All language subtitles for McMillions.S01E04.WEBRip.x264-ION10

CHRIS GRAHAM:
Things were moving fast.

How is Jerry Jacobson
doing this?

That was this nagging
question mark.

(CASH REGISTER DINGS)

What we had to vet out is:
Who was helping Jerry?

FRANK COLOMBO: Uncle Jerry
was getting the tickets

and selling them to my brother,

and then my brother would
sell them to other people.

He took this little,
small operation,

and he made it huge.

Before my husband was working
the Monopoly fraud game,

we had my son,
Francesco Colombo.

Even though I adored my husband,

I found out he had a mistress
on the side.

I was just so mad,

so I call Uncle Jerry
and he says,

"You married the wrong guy."
He asked me to marry him.

The next day,
Jerry's in the passenger seat,

I'm driving, Frankie's crying,
we took him out of his car seat,

laid him down,

and a little teardrop came down
my face.

I thought, "I'm never gonna
get out of this."

-(TRUCK HORN BLOWS)
-(CAR COLLISION)

[bright tone]

- I don't know how to describe
Jerry Jacobson.

Jerry had a way about him.

They're either gonna love him,
or they're gonna hate him.

There's no in-between.

He could snap
in a millisecond

and you don't even know
why he snapped.

My kids did not
get along with him.

He laid hands on 'em
more times than I knew about.

[dramatic music]

- Jerry Jacobson
was actually my stepfather.

You know, he was prone
to have a short, short, fuse

and a pretty bad temper.

♪ ♪

The most vivid memory I have:
we were in the basement.

I can't remember
what the issue was.

Seemed insignificant
to me at the time.

And Jerry
just kind of lost it.

He picked my brother up
by the head and was, like,

bouncing his head off the wall.

And I was in the room just...

kind of more scared and hoping
it didn't turn towards me

'cause I didn't understand it
at the time.

- I stepped in between them

and I told Michael,
my oldest one,

to run out the front door.

And I remember yelling
out the front window,

"Just run, Michael, run."

And Michael was, like,
nine at the time.

That was the reason
we split up.

[crickets chirping]

We didn't communicate
after we split up.

I was still a cop,

but he would show up
on my police calls.

All of a sudden I looked round
and there he is.

Nobody knew how he knew
where my police calls were.

He was just there.

[ominous music]

He made people afraid of him.

He had a .45, 'cause that's
what we carried in Hollywood,

and was trading gun parts.

And he told me this himself:

because he was gonna shoot me

and then
put his gun back together

so that if they
ran ballistics on it,

it wouldn't show that
the bullet came from that gun.

♪ ♪

- He's a bad man, okay?

And I knew what he had
my husband do.

My husband pointed a shotgun

at somebody's head

by the order
of Jerome Jacobson

to collect some money,

and that's not the first time.

He is not some sweet
little old man sick.

He's a fricking gangster.

♪ ♪

Gangster.

And I'm not afraid if he's got
a bullet with my name on it.

We all gotta go sometime.

[crashing, glass shattering]

♪ ♪

- There was a rumor
going around

that it could've been
a possible hit

to get my brother
out of the situation.

- Could it have been?
- I don't know.

[dramatic music]

♪ ♪

[siren wailing]

[indistinct
police radio chatter]

- I was crushed
against the wall,

covered in blood.

I remember looking this way

and there was a policeman
and a fireman right there.

And I said,
"Give me Frankie, my son."

Jerry had just taken Frankie
out of the car seat

so he could lay down
to take a nap

because he was getting cranky.

And they said,
"Mrs. Colombo, stay still.

We gotta cut you out
with the Jaws of Life."

I said, "That's my son."

[indistinct
police radio chatter]

And soon as they cut me out
and took me out,

the pain just went...
[whooshes]

All through my body,
and I just screamed.

And I could look over,
and I saw my son

sucking a lollipop,
so I knew he was okay.

Jerry actually crawled
out of the car

with no blood on him.

- The telephone rings.
"Oh, hey, Jerry. How are you?"

"Oh, I'm okay.
We got into an accident.

We're all being airlifted
to the hospital."

I said, "Are you sure
you're all right?"

He said, "Yeah, I'm fine,"

like nothing at all was wrong.

- I got the call at work

and raced up there
to the hospital.

He was in ICU,

and they had him hooked up
to all these machines.

And Robin had, I think,

five to six stitches
on top of her head.

- She had cut her head.

Frankie's arm was broken

and he had, I think,
a bump on his nose.

