:36 Jerome P Jacobson, the fact that there's a little initial initial yeah. You know what the P stands for power uncle Jerry sure he goes by Uncle Jerry the P. don't think stands for Uncle Jerry Rome P. Yeah, it's probably Peter or Paul or drone P. What Patrick Jacobson Jacob Jerome P Jacobson. You want to him sure all right. Let's take a look. See if you can guess what he does. This is a way to run. I love being here so much 08:11 Is this guy a politician? No, no, okay, absolutely not. is not the guy that's like that meme where he's like taking the headphones off or he's like no, no, absolutely not okay, okay, okay. You want to you just try to zoom out. You got a picture that's a little further away from his head. I do actually I do, but it's a little bit more current. I don't know if this changes, but okay, 08:39 it's. don't even know why this is funny to you. He's just a picture of an older guy. like thirty year change yeah, which is interesting, because this is a good photo like and he seems yes, significantly younger younger. It's just it's it's here's the thing. Here's a thing you're saying that this is a good photo from thirty years ago. Yeah, here's the deal. We had good this photo's thirty years ago and he seems significantly younger. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, 09:08 it's a good photo. That's what I'm saying is because we didn't have high def television in the nineties, it like kind of makes your purse. makes you feel like oh back then, like back then we didn't have good cameras, but we did. We could take really good pictures, but we couldn't though we as individuals couldn't yeah you had to be the pictures you looked at to be times were low quality because we were using digital cameras or our new kia flip phone. 09:34 or even even the the the CVS disposables, which are making a comeback. Yeah, it's kind of lame. Okay, I get the I get the Nostal, but it's lame. I don't think it's lame at all. I think nothing's lame. I think everything is joyful and good. 09:52 don't see this. We know how we were talking about pendulum swing it too far. That's what Jared's doing today. He's trying to be super positive, but I'm to be honest with you world man. I know what's going on in that little heart of his. I think that positive rage and anger rage and one day it'll be vengeance. 10:14 Okay anyways, have you ever heard of Michael Hoover? Yes, it's not that one okay, not that one so Jerome P Jacobson yeah. We started talking about him. I realized let's not I'm switching Michael who's Michael Hoover, Michael Hoover, so Michael Hoover. Here's a picture of him. You're going to know changing okay. You're going to know immediately when you see him what he's known for. This is Michael Hoover, 10:43 Oh okay, okay, okay, so he won something yeah he won. I don't know if you can read that it says one million dollars. You don't think I can read the gigantic letters that say one million dollars. I thought you were talking about the stuff up top. Nope can't read that, so this is a photo of Michael Hoover holding up a million dollar check and this is what photo. This is a photo from two thousand one to be fair. This photo is bad yeah compare to the other photo. You're right correct. That is correct. Okay, 11:12 and so this is August third, two thousand, if listening, Michael Hoover looks like Gary Jerry Larry from actually very accurate, but yeah he's he is a winner of the McDonald's Monopoly. I was you quit yawning. You're really stealing my vibe of I was really a good high and I was really enjoying being here, but then you yawned now I'm just I'm angry. All the vengeance in my heart is boil over the top and it's 11:40 pouring out my mouth into this microphone. This is really falling off. 11:50 honestly, did the comments get under my skin? No, honestly, I had a lot of roll off my back. Yeah, I don't know why I let him. I just let him, I just let him go. I don't even think about him. Certainly not two in the morning. Tell you that I'll tell you what the last thing I'm thinking about head two a.m. is your comments on the YouTube channel. 12:14 that was a lot. That was the last bit we're doing. I was like I was it. We'll do different right. We're serious all okay. Rest of the circle Hoover won a million dollars yeah, so he what a million dollars. This is the McDonald's Monopoly game. You remember the manopoli game. He was one of the people who gave it well. Here's the deal. So he this was broadcast on television. He won the he won the the game okay, and so he came 12:38 to. I believe this was New Jersey where he won yeah and so they're like yeah. We want to put you on TV like it's a million dollar prize. This was a big one, but they had done the prizes, but the million dollar single. Oh, I see that's McDonald's fries and all that. That's what that logo is up there. This was a big one. So he said we want to we want to have you on TV for the award. So he shows up, shows up, they get the check. There's the TV crew is there. This is out front of a McDonald's, which 13:04 also behind there is not a McDonald's. Yeah, I think it's the other end of the parking lot. I'm assuming yeah, but the all the McDonald's employees are there behind the camera like excited for him. Are you real? This guy looks like me before I lost the weight like if we put side by side. I don't know if that's true. I think it is. I mean so maybe if before you lost weight and then you aged a while maybe that's what I'm saying. I think I think that the I look very Terry Gary was 13:33 very accurate. I don't think you look like Larry Terry, Gary, Barry. All right, if you say so, I'm just saying the face is the shape. Yeah, I mean a similar face shape. I watch a lot to prep for this okay, and I thought you know what would be a good source for this Tom Segura telling the story to Joe Rogan on Joe's podcast back when Joe only interviewed comedians or I'm there, know, but it was fat Segura 13:58 which and yeah, it's kind of alarming when you see somebody it is yeah, it is go, but he brought it up. He's like he's like yeah. You remember the McDonald's monopoly game and Joe was legitimately was like no, what's that and he's like oh, I forgot you're like healthy and he's like yeah, I don't eat that and he like j I don't know if he was faking it, but it seemed like he genuinely had no idea what the monopoly thing was right at McDonald's, which is crazy to me. I don't know how you 14:22 like even if you don't eat it like I don't know how you miss that. When I was in high school, I would go to Casey's. If you're not from the Midwest Casey's gas station, the breakfast pizza elite, so I would go to Casey's pizzas are garbage and I don't respect anyone. I didn't say Casey's pizzas. I see he's right. You had the breakfast pizza. I haven't had their breakfast pizza, bra. I can't tell you that I understand. I understand having a differing opinion on like their pizza because the mayor Nara to cheese ratio is different. Okay, an era 14:51 sorry pizza sauce to cheese ratio is different and like the pepperonis they use. get it. I understand your qualm with that yeah. You need to try their breakfast pizza because it is elite. What is it like? What is it okay? So it's it's their pizza dough and then on top of it is it's breakfast. It's breakfast pizza. You don't talk about and if you use code till in the you'll get twenty get the sausage 15:20 it's sausage, egg and yeah yeah with like a cheese sauce. It's very, very good, but anyway when I was in high school, I used to go to Casey's in the morning. I lived across the street from the high school, so this is me driving into town. This is not me on my way. This is me. I lived across the street from high school, parking at home, pulling in the I would leave for school half an hour early to go to Casey's and I would get a slice of breakfast pizza, a donut and two mountain do 15:49 voltage, the blue ones. then I would drive to school while I eat the pizza. And then I would eat that donut in class, right? Because everyone would know. So everyone would And then it was summer school. So we'd get out at lunchtime. would. so I had an after summer school thing. So I had between 12 and 1. I had to be back in school 1. So at 12, I would go to McDonald's. And I would get the number 2, which is the two McDonald's. 16:18 Yeah and fries and a large coke and I did that every day. Yeah, that's hurts in high school. That hurts me now. That's what I'm saying about yeah. That's what I'm saying man. Yeah, I never won anything for it. You know what I never won anything for it. Oh yeah, they weren't giving you prizes for it back then yeah, but they might owe me compensation for what they did to me. 16:43 there is a guy who tried to sue McDonald's over this competition. Yeah, are we talking about the scandal of the competition? Is that the episode? I don't know, but there is a guy who tried to sue him because he said he basically made that statement. He's like he's like you're tricking people into becoming less healthy and he lost because they were like it's advertising. Yeah, hairs and they're like also it's bad for you. Yeah, everybody knows McDonald's is bad for you. 17:10 Dude, there's like these fitness influencers right now, like their main thing is like helping you figure out how to eat like high protein, low calorie options when you go out to eat. Because protein is like the fiber of the days right now. What was it a couple years ago? It was like getting your greens or whatever. Like everyone's talking about your protein goal now. That's what they're all talking about. So they've moved on from keto and now it's just maximizing your protein input. Which is good and fine, whatever. But anyway. 