- Yeah, and that was it.

Most of the force of the truck
hit the passenger door,

but they seemed like
he was gonna be okay,

which was kind of odd
because he's in ICU.

[indistinct chatter]

My brother said that he had--
I think it was

$15,000 to $20,000
in the glove box

and then a couple of hundred
thousand dollars in a suitcase

in Robin's mom and dad's home
in Jacksonville

and told me to take care
of this one,

take care of that one.

So we went to the junkyard,

and there was nothing
in there.

Everything was gone.

And the money in the house...

disappeared.

Everyone claims
that it was never there.

Jerry would not tell me
that he had money at the house

if he didn't have money
at the house.

So then I took it upon myself
to go to his house.

- He made a little detour
without anyone knowing.

- I made a little detour
without anyone knowing,

and I made
some things disappear,

because I knew things
were getting really ugly.

I got a couple of items
out of his freezer.

He had about four
or five tickets.

Not sure if Robin knew
they were in there or not,

but I didn't want Robin to have
access to those tickets.

I was not sure if the accident
was an accident.

Was it a setup?
We didn't know.

♪ ♪

- It could've been a hit.

I really believe that.

I don't have any proof of that,

but I'm thinking
something went wrong.

And I was feeling it
and I got that impression.

Because Jerry
was getting a little...

on edge 'cause the pressure
was on him from someone,

you know what I mean?

Something was different.

[monitor beeping]

- Being a big guy,
when they put him in the ICU,

they didn't realize
he had internal damage,

so they were treating him
for his broken leg

and they didn't catch the
internal damage that he had.

[monitors beeping]

And by the time
they caught it,

they realized
his lung had collapsed,

his ribs were broken.

- Up to that time,
it was joking.

It was lighthearted.

He did not seem like
he was in shock.

Even till this day,
I'm just astonished--

astonished that the man
was actively dying.

[ventilator hissing]

- He was in and out
of consciousness.

He had a ventilator,
so he wasn't able to talk.

They had him on all
these different machines.

Robin literally came
a couple of times to visit,

and that was pretty much it.

The only thing Robin
was always worried about was,

"I gotta get to the house.
I gotta get to the house."

My sister-in-law

didn't give a rat's ass
about my brother

while he was in the hospital.

[melancholic music]

♪ ♪

- One of the reasons why Robin
didn't come around, though,

also, there was a fight.

Jerry's mother basically,
you know,

"You did this on purpose.
You did this."

And her swearing up and down,
"I didn't do it on purpose.

I didn't set this up.
I didn't do this."

- If it was in fact
and it was--

if there was any proof

that she was involved
with that...

- She wouldn't be here
right now.

- I can guarantee you
she wouldn't be here right now.

- I will guarantee you.

♪ ♪

- The last few days,
it was me, my brother,

my mom and dad.

And the last words
that he said,

he mouthed them to my mom:

"Happy Mother's Day,"
'cause it was Mother's Day.

♪ ♪

And once that happened,

his body just started shutting
down little by little.

There was nothing
anyone could do.

And the last couple of hours,

everyone was
in the waiting room.

But I was like, "I'm not
gonna leave my brother's side

and leave him
in the room by himself."

So I stood there.
I sat next to him.

I kept talking to him,

kept talking to him.

Till this day, I mean,

I don't know
if he heard me or not,

but I held his hand,
and I stayed there

until the...

until the last monitor
went down.

And...

till this day,
I don't regret it,

because he didn't die
by himself.

I made sure that I was there.

I'm sorry.
[sniffles]

[sniffles]
I'm sorry.

[exhales deeply and sniffles]

Usually I don't cry.

Just...

I couldn't let him
sit there by himself.

I couldn't do it,
so I stayed there with him.

Hardest thing
I've ever done in my life

but the best thing
I've ever done in my life.

He always wanted
his son, Francesco,

to be in karate
and this and that

and all this kind of stuff.

And I promised him I was
gonna help take care of him.

I said, "I'm gonna
look over your son.

I'm gonna make sure
he grows up to be a good kid."

And I promised him
that he'd be okay.

I said, you know,
"It's okay," you know,

"I'll take care of him.
I'll watch over him."

And if he was hearing me,
I just wanted him to know that

the one thing that he
really cared about was his son.

Uh...

and that was it.

I just wanted
to be sure that he knew.

♪ ♪

[sniffles]

♪ ♪

- His heart stopped

because he didn't react
to the medication.

- No, I wasn't actually
at the hospital

because I was...

I really didn't think
he was gonna die.

You don't think it.

It was early in the morning.

My mother got the call,

and she told me,
and I just lost it.

Yeah.

It was so horrific.

♪ ♪

[sniffles]
And that was that.

So I had the guilt of driving,
the guilt of losing my husband

and my son losing his father.

♪ ♪

It was just too much to bear.

♪ ♪

- My name is
Francesco Gennaro Colombo,

named after Gennaro Colombo,
and that was my dad, Jerry,

who, you know, is being--

everybody's kind of
talking about him now,

you know, 'cause in the '90s,

he's one of the guys who ran
the McDonald's Monopoly scam.

So...

I'm his son.
[chuckles]

- Give Daddy a punch.

Give Daddy a karate kick.

- Hiyah!

- Ow!

- We got in the accident
three days before my birthday.

I was two.
I was in the back seat.

And one thing
that's always stood out for me

is, my mom said that my dad
took me out of the car seat.

Sure enough, minutes later,
we got in the accident

and that car seat was crushed.

So if they
wouldn't have done that,

then I wouldn't
be here right now.

My grandma, my nonna,

she showed me a picture
of the accident.

I believe I was, like,
nine or ten.

And that traumatized me.

It's not something
that a kid should see,

especially that that's
the car that their dad was in

and that's why
he's not here anymore.

♪ ♪

There you go.
[chuckles]

[dog barks]
- Well, hello.

- There you go.
All right.

Mwah.

Uh-oh.

- Uh-oh.
- [chuckles] Uh-oh.

My whole life,
I've always known

that there was
something empty, you know?

There was always
something missing.

And I always felt that
that was my dad.

And then the moment
that she came into my life,

it was instantly filled.

Since I didn't know him,
I felt like he didn't know me.

But now that I have a kid,
I understand that, you know,

so much has happened
in this first year.

Want to dance with this one?
You like this one?

[music playing]
- [giggles]

- I'm sitting there
playing with her, and I...

every day,
I think about my dad.

- Ow!

- I promised my brother
that I was gonna help

take care of his son,
Francesco.

- But there was a lot
of things back then

that happened.

There was a fight
over custody of Francesco.

- My family,
they didn't want us

to be any part
of Francesco's life whatsoever.

We were both devastated.

- Last I heard, he's had
a baby and so forth and so on.

I wish him the best.

If anything else comes out
of this, I want him to know

that we desperately did try
to be part of his life.

- Yeah.

[melancholic music]

- My dad--honestly, I don't
have physical memories of him.

But I have a lot of memories
from seeing home videos.

- Say, "Hi, I'm Frankie."
- I'm Frankie.

- Laugh.
- [laughs]

- Oh, say--Frank, say,
"I don't feel good."

Be sad.

- Aww.
- Aww.

- That's who I remember.

You know,
I don't see his mobster guy

who did all these things.

I just see my dad.

♪ ♪

- Before I knew it,
he was gone.

I just didn't even know
what to think anymore.

I mean, I wasn't thinking
about the money.

I was just thinking,

"Oh, my God,
what am I going to do?

What am I gonna do?"

I don't have anyone
to talk to.

I don't have anyone to go to.

It's just me.

- After my brother
passed away,

a week and a half afterwards,

everything was gone
in his house--

all of the antiques,
all of the furniture.

He had Mickey Mantle cards,
Babe Ruth cards.

He had so many things
in that house.

Everything disappeared.

♪ ♪

And Robin claimed that,

"Oh, we got robbed
while we were in the hospital."

Really?
- Mm.

- I think Robin
as well as friends of hers

stole everything
from my brother.

All his jewelry, gone.

All his furniture, gone.

- There was nothing.
- They robbed him blind.

♪ ♪

- Yeah.

- Yeah, yeah.

- Yeah.

I had--
there was a bunch of, like--

we had a casino.

And they got
all our slot machines.

- Yeah.

- I don't know. I don't know.
I didn't care.

When you lose...

you don't think about--
you don't give a shit.

I didn't give a shit
about that stuff

at all.

He wasn't messing with
the most savory kind of people,

you know?

Um...[scoffs]

I don't know.

I don't know.

[sniffles]

- My grandparents
did point blame at my mom,

and that's not cool.

She lost her husband,
you know?

She lost her soul mate.

I 100% don't believe

that was something
that she did on purpose.

I don't--not at all.