17:39 Yeah, they're talking about like here's a meal from McDonald's for seven hundred calories and thirty grams of protein and I'm like that is not a good ratio. That's a normal that's still a bad and that's like bad. You know, but anyway yeah, so this guy he's he gets called Michael Hoover. He was a beautiful man yeah, handsome man. That's what we got from the same really glazing him up. I'm just happy to be here. 18:09 so he won the man, he won the million dollars in monopoly in two thousand one. They had single sticker, which if you don't know how the monopoly game works, maybe I should explain it real quick. I might help. There was a there was a game monopoly ran and started in like the late eighties early nineties and they still run it occasionally like it. It was huge for a while fell. Now they run it through the app now. Yeah thing yeah fell off and now it's like still 18:33 which I could there was a little bit. could peel the if you've ever played monopoly, it's it's monopoly yeah and then so on the fries and the drinks yeah in certain sandwiches, because if you can get the big Mac, it had it on the back on the box. Yeah, you would peel off this little sticker yeah and it be to be two monopoly pieces, so it'd be like a railroad piece and then whatever Avenue, right or whatever yeah yeah and the 19:03 point was they had like a little board you could pick up and it was just like monopoly. If you collected all the pieces for any segment, there's like a prize that went with it yeah. So if you collected, for example, Connecticut Avenue, Vermont Avenue and Oriental Avenue, which those are the three light blue colors, then you win fuel for a year on a shell right. 19:26 So there's random prizes, random cash prize. got to you got to collect all what's all the railroads five thousand from target. If you get all four railroads yeah, you get early access on Black Friday to target. Is that really one of the things that's what it says is this early access only ten slots available wow honestly, honestly, be generous though honestly though. Can you imagine going on Black Friday to target and getting to walk in before doors open like back in like the hey day of Black Friday? Holy cow, 19:55 so what a prize and this was what year is this board? Do you know? I don't know what year this specific board is, but yes, there's different prizes for each section of the board that you collect. You could collect as much as you want, but obviously some pieces are more rare than others and then of course the dark blues, just like in monopoly are the most valuable. That's the million dollar prize and so this is what Hoover one who were on the million dollar prize and they call them up. They say hey, we want to put you on tv come out to the come out to this local McDonald's and so he comes out to the McDonald's 20:25 and they have the whole staff there. They're going to do a big photo op. The TV production crews there, they do the whole interview and everything. It's a big deal. do the photo ops and then they're like, well, hey, thanks. Thanks for coming out. 20:37 and then they they take their their cameras off. Hey, do I take this? Do you take the big check to the bank? You know saying like what do you do like they give you a different check? You can cash the big checks at any walmart and any of the money stands yeah like hey, you carry you got your arm and they give you the million dollars and pennies like it's all we got. You're out in the parking lot doing the sign thing. You're like no, so the way it worked actually is all of these prizes for McDonald's yeah. 21:04 were actually annuities and so they were going to pay him out in monthly payments and so I have an annuity, but I need cash now call JG one where all J P is J G Wentworth Jerome. Oh Bro, it was a call back to a thing I made earlier. Hey, could you add this part out? I don't want to do this anymore with you. Do you understand? I'll freaking leave. Do you understand? I will. I will go home right now. I hate being on this podcast. If I hate that you're on this 21:35 I moved cross country and I fly back once a month to do this and I don't even want to and I hate doing it. I hate it so much that I found a way to do this while living a thousand miles away. That's how much I hate being here. I'm going to be honest, Jared told me, Dern told me about this comment and I did not realize it bothered him. It doesn't it's whatever 22:00 we like joked about it on the phone and then today he's just coming in really on. know I just decided when I saw it, was I'm gonna ruin a whole episode. That's a much like I don't like it like you know how much I don't care. No, it's fun to joke about things are fun. 22:22 so that's what I'm saying. It's an annuity yeah. Is the other guy related to this story? Or did you really pivot like what's it? I pivoted you didn't seem interested, so he's related. He know you just didn't see. I pivoted so he's so he's up there. He's 22:43 We can do it next, I don't know, you just didn't seem excited about the guy. 22:54 I'm gonna Google him. No, don't Google. Don't Google him. No, no, no, no. Save it. I can't get ready for a baby. You can't touch a baby with Darn it. It's too hard to touch that baby. That's a game. 23:15 In the early days of this show, we did like affiliate ads where we were like a sign up for grammarly and use code till and and we got like fifteen cents and now we just do patreon. It's a much better way. It's better for us as creators. It's better for you as listeners and it's a much more fun way for us to interact. We do monthly hangouts like on zoom. We just hang out and play games online and and get to know each other. It's a really fun time so 23:42 but still use our code till in at grammerly dot com because I think it's still I might get like a couple cents from that, but join us on patreon because we're having a great time. If you don't, we're to have to start doing mobile game ads. 23:59 Oh man, I haven't touched my kid. Touch that kid six times. He's been born sure he'll be healthy. 24:14 okay. Him told me I got to get vaccinated and I got to wash my hands all the time. Yes, he taught me how to wash my I told him I know he didn't know you had to put your hands on the water. I didn't know that I had to run the water. I survived cove and just fine. I made it this far. It can't be can't because I did something wrong that hard. Ah geez okay, so Michael gets the 24:41 Michael gets this check here's does the photo about our editor is that I just know that Robert's going to leave this image on the screen for twenty the whole time. know 24:54 I just completely miss us. So Robert, can you like lower the opacity on it? So it's just kind of like it's like just kind of we talk about it and then it just slowly fades out and it's kind of like you do a little wave effect on it. It's just kind of there. So ridiculous. Oh golly dude, this show saw so he 25:24 Stop it. 25:27 and then and then they're like he does yeah, then they explain to him like it's an annuity. You just sign here, sign this document cool, perfect, choose to get a lump sum because is that an option or no yeah? No, there's not okay. So when you when you would win in the lot, you have an option of doing it an annuity or lump sum yeah. No, that's not an office. What's the what's the advice to do annuity right? I think it's lump sum. I mean I I know people will tell you 25:55 I don't get