- Robin had lived
the lavish lifestyle

when she was married to Jerry.

She had the money.
She had the car.

She had the big house.
She had everything.

Once Jerry passed away,
that money,

that cash cow,
you may call it, is gone.

So now at this point,
Robin's hungry for that money,

so she literally
would do anything at all

to have the money.

- The Wheel of Justice.

Let's spin the wheel

and see who it lands on
this week.

Looks like we're gonna come up
on Ms. Colombo.

She's been on the wheel
a couple of weeks.

- Okay, Robin Colombo's
wanted for grand theft auto.

- If you know where she is

or any of the suspects
on the wheel,

please call Crime Stoppers.

That number is (866) 845-TIPS.

Officer Hartley, thank you.

- Always a pleasure.

[dramatic music]

- So she started
doing check fraud.

She would get checks
that were unworthy

and no money to back them

and she would
write them out and cash them,

and she got caught for that.

I remember Francesco
actually explaining this,

as young as he was,

about how he would
go into a store

and his mom would tell him

to pick up
a $200, $300 pocketbook

and just carry it out

because the security
wouldn't stop a child.

- Or if they did, it was,
"Oh, put that down, Francesco."

- Yeah.
- "That's not yours."

- Yeah, "That's not yours."

She was training him
at a very young age

'cause she needed that money.

♪ ♪

- I went to prison.

I was trying
to keep up the lifestyle.

Uncle Jerry
never even contacted me

after Jerry, my husband, died.

Nope.

I don't--yeah.

- I mean, I'll admit,
the first couple of days,

I had tickets in my hand.

I'm like, "Whoa.

Should I take over
his business now?"

You know,
'cause I could've easily...

- He could've...

- I could've easily went
to Uncle Jerry

and said, "Hey, you know,
let's continue this."

I could've easily
kept it going,

but I didn't,

'cause I didn't want
to look over my shoulder.

I thought they had it stopped
when my brother passed away,

so I wasn't gonna use them.

I wasn't gonna give them
to anybody.

I wasn't gonna try
to sell them, what have you.

I just destroyed them,

hoping that it was
never gonna be found out.

That was my goal.

Like I've always said
my whole life,

"If you can get away
with something

over and over and over,
you only gotta be caught once."

- Once.

- You get caught once,
you're done.

[birds singing]

- At this point,

Operation Final Answer
was moving fast.

Everything was on the table.

[phone rings]

It's kind of like a factory.

I mean, everybody's working.
Everybody's writing.

They're reviewing tapes.

I mean, it's a whole
elaborate team effort process.

♪ ♪

In order to do this scam,

Jerry Jacobson needed
what we refer to as middlemen.

One of the early middlemen
was Jerry Colombo,

who passed away,
died in a car accident.

Okay, now what?

The one thing that was
still out there was,

really how mechanically
is Jerry Jacobson doing this?

And that was, you know, kind of
this nagging question mark.

- We were just building
the puzzle

from all the pieces,

and there were
so many different pieces

that we were putting together.

♪ ♪

- We were working a lot
with the Atlanta division,

who had a surveillance team.

Kind of like
in the movies, you know,

guys parked in cars
are following with,

you know,
binoculars and cameras,

you know, painting the picture
of this guy, his background

and, you know, who he was.

Undercover tapes
and the video were coming in.

Conversations on the wiretap
were coming in.

Lot of moving parts.

- Jerry was paranoid.

He's been talking
about his phone being tapped

ever since we were in Florida.

He would always say,

"Don't say that.
Our phones might be tapped.

"Somebody be listening.

You never know
who's gonna hear you."

And one day,
we were just chitchatting,

and I said something.

I didn't think
it was a big deal.

And he said, "Watch out.
Don't say it like that."

So in a few minutes,
I finally said, "Hey, Jerry,

when did you tell Leo
to go kill the president?"

And he hung up on me.
[chuckles]

I'm thinking to myself,

"Why do you think somebody
would find you so interesting

that they would want
to tap your phones?"

[line rings]

- Jerry Jacobson's controlling
all the pieces at that point,

so he needed
to replace Colombo

as quickly as possible.

Identification of sources
that he could use of recruiters

became his full-time job.

- One of the middlemen,
AJ Glomb,

came on the radar screen
fairly early.

After Colombo died,

Glomb had a number
of telephonic conversations

with Jerry Jacobson,
and you follow--

you know, follow
where the evidence leads you.

♪ ♪

- My name is Andrew Glomb.
I go by AJ.