to keep more of it over time though right. If you do annuity yeah technically yeah you you get to take more if it's an annuity but the ending problems down yeah there's two yeah the spending power goes down and then to if you're smart with it, you can earn more over time. If you go invest it also if it's a if you do the annuity and whoever is managing it goes under or disappears or whatever like goes under disappear 26:23 okay. Yeah, you just you just never knows know what's happened. Okay, what's going to happen? Yeah, you take either take it and bury it in my backyard. Yeah, yeah, I know it is a water it and so it grows. My bathtub is full of dollar bills that I have the serial codes every day because I'm a win six hundred and twenty million dollars in my bathtub. Yeah, but don't tell insurance don't tell anybody that 26:49 so this guy wins the check and the document and then afterwards the camera crews put another camera gear away. The McDonald's workers are like Haken Gratz, like super happy for you, really excited and then they're like hey hold on one second and then someone says like whiskey or something and all the McDonald's workers like tear off their clothes like tear away clothes and then the camera gear people they pull out their camas, but they're actually guns and turns out it's the FBI. It wasn't so this guy we there were the FBI got him 27:18 Yeah, so none of it was real. All the McDonald's workers, what the TV crew, none of them were actually the TV crew, the Mac, he thought he was on TV. This wasn't actually on TV. This was they took the picture. They're like, we got the guy, uh, lol. He thinks he's on TV right now. And so that's why this picture is so bad is because the was like, what this guy thinks he's on TV right now. What a loser. You're serious. They were like, so he, they were like, yeah, come, they're like, thanks Michael. Anyway, have a good day. 27:48 Yeah exactly yeah and it was literally everybody there the the McDonald's employees, the TV crew, every single person there was actually the FBI and they were all undercover and he thought he was like there to get his check, but he was going to to jail and so they arrest him and he was or what for winning obviously. McTuttle was meh and they were like hey, just kidding you got to go to jail card. 28:18 Yeah, we put it go to J. We put a go to jail card in the monopoly game, and so if you pull it, it's like ah, I pulled the go to jail, but it's serious yeah. The you're money going to jail yeah, so he pulled the go card and yeah. The FBI had been running a sting operation because seven years earlier, someone called and said hey, you know that monopoly like called enough to tip to the FBI and said hey, you know that monopoly game at McDonald's. If he has like yeah, 28:47 and they said hey, so you should look into the fact that everyone who's winning is related and the guy was like okay, and that was the whole who the fbi they called left an anon, an anonymous tip. We can do that 29:05 so he gets arrested and it was all because of this anonymous tip and how would Michael pull that off? Well, it wasn't just him because at the same moment across the states, fifty people get arrested for being in this fifty people yeah for being in this ring of monopoly cheaters or scammers. I don't know what you call them. I guess scammers, maybe cheaters, hopefully launders 29:31 yeah, maybe laundering. I don't know because they're not. They weren't technically laundry. Well, let me tell you the story. I'll just tell you this story. Yeah, they do it so monopoly started doing this in the late eighties early nineties right. This is a McDonald's campaign. Yeah, this is the mid dot McDonald's camp. Yeah, but it's not it's not like monopoly started doing it. I think McDonald's license monopoly, not the other way around. No well, 29:55 yes McDonald's license monopoly. Yes, yeah, that's right. I monopoly was like hey, can we use your cup? No, no, no, no, no, yeah exactly. That's yeah, you're right. So McDonald's started doing this in the eighties. Did I say monopoly started doing this? Oh, you said like three times. Here's the deal. Their names are so similar. This is starting to seem like 30:13 yeah, I started to seem like chair doesn't want to be and I just really don't want to give that impression. This is right now. I got to do what I do in marriage counseling and I got a can marriage counseling becomes convincing the therapist that I'm I'm the one who's right. You don't talk about yeah, you know, I'm marriage counselor where you're been a counseling with your wife now freaking killing it. They're normal and fine. We were just talking about this earlier. Give him a couple years. We were like give him a couple years. He's been married longer than both of us right. 30:42 When did you get married? 2019 Oh, you got I got a beat! 30:51 I mean so steven a simple bit so McDonald's big dows in the eighty yeah calls up this like marketing promotions company yeah called. Let me get you their name. I believe it's Simon something Simon Simon, so let me get you their name. I believe it's Simon 31:20 it's some Simon marketing, Simon marketing. That was it huh? Well, I there was something in the middle. I knew is so some marketing company. Let me give you their names Simon something. I thought it was a marketing company Simon Alvin and there was something between Simon and marketing. Turns out it was just a space. They call Simon Mark, a marketing like a this works out great. We have another. have another client 31:48 well, they called them in the eighties and they said they said here's the deal. McDonald's were crushing it. We're awesome and Simon's like yeah, you guys are and they're like we need more children in our restaurants and Simon was like we know just the thing so Simon invented the happy meal for them yeah and obviously the happy meal was a huge hit and so after that the success of that when they do those Ronald McDonald 32:13 VHS is you know what I'm talking about. Those were so sick where was like live action and then they would turn into the cartoon. They would go down the slide and then it was a cartoon yep fricking and they had they had cassettes. They did song yeah. That was as crazy dope. That was really good. If you missed out on that, that's why you're sad cassettes were 32:39 plastic. How do you even describe? They were plastic prisons for some tape that you could put stuff on and it would make sounds. Yeah. Imagine if you tape something up and then the tape said stuff to you. Okay, that's a cassette tape. So so they were like this. I a meal 33:04 yeah and now we need more adult. That's exactly what happened. They called them. They said hey too many kids there's they're like super successful. We made a lot of money off that, but a little bit too many kids. We need some more adults and they said you know what adults love gambling and so they said, but gambling is illegal. So instead we're going to do a sweepstakes yeah and then the nice thing about sweepstakes is it's gambling, but if you position yourself right, you can get around it yeah and so the way they did that is 33:32 like gambling. You had to pay it into the game and then do you win? I don't know. Odds are you probably won't. It's an odds game, but it's no purchase necessary. Yeah, it's no purchase necessary, so the way they got around it is you could just walk into any McDonald's and just say can I have a piece and they would give you a game piece and so you're watching the wrong McDonald's and you're like hey, can I have a piece and then the guy would like put a gun on the table and you're like oh no, I'm sorry 34:00 a monopoly piece and pull out a gun that was had monopoly characters on it and you're like I think I the wrong wrong. Mcdonald went. I think so too, and then you stared at each other like he's like he's like. I think you seem too much. I think you should leave and then you turned around and you never left 34:24 and you never left sad. You know I talk about the McDonald's mob, so they go and they do the they do the whole game, invent the game and so they're like yeah. We'll call it monopoly. We do a partnership with monopoly 34:47 and then they were like what if we also partnered with like every other brand and so they started doing coupons with every other brand and like deltas yeah, give cards with brand is yeah and so and then it became the game that we know today, but it was a pretty major operation. So Simon was the company Simon market was the company that was actually executing the game. They had hired a third party. I don't know the name of this third party to print all of these Simon print tickets Simon something printing Simon 35:17 printing, siphon printing or something, and so they hired this third party to start making the actual yeah to put the actual pieces and then yeah and then they those pieces would get shipped to to the the mcdonald's to stick them on everything yeah, and so they start putting together the game and they realize okay. There is a possibility internally for us to do some fraud here. 35:46 And so we want to do everything we can to make sure fraud doesn't happen. So they hire a former police officer to be the chief of security on this operation. And so they're like, what we're going to do is we're going to have this police officer. He's going to when we make these winning game pieces, he's going to have a sealed envelope of these winning game pieces and he's going to hand deliver them to the print shops across the country. And then they're going to take those, they're going to put them, they're not going to know what piece is what. 36:15 Those are going to get distributed into the printing system, and so no one's going to know what it is, and we're actually going to hire a third-party auditor to travel with our security chief at all times, so that way there's no possibility that there's a double failsafe, like if this person can't cheat the system, right? And the system worked great for a little while, until one day something strange happened. And this security chief, 36:45 Here, I'll show you a picture of him. His name is Jerry Jacobson. 36:56 Hahaha 37:05 I knew it. I hate that okay, so Jerry was the security chief for this company okay and Jerry he he he goes. He was a former police officer from Florida and he is hired to do to be the person who like mules these making a pretty good living. This is like ninety one. He's making seventy thousand a year, which I could just for inflation. It's like a hundred and seventy five today, so there's no ways that really yeah. 37:34 I'll show you the inflation calculator. Do the nineties is a weird time in yeah seventy thousand and January, nineteen ninety is equivalent to hundred seventy five thousand seven hundred thirteen dollars and I had that readily available, didn't you yep? Okay, I'm prepared. The nineties was crazy man because like like in your neighborhood, you rode your bikes around right when we were kids. Oh yeah yeah for sure yeah and so like when we were kids, it was different. You could just go out in the yeah. I we we rode way past our neighbor had 38:03 Yeah, but I even passed your neighborhood like that we cross when we were kids like if you were riding your bike around town or whatever and you fell off and scraped your knee, you could go knock on a stranger's door and that adult would help you right now. Some of them no they would. I mean like it was a pretty it was pretty common. I mean you lived small town America where I was someone else would help you, but I'm saying like 38:28 that was a different time than is that it was assumed that most adults would probably help you if you got the door now. If you what I will say was pretty universal when we were kids. If you were in public, if you were being bad in public, most adults would reprimand you right yeah, but now most adults mind their business, which is what we need more adults to my like you used to be able to knock on you, spill and knock on a stranger's door and get some help and now kids can't do that. 38:56 because there we can no longer trust those adults to not shoot those kids for trespassing. 39:08 I'm trying to do a bit the whole time and you kept going off on the day. I was serious. I got a punch line up here dude like let me get it out. 39:19 but to be fair, those kids are trespassing. I mean the ring footage holds up in court. Your the ring footage shows that they walked up, but they said hey, do you want to buy and then I was a sign? I was supposed to think I feel threat and then I shot that kid. It's okay to laugh at it. There's not a real. Oh, don't that down. a real Alex wrote down 39:48 probably cut shot that kid and I'm saying put it in the intro. No context, you know, I like the show anymore is I think sensor. Okay, I'm the first amendment right off drum. It goes by Uncle Jerry doesn't have any nephew. 40:11 which is weird. It's weird to go by uncle when they're not really your net. They're not really your nephews. Yeah, it's weird man. So this guy's security, he's security and he's he loves the job. He's very excited about the job. The auditor is from an independent company and her job is to literally just watch him, but he is like a imagine that 40:37 Yeah. My job is just to watch you and make sure you don't do anything weird be here and make sure you to sure nothing you do is weird. He's like define weird. She's like well, I mean like with the monopoly pieces he's like oh like I mean I don't have to report anything weird unless it's weird with monopoly. Hi, I'm Sarah. What is your name and he's like Uncle Jerry. I got a report that I do have to report that unfortunately 41:06 calls himself Uncle Jerry. That's pretty weird foot to start on. I have nieces and nephews. No. Oh, that's another strike. Okay, so yeah, she just has to travel and watch him and remember his job is to hand deliver this stuff to make sure it doesn't get like leaked anywhere right, and so he though he gets like 41:34 kind of obsessed with that life because now he's like like he's used to be a police officer. made a decent living now he's making a living and so he's wanting to fly first class. He's like going to like all the airport lounge. He's obsessed with airport miles and so he's constantly going in to check in at these facilities, but he like me and uncle Jerry got a lot in common. 41:57 he's like he's like constantly going to check in at these facilities, but he doesn't have a delivery or anything. He's just going to check in because he wants to earn the miles for on his airport car, his travel cards, and so he's going and doing these fights and she has to go with him every time he goes and so she's like he's going again. What's her name again? We have we don't have her name okay, because she's not we're to call her Sarah yeah. Okay, he's like he's like yeah. I got to go out and his wife is like is he married 42:28 Yeah, I think so his wife's like are you going to be out this weekend? He's a yeah, the old ball and chain wants to go to Atlanta, go dig off a delivery and she's like I'm the ball and he's like no, no, no, Sarah. she watches Sarah, Sarah, you know my work yeah, ball and jay, Sarah, Sarah is watching right there has to watch it and she goes he keeps 42:57 driving by this house in New Jersey and calls himself the watcher. She's watching the watcher. She's watching the all hail the watcher, all the watcher of the watcher. That's incredible, so he's doing the thing right there. This is going off for years and then one day he 43:27 one day he goes out to his mailbox and there's a package and he opens up the package and he realizes these are the the seals for the envelopes that they deliver the monopoly cards, monopoly pieces in somehow and I'm still not exactly sure how this happened, but somehow this mistakenly was shipped to him instead of to their company okay, and so he when he notices this realizes he has an option. He goes he looks around his Sarah 43:58 Sarah. Can you see me right now? Sarah? Are you watching? You have to tell me if you're watching me what Sarah doesn't see won't hurt Sarah, so he takes these seals yeah and he just jumps a bunch of them in his coat pocket obviously because Sarah Sarah watches Sarah doesn't frisk. So Sarah will never know that's in its pocket okay, and so he takes 44:27 he takes all those. has them hidden in his pocket and his other coat pocket. He hides a bunch of just average pieces that he collects. Yeah, it collects a bunch of just normal monopoly pieces okay, and he says okay, we're going to go on this trip. I'm going to find an opportune time and Sarah's not looking to open up this envelope, take all the winning pieces, swap them with losing pieces and I have the seals so I can reseal it. So they don't even get distributed yeah, and so he's like I can get them 44:55 but he has to find a time where says now watching because remember her job is to watch him and they're literally flying direct their landing. They're going to the facility and so it's like an immediate. They leave the warehouse with the tickets, get on the plane, go to the land and go