One day, a friend of mine
called me up and he said,

"I have something
you might be interested in.

"Write down this number

and go to a phone booth
and call me."

I said, "Oh, no, no."
[chuckles]

I says, "I had enough of that
in my life. I--

Come on, I just got off
probation a couple years ago."

I had just finished up
a drug sentence,

and I didn't want anything
to happen.

- Actually, that's, like,

one of the best parts
of the whole story.

[smooth music]

First time
I ever did any kind of drugs

was with Harold Robbins,
the writer,

and we were in Monte Carlo.

♪ ♪

And he had a bunch
of girls with him.

And so we're talking and that,
and I says,

"In your books,
whenever they were having sex,

they always did amyl nitrate
before they had an orgasm."

[chuckles]

So I says, "Harold,

do you have
any amyl nitrate?"

He said, "Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
You want some?"

I said, "Yeah."

I didn't know what I was doing.

So I'm sitting there,

and this girl says,
"Let's dance."

So I get up.

♪ ♪

I said, "Oh, my God,
oh, my God, oh, my God."

Everybody said,
"What's wrong? What's wrong?"

I says, "I don't know."
So I called my friend.

I said, "Steve,
get me out of here.

Get me out of here."

So that was my first thing
with drugs.

So how I got
into selling them--

I had a cousin.

And he says, "Can you get me
some quaaludes?"

I said, "Let me ask
one of my buddies."

I said, "Steve,
can you get quaaludes?"

He said,
"Yeah, how many you want?"

I says, "I don't know."
I says, "How much are they?"

He said, "Well, how much
do you want to make?"

I said,
"How much is there to make?"

So that's how I got into drugs.

And then in 1982,

I had sent some drugs out

to a friend of mine,
a customer of mine.

They were selling
to somebody

who was on the hook to the DEA,

and they followed him
to the airport.

[pop music]

Next thing you know, boom.
[laughs]

DEA comes out of everywhere.

So I got 12 years

for six ounces of cocaine.

[dramatic music]

I was supposed to report
to Montgomery, Alabama.

And they gave me, like,
30 days or 60 days to report.

And so I just didn't report.

I waited till, like,
almost the last day.

And then I took off
for New York for 16 months.

I was a fugitive.

[Mozart's Serenade Number 13]

You were always worried,

looking over your shoulder

every time you see
two guys with suits on.

You think it's over.

It's like,
this could be

your last day
before you go to jail,

so just live it
to the fullest.

It's like a movie.
You're living a movie.

But then I bought
a Ferrari in Germany

and I shipped it
to Long Beach.

Anyway, I got arrested
in a doughnut shop

in San Diego.

[bell rings, handcuffs click]

[metal clanks]

[phone rings]

When I got out of prison,
my friend Don Hart

called me and said

that he had something
that I might be interested in,

this Monopoly game.

I was very skeptical,
and I told him,

I said, you know, "Don,"

I said,
"I just got off of parole."

And I said, "Nah,

I don't think I want to know
anything about it."

And then probably two
or three days later, I said,

"You know, let's meet
and we'll talk about it."

Don was one of my best friends
for, oh, jeez, 40-some years.

Very wealthy.
He was very well-respected.

And he had a friend
that had access to tickets.

I said,
"Why would the guy give you,

of all people in the world,
a ticket like this?"

He says, "'Cause he knows

I'm not gonna screw him
out of anything."

And it made sense.
I said, "Eh, you're right."

He said,
"You know, they need winners."

And he says, "I have one--

"a ticket that you could
cash in for $1 million

and we'll share it."

Somebody offers you
$1 million,

you're gonna take it.
[chuckles]

Unless you gotta kill somebody,
and then you might not--

you know, you might not
be interested,

but I start thinking about it.

I said, "Eh,
I better not do this myself."

I didn't want
to go back to prison.

So I had a friend
in San Diego.

So I got a plane, and I flew
to San Diego the next day.

And then I ran it by him,

told him how it worked
and everything.

And we were gonna split it
three ways:

me, Don Hart, and Stanley,

who I was giving
the ticket to.

And I remember he told me
the manager said,

"Oh, you know,
the last time somebody won,

they gave the ticket
to St. Jude."

[chuckles]

Stanley says, "Well,
it's not happening this time."

[laughs]

"It's not going
to anybody except me."

And so that was it.

So he mailed it in,
and then I would--

after that, I made
several trips out to California

to get the money from him.

After Stanley was
Richard Sokolsky, I believe.