straight there and so there's not like a it's not like they're staying overnight anywhere like there's any time where they're apart except for in the lounge at the in the airport at the he can go to the bathroom and so he takes a bathroom break and that's the one place that her being a woman 45:25 can't go into the men's restroom and so he goes in the men's rest pretty big oversight kind of have mixed gender yeah kind of and so he goes the men's restroom every flight walks in takes the restroom break goes into the stall quickly opens about dumps out the winning pieces dumps the fake pieces in reseals it walks out. She has no idea what happened. He gets really quick at this 45:52 goes and drops him off and now he's got all these winning pieces there at the time there wasn't million dollar prizes. I think the highest prize was a two hundred thousand dollar prize that they had in the nineties, okay, but they also did have like they had cars they had obviously they called like the five thousand dollar prize like lower cash prizes and so he had like high value prizes and so, but he realized well shoot 46:20 it would be kind of suspicious shocks. He's like it would probably be kind of suspicious if I started winning a bunch of these thing being the guy who distributes them. Yeah, he realizes he can't be the one to win right and so he goes to his butcher and he tells his butcher. He says hey, I have a fifty thousand dollar winning monopoly piece. If you give me ten thousand dollars, I'll give you the fifty thousand dollar piece and so he takes a ten thousand dollar prize 46:50 the other guy gets forty thousand and he gives him the piece and he's like. I think this could work and so he starts distributing these to a bunch of people in his network around Atlanta where he lives. He's not smart enough to really spread them out, so it's it's all a bunch of people around in his neighborhood, his family members, his cousins, his brother in law, like it's a lot of people who have different last names but are technically still loosely related to 47:19 that he's distributing these two and they're giving him cash and so he kind of distributes this around. He makes a decent so this guy is just a recap. The story he is responsible for taking the pieces from where they make the winning pieces yes to the distribution center where they're going to be put on the cups yes and then sent out yes and so in that process he takes the winning pieces yes, man, his jacket replaces them with non winning pieces correct reseals it 47:49 correct and then delivers that so the winning pieces never got delivered correct. There was never a chance you could win correct because all the winning pieces were held by this one guy correct. Yes and so he runs this for a couple years. He runs out of people he can run this scheme with okay and so he starts to realize I'm going to need some help and so he was kind of a mystical guy. He started going to palm readers and stuff like this to try to be like. Where am I going to find the guy who's going to help me do this scheme? 48:25 okay. Your palm tells me. Are you committing fraud palm tells me that your wife's about to have a baby because these hands are saw 48:44 I got soft hands to hold my baby four times, so he on one of his trips. I once of the one of these trips. He has a chance encounter with a guy by the name of let me look at. Oh, this is this is convenient by the name of Jerry. He meets a guy in the airport named Jerry. What's your name and the guy goes Jerry he goes 49:13 uncle Jerry, he's like he's like nephew Jerry. You go by that you Jerry yeah. I go by Nafi J, so he meets this guy in the airport. His name is Jerry Colombo and Jerry Colombo is very interested in this idea yeah, because Jerry Colombo. Here's a little bit about him in the mafia. Jerry Colombo he he lives in a town where the district where he's at. It was illegal in this district to own a strip club. 49:43 but he wanted to own one and so he started a five o one three C opened up a church and he called it the Church of the Fuzzy Bunnies and he had a bunch of strippers that read the Bible and then would strip and got away with it. I guess somehow because he said it was a religious organization, so that's Jerry Colombo. Did they have a youth group? 50:10 and so he was like he's like he's like he can't is that again. It's our faith. God came to me in a dream and told me that this is how we were going to reach a different group of people. He's like this is this is a group of people that's underserved by the church, and so this is how we're reaching them and like yeah, I'm taking ten percent of everything you make that night yeah yeah, and that is crazy. So that's who this guy is. He also is a member of the Colombo crime family, 50:39 which was one of the five mafia families in New York, well, passers the props, so yeah he's a member of this crime family that's like very famous like dates back to the twenty's of the mafia, and so he's obviously very interested in this, and so he gathers a network of people to run these winning tags and they do better because 51:08 this was a little sketchy. The way he was doing it was all people within his network. It was all people in Atlanta, so this is like right up his alley. He's like you know all about it. He's all love loopholes, but he tells I love loop poles. That's what he thought they were called. I love you immediately. Immediately is like you're you're doing this wrong because you're just doing in Atlanta. It's just people in your network. This can easily get traced back to you, and so he said he realized he was half a brain could figure that one out, and so he gets his drug runners and his drug runners are going 51:37 across the country now. How they're one of those a drug runner. Yeah, you probably have a debt. Oh, that makes a lot of sense, and so is his drug. When I was joking about this guy being the mob like this, this guy is well Colombo is the mob. Colombo is yeah. Colombo is one of the five families. Yeah, it's he's Colombo Colombo. Yeah, the five crime mob families from the nineties from the twenties. 52:04 the Colombo is one of those, and so he's a descendant of like the mafia, like the mafia. They were in the family wars, the one yeah, the ones you think of, but and you could join the sixth family by joining us on patriot. Yeah, I'm in the mob and so Colombo, though it's a important to say Colombo like Colombo was like cry me, but like he wasn't like 52:32 the what you think of mafia because like he was he was a little bit want to be like he did some crime, de caps and stuff. He did some crime, but he was like he was like obsessed with scar face and he really wanted to be an actor like really wanted to be an actor and so he he he got one of the tickets and it was like it was a car that he won and so he's super excited to win this car as like a some sports car. I can't remember what exactly the car was, but he wins a sports car and say him 53:00 he was a scar on the he was a sports car and he actually he actually gets featured in a commercial for this for winning because McDonald's like we want to promote it. You won this car and so Jerry Colombo he gets to a dodge viper. There we go yeah party wins and so he gets featured. They're like Jerry in from Florida, just want to dodge viper. You could be the next winner and the monopoly games and so that was I mean picture nineties commercial you know yeah. 53:29 and so he was so pumped to be in this commercial also visibly in the mafia yeah for sure. Anybody watching this could be like now I get it yeah he's he's a mob and so hundred percent Italian yeah yeah. 53:47 Hey real quick before we get to the podcast. I just want to make sure you know that I am going on tour in June with the church comedy tour with Shama, Marima and Mike Goodwin. It's going to be a really fun time. I would love for you to show up. You can find tickets for that at jaron Myers dot com slash shows. So all of my shows are listed there, but specifically this tour and they told me that if you don't buy tickets to this, it's going to be six more weeks of winter jam and they're 54:12 they're never going to let mercy me quit touring if they can't figure out how to replace them. You know I'm saying so you guys got to buy tickets to our tour so that they can give the other options. Just so you know on the website for for TPR is ninja kids. That's real. That's my competition, so I don't like them. I take us to my shows. You just Google it and injure kids with a Z. 54:41 Jeremyers.com slash shows. 