Victor Marchitello
was the third person

I gave a ticket to.

I met him in prison
in West Virginia.

The next was Stan Warwick
in Chicago.

1999.

Stan was a heart transplant
recipient.

These newscasters said,

"Why is a guy
with a heart transplant

eating McDonald's?"

[laughs]

- Free food.

- We have free food.
- And another free sandwich.

- Yeah, there you go.

- I'm too nervous.
I can't do this.

[laughter]

- I don't think I met Jerry

until probably halfway through
all these people.

It must've been in '99
at Don's party.

- Nothing.
I didn't think nothing of it.

He was sort of nondescript.

Then eventually Don
didn't want to be involved.

He says,
"I don't want no money.

I don't want anything.
I'm out of this."

It was just me and Jerry

trying to get
other people involved.

But I never--

I can honestly say I never had
a close relationship with him.

- Turned out, Andrew Glomb
was a large recruiter,

had provided quite a few into--

had enriched himself
and Uncle Jerry.

He had kind of a wide net there
of individuals

who were willing to participate
in this fraud scheme.

[line rings]

♪ ♪

So when we were
on the phones,

we needed to be
on the recruiters,

and that's where we were
focusing our investigation.

- Back then, everybody
got a bill every month

with all the long-distance
calls that you made,

and I remember looking
at the toll records.

On one part of the ledger

is all your winners
and their phone numbers.

Then on the other end
of the ledger, Jerry Jacobson.

And of the hundreds of calls
that each made,

there would be,

"Wow, they're both calling
a common number.

Look at that."

We have, "This winner
has called AJ Glomb.

So has Jerry Jacobson."

But that--yeah,
that's how we started

finding other middlemen.

So then you start looking
at Dwight Baker.

♪ ♪

They're all $1/2 million
or better,

$450,000 and up.

I owned all this property
on the left at one time.

I was gonna put a little
golf course in here.

I'm Dwight Baker, developer.

I got a real estate broker's
license and builder's license

and developed quite a number
of projects.

Probably over 1,400
of different acres

in South Carolina.

I met Jerry

when I sold Jerry a piece
of property in a subdivision

and ended up
building a house and a dock.

And I sold him
a couple of lots

in another subdivision.

Right below that sign there,

the two lots
that Jacobson owned.

Right here.

I think
it's this property here.

I don't know if there's houses
on 'em now or not.

My family, they're probably
not gonna be happy

with me sitting here...
[chuckles]

And telling this story.

[choral music]

We were all LDS, which was
Latter-day Saint family.

And I had a high profile
in the community.

You try to live a good life.

You try to do what's right.

Probably one
of my biggest regrets,

being involved
in this McDonald's thing.

Yeah.

I shouldn't have been
involved in it.

Um...

yep.

You know, at that time
I was so successful,

but one day,
I jumped on a motor grader

and had an accident.

I was backing up the hill
when it stalled out.

[engine slows and shuts off]

[rock crunching]

Put me in the hospital
ten days.

And that's when Jerry had
first let me know what he did,

and it was quite interesting.

[phone rings]

He called me
while I was recuperating

from the accident

and asked me if I wanted
to ride up the mountain.

I said, "You'll have
to pull up to the door,

'cause, you know,
I got a walker."

He said, "Okay."

So he pulls up
to the back door,

and we go riding
up the mountain.

He said that he was
representing McDonald's

in the distribution
of the game pieces.

He knew I was going
through a tough time,

so he offered me a game piece
if I had $100,000.

I didn't have $100,000,
so he said,

"Listen, if you want one,
it's $100,000.

It's the only way
you're gonna get one."

He said, "I have
the responsibility

"of distributing;
they tell me where to go.

So if you want a game piece,
this is how it's done."

This is the subdivision
that we were in.

Traded game pieces.
I gave him money.

It was just a--
it was a secluded place, yeah.

Just a secluded place.

I knew he was selling
the game pieces.

And I asked him,
I said, "Jerry,

what happens if McDonald's
finds out about it?"

He said, "They're not gonna
do anything about it."

I said, "Why is that?"

He said,
"Because these game pieces

"increase their sales by 7%
out of 26,000 stores.

"Factoring in
a $1 million game piece

"on that kind of money,

"$89 million, $100 million?

"They didn't care.

"They just--if somebody got it,

"they didn't care
if it went in the trash.

They didn't care about it.
It was factored in."

That was his story.
I bought it.

I did not believe
that there was anything here

other than
we were cheating in a game.

I don't know if it was
the OxyContin from the--

you know, the accident,
but I took him up on it,

'cause I didn't know if
I was ever gonna walk again,

let alone work again.

I said, "You know,
I don't have $100,000,

but I might know
somebody that does."

- Breakfast, lunch, or dinner,
there's always a line.

- A Big Mac combo, please.

- Serving over 13 million
McDonald's customers

each year in the U.S.,
double that globally.

So you can imagine
how rare it is to see this.

[cheers and applause]

George Chandler of Walhalla
just won $1 million

in the Hatch, Match & Win
game right here in West Union,

and Chandler was all smiles.

- We, you know,

bought our breakfast
and I got, you know,

my hash browns,
coffee, whatever, and...

I peeled it off,
and there it was.

♪ O beautiful
for spacious skies ♪

♪ For amber waves of grain ♪

[cows moo]

♪ For purple mountain
majesties ♪

Come on over here, girls!

♪ Across the fruited plain ♪

♪ America ♪

Come on!

♪ America ♪

♪ God shed his grace on thee ♪

[chuckles]
Just like that.

See, they like it.

♪ From sea to shining sea ♪

We should've brought some more
feed, shouldn't we, girls?

Hmm?

I'm a pretty lucky guy.

It's not within
my personal capacity

to have achieved
a lot of the things

I've been able to do in life.

I don't know--you know,

they say God looks after
fools and children.

I don't know which category
I fall into,

but it's one of 'em.
[chuckles]

All right,
where do we go from here?

[soft music]

I'm George Chandler.

I grew up in abject poverty.

I was raised Mormon,

one of eight kids.

And we grew up in here in rural
Oconee County, South Carolina.

And we were poor.

I didn't have running water
until 1986.

So I mean, we're not talking
about ancient history here.

We're talking about 1986.

Most people have running water
at that point in time.

We were still using a well.

- What do you think?

- Dwight was very successful.

He had a family.
He had five kids.

I became friends with his son,

and when I was about 12,
I left home,

and Dwight Baker was a foster
father to me for a time.

- Well, George and I--I mean,

originally we went
to church together--families.

So we took him in.

We became foster parents
for George.

And he grew up
with our kids.

- You know,
being in such a big family

and being poor especially,

why would I not want
to move in with Dwight?

You know, he drove a BMW
and, you know,

had those successful
characteristics that I wanted.

- George has always been
highly special.

I mean, he wanted
just to absorb knowledge.

Absorbed anything
you could teach him.

He knew,
if he was gonna get out,

he needed to work hard.

- When I was 15 years old,
I quit school.

I had grown a mustache
to make me look older

and told some local employers
that I was 18,

and I immediately
went to work.

I worked 16 hours a day
instead of 8.

That proved to work for me,
and I became an entrepreneur

and got in a lot
of different things:

communications company,
septic system installers,

security company,
medical alarm monitoring,

industrial programming,

residential rentals,
commercial rentals.

I told him I wanted
to be a millionaire

by the time I was 25.

So when Dwight came to me
with the ticket,

he knew that I was
in a position that I--

you know, that I had some cash
to work with.

I mean, this is
a $1 million winning ticket.

And he's got it
in a ziplock sandwich bag

that's not even zipped.

And he lays it down on my desk,

and I take it out, look at it.

I mean, it just says,

"$1 million winner.
Call 1-800"--whatever.

- I said,
"George, a friend of mine

got this $1 million game piece
from McDonald's."

And I said, "He's going
through a divorce."

I said,
"He offered to sell it to me."

He said, "By the time
I split it with her

and pay the taxes
and all that?"

Said, "I'll sell it
for $100,000."

- Because he's going
through a divorce

and he doesn't think the ticket

should be considered
marital property.

But Dwight's friend,

I didn't know this guy
from Adam.

You know, never met him.

But I had already gone through
a very bitter divorce myself,

so I felt like
it was a legitimate concern.

I mean,
he was already separated.

It wasn't like he had this
while he was happily married.

- Well, because...

I didn't want him to know
I was involved in it, you know,

in something that wasn't--
that wasn't real,

that had a tint of...

I knew Jerry
was doing something wrong,

and it just probably
didn't feel like

it was the right thing to do
for me to be involved in it,

you know, but yeah, I did it
out of expediency, maybe.

And I just tried to protect him
from the truth of it.

Because, you know,
if it did backfire

and it wasn't going--
you know, it wasn't right,

I mean, he didn't need to have
any knowledge of anything,

you know?