54:50 So he distributes his guys and his drug runners and his drug runners go across the country and they have a pretty strict rule wherever they distribute one. That's it for that area like after that you're. can't have another winner in that area and so they start doing this and they get for lack of a better term good at it and they're doing this for the better. Now these guys are approaching random people or they got people in the like 55:15 Yeah, they're finding people and they're saying hey, I have one of the winning pieces and so there's there's a few ways this is going down like it's either like people are approaching like somehow finding out from their network that these guys are selling the monopoly winning tickets. They selling yeah they're selling them, so the game is say it's a fifty thousand ticket and so the fifty thousand is okay. I get you give me ten thousand you get the remaining forty thousand, but do you give me ten thousand up front? It's up front got two hundred thousand was forty five thousand up front. 55:45 and so if you could, if you could manage to pay that up front, like at the end of the day, you're profiting, but also with like taxes and everything like that, you're probably not not that much, and so they're finding these people, they're sourcing these people that they're going to be essentially buying these tickets and it's it's unclear exactly if everybody who was buying knew exactly what they were buying into yeah, because it seems like a lot of them. They were saying hey, got this winning ticket 56:15 I don't really want the notoriety. I don't want people to know I got this, so I want to cut, but I'll give you the majority. If you take it and you be the person who's the face, so I'll take ten or forty five. You take the rest and big so that way you can be the person who's got the face on it, and so it kind of seems like they were deceiving a lot of people, but not everybody, because there's very clearly some people who knew exactly what we're like. Oh, it's the mop got it yeah got it. Love that love the mom like Hoover. For example, Hoover he 56:43 owned a couple of defunct casinos, so he was very involved in that life right, and so they're spreading these things around and remember I said that the FV I got that tip and so what happened is very early in this process. Sarah was like hey boss. He either has a very large bladder or this guy's stealing the tickets. 57:11 so his brother in law, they get into a disagreement yeah and he knows that it's he's distributing it to all his friends and family and so he calls the FBI puts in the anonymous tip and literally all he says yeah and all he says is he's like he's like you should look into why everybody who's getting these winning tickets is related and so that's the whole tip. That was the whole call he hung up after saying that the FBI like left it on their desk for a couple years. They didn't have time to get to this like it's probably not that big. I would ever 57:41 That's how most stuff happens, by the way yeah yeah and so finally they pick it up. They start investigating. They start to realize oh these people are all connected yeah. I think something's going on here, so they managed through looking at that group of people to realize they've checked phone records and they realized that everyone had called Uncle Jerry and so they wire tap Uncle Jerry's phone. They end up through that wire tap. They ended up connecting him to Colombo and through that wire tap 58:09 They say, okay, we need proof to book all these guys and everyone who's involved in this and prove that they're all connected. And so what they did is they called up McDonald's and they said, hey, so you know this promo you're doing. And they're like, yeah, it's pretty good, isn't it? And they're like, no. They're like, actually it's been mobbed. And so they talked to McDonald's and McDonald's at first says, no, actually let it go. 58:36 we don't want it. This is now yeah and they say just let them keep winning whatever who care don't care yeah and they're like that gets people it's driving sales yeah we do not care but the FBI which that's the problem with the whole system is that corporations will prioritize their profits over what's legal and right and they'll go even though we know something illegal is happening we're going to let it keep happening because it's driving our profits up yeah they don't care about you they don't care about the rule of law. 59:04 They don't care about what the rules are because it doesn't fit. The rules hinder them more than they benefit them. The rules benefit you as the consumer. Remember that the next time you think we should do it, the government completely remember how many of the regulations keep you from getting blown up by nuclear stations that could be built just like they were in freaking Chernobyl. Think about how often you turn on your water and it's not filled with cancer giving chemicals because the regulations that we say, hey, but what about the fluoride? 59:35 Think about the number of cavities that you don't have in your mouth. 59:41 anyway, it's the FBI's basic McDonald's was like hey yeah, we know it mcdowell like hold us McDonald's is like this is a shock to us. We had no idea about this McDonald's whoa, please don't tell any you're telling me you're telling me that somebody rigged the game no and I could whatever you know all's well it ends well. 01:00:11 we're going to keep doing it. Oh, you want to investigate? Are you sure so the FBI's like look? We know you don't like my threatening the FBI. I was like. Are you sure about that? You sure you want to keep looking into it? You don't gotta like. Why don't you go to the McDonald's over there on twenty ninth and ask for a piece? This is my restaurant. 01:00:39 the make the monopoly scam happened across the and I don't want you telling people you tell it anybody. Olive Garden is not doing a monopoly game, sir. 01:00:54 actually now that I'm looking at your eyes like that, I can tell that all of God is doing a monopoly game and the frotting the American people with yes, yes, these are and then it's on the news. Is it a newspaper the next day? Oh, oh, how did you did you hear that all of garden is front the front with that monopoly game that they're doing? I did hear that honey. I'm pretty sure that was a McDonald's that was doing the monopoly game actually not 01:01:23 all I haven't heard of all that's a pretty big pull. 01:01:38 No 01:01:45 That's too much, you can't do that much. 01:01:57 Alright, let's go to church. 01:02:10 Yeah, I heard about that. 01:02:17 it's got nothing to do with nephew Jerry, so the FBI is basically like hey. We have to investigate this. It's kind of you know fraud that's happening and so McDonald's is like fine, we'll cooperate and so like here's what we want you to do. We want you to do two new prizes. We want you to do million dollar prizes first time they've done that and they're like we're gonna like we can't do that though and the F guys like he got yeah you can. 01:02:46 Yes, you can. Just freaking listen to what I'm telling. No one's winning. Do it. Just do it. Just do peer pressuring up. This is here's what we're going to do. We're going to a million dollar prize and the winner is going to meet us in the desert with a helicopter and then we're going let them fly away. That was never the FBI. 01:03:11 that was the FBI wasn't it? No, I'm saying this wasn't the FBI. was like yeah, it's the FBI. We should pretend to be the FBI. 01:03:24 so they're like hey, do the million hello congressman, it's me, the fbi. There's not enough. I've got a lot to say about Shaquille O'Neal. If anyone's willing to call me back, 01:03:46 this episode's a mess. Taron doesn't want to be here though, so I'm trying to drive this show into the ground. 01:04:01 so like we need to do the million dollar prizes yeah. They've only done this a couple times before like the million dollar prizes are super rare. It's like fine. We'll do two million dollar prizes and they're like we're going to watch the phones and we're going to track them down. We're going to get them on the line talking about this, so they actually could do get a phone call recording between Uncle Jerry and nephew Jerry and they're like you see this new million dollar prize. We got to make this happen. Colombo is like I know a guy up in Jersey. He's got a casino that just went under. He's a perfect guy for this yeah, and so they set it up 01:04:31 his brother's casino just got blown up from you know the bomb from that comedian that performed at the senior prom at the casino bombed. 01:04:49 and so they get like you got you get that call back. I do yeah. Thanks for thanks for checking. I appreciate that Harvey's Casino. Yeah, no yeah. I got that to Reno yeah yeah you got bomb. was an episode we did got a cool shirt. You can get it here. I got bombed at Harvey's. Do we still sell that shirt? I'm sure that was a good one anyways. I was a frig. Where was I so Uncle Jerry Uncle Jerry there on a wire call yeah they were to they cast him on the call being like yeah we're going to sell this guy up in Jersey 01:05:17 they checked the guy down in Jersey, they sell it for. I don't know what they sold a million dollar ones for, but they sold it. I mean probably at least fifty three hundred grand right. I guess so okay, and so they they go up there. They they like watch the whole thing happen. They get it all all the evidence that they need like okay. I think we've got enough and they say all right. We've got fifty three people that we think are involved in this or well. I guess we know are involved in this 01:05:46 and so like holy cow. We need to do the arrest, but obviously like we can't do these arrests separately. We there's their flight risks, so these all have to happen at the exact same time and they're like it'd be really sweet. If we do this Hoover idea that could be really like honestly. We love the idea of tricking this guy and so like so we got to do that. If you are like okay, just do it do the million other price. We need this. It seems like you got some ulterior motive. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, 01:06:16 if you don't do is going to ruin the friggin I'm going to do the TV. We to do the TV, what TV thing don't worry about it. You'll find out about the already ordered the break away shirts, the breakaway McDonald's uniform, tear away McDonald's uniforms. 01:06:29 they want to do the little photo op thing yeah. the only thing I'm living for buddy. I found this post is no. We've got this tip three years ago. I just discovered it is the only thing about yeah, I'm not even kidding. When we got the tip, I was like man, wouldn't it be sweet if we could do this? That was the first thing I thought my wife is a counselor. We got divorced her life's a mess, so I do I guess the door I'm in the. This is the only I've got right now. This is all I got is this this sting 01:06:57 So they they they say okay, we have to coordinate this has to happen all at once and so they put together a document detailing the whole case detailing how they're going to do the arrests and they sent this document that coordinates the whole the whole staying operation to the local FBI offices across the country that are going to do it. And so you're just trusting the local blokes, so they say all right yeah. So this is two thousand. This is summer two thousand and so they they fax it 01:07:26 and they have fact speed dial of all the FBI offices and so they send it off to all the FBI offices and then there's one of them where most of them the speed dial says like Denver FBI office, New York FBI office like that's how what their speed dial shows. But there's one that just says Greenville and so like well I must be the Greenville FBI office. It was the Greenville Times and 01:07:52 so they accidentally added a reporter yeah to the FBI group chat. 01:08:05 they immediately notice discussing war plans to take down the mom to take down the mom. They immediately noticed and they wasted no time. They flew straight there to the times and they pulled up and they were like like where that I don't put that out. They don't put that out. don't put that out. Please don't we have such a cool idea. I've been dreaming of this for years, but my wife left me. My wife left me. She's a counselor, 01:08:32 she's like she's next to this podcast. know you don't know what that means. don't get what it means right now is the year two thousand and a podcast is, but I know it's going to happen. I don't know if you know this, but the word podcast is actually from I pod apple created the podcast. Did you know that that's real? It's an I pod right now, so it gives me some joy of giving you a fact. Pretend to not know stuff. I really want to be here right now. 01:09:00 what I need this don't put this. I really need a really and so they strong armed the FBI and to giving them exclusive rights of the story. It was like I'm gonna and they were like they were like we're gonna send it we're gonna send it and so so they got ex and it's why would anything in my life go well? I want to go well. I did everything right. 01:09:29 I got married at twenty two. We had three kids. I got us a beautiful house. I got out of I got out of Quantico and I was like you know what's this career even mean anymore and he says, but if you do send driving for happiness, just send it and he says, but this is a homemade explosive device, so he's threatening 01:09:55 to blow up the green fillet. You know what actually actually a bomb, but I would like to try my new stand up. See how it goes. You can publish this so the FBI, the FBI is like whatever you can get a right to surprise this story and they're like we want the picture and they're like fine. We'll get you guys can publish. We could have got you a much higher quality picture, but sure yeah, we'll give you the picture. 01:10:22 and so that's why it's blurry. The guy behind it was just so giddy that he was like he's like I've waited so long for this one a million dollars. He freaking idiot, you freaking loser. He was like what is it closer to the and so so Greenville yeah the Greenville Times writes up the article 01:10:47 and they're like we're going to wait until the time of the arrest that's in the document to publish yeah, and so they're going to wait and whatever and so they go out. They do the sting operation. They arrest him fifty three people got arrested, forty eight pled guilty and there's just tons of different please that they like yeah, those Jerome Uncle Jerry, he gets the the steepest fine for this. 01:11:14 which was three years in prison and twelve point three million in restitution that he has to pay interesting thing about that he's still paying it. Obviously it's a lot of money yeah he pays monthly payments of drum roll please three hundred and fifty seven dollars a month. What he's never going to pay that off. He's never 01:11:44 look at him. You're going to pay it off. He's never going to pay that he's just going to die. You're to die. You to more. You got to pay more than three to be seven. Now you get paid that off on three hundred and fifty seven dollars. What are you saying like that? What? Why did you sound like courage? The cowardly dog 01:12:13 like the Darwin from the one berries. That's crazy. They're like a for these are going pay it off. Okay, these the moments that made me really glad I'm here. 01:12:33 He's so, he's so... 01:12:39 can we just title this episode the one that Jaren didn't want to do? That's pretty funny. Here doesn't want to be 01:12:52 So, 01:12:55 it's a dumb bit all right. Wow, I can't breathe off. How much more is he? Oh, I don't know what to eat. What do you think there's an interest rate on it? Probably like I just I just don't think there's a chance he ever pays off because he did three mills three years in prison after he got arrested and then got out and then just immediately three fifty seven a month. He never to pay that off 01:13:22 and he was in an interview recently. HBO put out a documentary series, six part series called Nick Millions, yeah, Tom Sager, Tom Sager, his cousin produced it fun fact, but in that they are looking into why everyone's related to Tom Sager. Yeah, that's what we just cousin and what's that guy that you listen to for little bit and then you were like wait, this guy's a quack. What was his name? He's also cousins with but Sager. 01:13:51 Why did I listen to him? I don't know. You were like this guy's this guy's got some smart insights and then you were like wait he's weird. Was it a podcast? Yeah, who Berman, who Berman, who Berman, you don't know that Huberman is so gross. I was cousin. Oh interesting. Yeah interesting. I did not know that. Yeah, maybe I did know that you do now. I told you, I think I know that so these picture of Huberman real quick. He's on the course. He's talking to his guy. 01:14:21 he's related to all that for that, but so not everybody that was involved in this actually got prosecuted for it because do they do like the whole like I didn't know what I was getting into like I was yes a lot of people they realized yeah they were there. There wasn't enough. They were scammed themselves. They were scammed. There's a lot of people where the FBI didn't have enough evidence to prosecute those people individually. They had enough for Jerry and some of the people at the top yeah, but not enough for them and then 01:14:50 nephew Jerry Colombo in ninety eight. He was driving home from church when when he got t boned and slammed into a wall and he didn't die in the wreck, but he later died because of his injuries and the FBI is has said that they're fairly confident had that accident not happened. They would have had enough evidence for everyone else who got away and so 01:15:19 the FBI hasn't prosecuted anyone, but there there's kind of like this like that might have been someone. What about Michael Hoover? What happened to him? Michael Hoover went to jail yeah. Michael Hoover went to jail. I think it was like a it was short. It was like a month long like three six seven months something like that yeah, and then he had to pay back the money he won, but or he had to pay restitution because he didn't take the whole million he had a day and then, but here's the thing Jerry. This is interesting Jerry 01:15:49 while this was all happening, Uncle Jerry, he was like there's a chance to get caught for this and so he's like he's like I wonder if there's something I could do that could lighten my sentence a little bit and so he takes one of those game pieces puts it up in an envelope and he puts a Dallas return address on it and mails it to Saint Jude's Children Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee, a million dollar game piece with no with no like note. It doesn't have anyone's name on it doesn't say who it's from 01:16:16 It's just an authentic like an envelope. They opened up authentic million dollar game piece and so it made the news. It was huge news. Technically in the game you weren't allowed to transfer a card. So like technically that was against the rules, but when it hit the news and it was such a big deal, McDonald's was like. 01:16:39 I think this guy's on to us. McDonald's was like fine, what I do it to the hospital, both a million dollars away. He's like and then and then he sent one to that hospital and then sent the other one to the Greenville Times and then just included a little note that says come publish it. It says publish it and so he thought that that was going to give him a lesser sentence because he's like I help the kids. 01:17:09 but they the jury didn't care, but the hospital did because the hospital give away stolen money. The hospital like they actually got that money. They got their last annuity payment in twenty fourteen for fifty thousand dollars, and so that was a genuine donation that they received from McDonald's or was it Jerry? I don't know. It's hard yeah tell, but then as a result of this 01:17:34 McDonald's was like this wasn't our fault. It was all those guys at Simon marketing and the F. I was like oh they were blaming Simon market. They are blaming some marketing. It was was a leak inside Simon marketing, Sarah's fault yeah and Sarah was like it's not my fault. It was Jerry's fault and actually it's more your fault because I can't follow Jerry in the bathroom even though I tried. I tried yeah the people at the TSA said I couldn't come in there and I know it was there was not a much TSA then 01:18:00 but I was I was trying yeah, it's the toilet security, a ministry security, a ministry, so they they they part ways, but Simon and McDonald's both filed lawsuits against each other because they were like pretty contract. This is your fault yeah and it ended up being they settled outside of court. McDonald's paid Simon marketing sixteen point six million dollars wow, but the scandal ended up crushing Simon and Simon ended up going out of business. 01:18:27 and this was major news. This event was a huge deal was all over TV, really funny marketing idea or great marketing idea. Yeah, it blows up. You're like all right well, no one's gonna hire us yeah yeah, and so this was huge television change their name to McKinsey and everybody. Everybody was watching it. Everyone was following it. It was like all over the news, the twenty four hours are documentary and so on HBO made by Tom Sager as cousin, so they expected 01:18:57 Yeah, especially after the verdict got handed down. They expected like how is our six part documentary? It's actually a really good documentary. It was a good document. They expected it to be a six or they expected it to be a huge deal in the news after this the hand, the jury like handed down their their their thing, but it kind of disappeared from the news because the verdict was handed down September tenth, two thousand one and something bigger happened on September eleventh and so you're too young to know 01:19:27 Google it and so it ended up just kind of disappearing from like common like the common zeitgeist until it got revived for that documentary in twenty eighteen and so when that came back out when McMillions came out, then Matt Damon and Ben Affleck were like let's make a movie about this and I don't know if that's still going to happen or not, but Ben Affleck is like supposedly was going to produce it or direct it. Matt Damon was going to be the star and I don't know if that's still in the works or not, 01:19:55 but we haven't gotten any more news about it, but yeah, this kind of disappeared until it got dug back up because of because it got overshadowed, but yeah, that's the story of how about how Jerry that guy that I that I brought up at the beginning. It in the number on paper was twenty three million dollars that he had leaked out. There wasn't a single winner in the time he was doing this for about ten years. That was an authentic winner. 01:20:22 of the game because he was there. I think we're before their authentic winners before and so once he started doing it from the time he started doing it, which I think was about ninety four to two thousand when he got convicted. No one who won was an authentic winner because he took all the winning pieces and so it was impossible to win the game and everybody out there was trying and that is also the message. It's impossible to win the game. Everyone's trying, but you can't win, but yeah, the estimate is twenty three million 01:20:52 some say that that's probably lower than it actually was. Some people say that the fifty three there's probably a lot more that didn't get indicted that we don't know about and some people say that he also has money buried somewhere, so see if you can find it yeah. That's what he's pulling out three hundred and fifty seven dollars a month from he dig up my treasure. If I if I just paid off the twelve million, it would be you can't be suspicious and so I have 01:21:19 thirty million in cash buried beneath the dog house in my back. You're that's crazy yeah. Wow uncle Jerry, we need to we kind of start scamming yeah. If only someone would accidentally mail us seals and we were in a position of power where we're making a hundred seventy thousand dollars a year to make sure that none of this stuff got leaked out. So anyways, if you want to hire me, I'm good at that, whatever that is. 01:21:48 Fiddle off. 01:21:56 Hey, and thanks for being here for this episode of Things I Learned Last Night. If you liked it and you want more of it, we've got more of it. There was an episode we talked about in this one called the Harvey Casino Bombing. A mysterious bomb was just placed inside this casino with a little letter that was like, I'm a bomb. And the FBI was like, I don't know about that. And it was a whole, it was a really funny episode, a great story. And you should go check that out. It's linked somewhere in the description or on the video. You you know where to find it. You're capable. You're a grown adult. 01:22:26 all right, or if you're like one of our nine year old fans, get your mom to find it and you know what else your mom can do for you is she could sign you up for Patriot, where you can get next week's episode right now. 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They sent Shaquille O'Neal to my house. 01:23:39 he towered over me, looked down and said you will pay. I had to pay three hundred and fifty seven dollars a month in soy sauce currency. Do you know what the current exchange rate is? It's crazy for the US dot. I love the film music. So you kind of shag is just a bad express. Jack is a for sure dude and a lot of people don't know he's invested in Panda. That's his role.