I mean, I took that all
on my shoulders, so...

- He basically asked me,
you know,

would I be interested
in buying the ticket from him

and then redeeming it?

I mean, everybody was
collecting the tickets.

They're buying and selling
these tickets on the Internet,

not $1 million winners

but certainly
prize-winning tickets

and ones that match up
like Boardwalk and Park Place.

I told Dwight, I said,

"You know, I'd probably
do $100,000."

You win $50,000 a year
for 20 years.

Course, now, I had
to pay taxes on this money,

so I had to figure that
in my mind,

but I felt like somewhere
along about the third year,

I would start--
I would gain something.

It wasn't a tremendously
immediately beneficial thing.

It wasn't like I was just gonna
get this, you know,

huge pile of money.

But it was nonetheless
still a good business decision,

a good business deal,
so I did it.

- We were up
on Dwight's phone,

and then we start
to figure out,

"Okay, is there anything with
this person George Chandler?"

"Yeah.

There might
be something there."

- Many times, we felt,

"Well, how much bigger
can this get?"

And it would get bigger.

"How much further back
could it go?"

And it would go back further.

I had never seen anything
like that and still haven't.

[dramatic music]

♪ ♪

- What Jerry did
with other people

far as the money goes,
I don't know.

♪ ♪

Best of my knowledge,

all of mine, I believe,
were $50,000.

I mean,
if you go down this list,

I had one, two, three, four,
eight, nine, ten winners.

Out of giving away $10 million,

I made $614,000,

so how stupid am I?

[chuckles]

♪ ♪

Then we come to Michael Hoover.

August 2001.

Michael Hoover was one
of the most generous people

you ever met,

just a great, great friend,

just real easygoing.

Nothing bothered him.

He sold a lot of drugs.
[chuckles]

That's how we became friends.

I used to go out to Vegas
back in the '70s,

and Mike was a dealer.

♪ ♪

I called him, I says,
"You know, I got something

that you might
be interested in."

I picked up the ticket
from Jerry in Atlanta.

And so I went up there
and gave him the ticket.

♪ ♪

He claimed the ticket,

and they did the filming
with the commercial.

- This is where I lost
my "People" magazine.

Glad that after the beach,

I stopped
and picked up another one.

- I remember him
calling me, saying,

"This production company
that did the commercial,"

he said,
"this girl is really hot.

She probably--
I think she really liked me."

I said, "Oh, great."
I didn't think nothing of it.

- In the wire room,

we're listening to some of
those phone calls to Hoover.

And of course, Glomb
was on the other side, I think,

going, "Really?
What does she look like?"

- I think all of the winners
thought I really liked them.

You know,
that's the kind of person I am.

You know, I was interviewing
them like a friend,

so it was my job to make sure
that they felt comfortable.

[laughter]

- She was sick to her stomach.
That was her reaction.

She goes, "What?

How could he ever
get that vibe?"

- [laughs]

I guess she wasn't.

- I guess I'm a better actress
than I thought I was, you know?

Like...[laughs]

- I've been a lot of places,
met a lot of people.

Even been as far away
as North Carolina one time.

[laughs]

But...

I've never been
to a place, you know,

where the people,
the hospitality,

the neighborliness
and all that

are as good as they are here.

♪ ♪

You really find out
who your friends are

when you're down,

and I've never
had the opportunity

with some of those people
to give them the entire story.

[indistinct country music
playing]

♪ ♪

- Good job, Gary!
- Nice job, Gary, nice job.

- To tell them exactly
why I'm innocent.

This is the McDonald's
where it all happened.

There was a press conference
and a party,

and real Ronald McDonald
was here.

It was kind of surreal.

- Said, "Mama,
I won $1 million."

I said,
"Pooey, George. Pooey."

He said, "Mama, it's real."

- I didn't think
he was serious.

I was like...

I was like,

"You're not serious."

- As a single father
to eight-year-old Russell,

George Chandler says
he'll use his winnings

to help raise his son.

He'll get $50,000 a year
for the next 20 years.

- It wasn't
an immediate thing.

Ultimately it done
a lot more harm than good.

I already run a business
in town,

and I was surrounded
by this notion

that I was a millionaire now.

I didn't need to work.

I didn't need
any new customers.

I mean, I had to put out
$100,000 of my own money,

you know, for this thing.

And I had
no question whatsoever

about the authenticity
or legitimacy of the ticket

or the origination of it.

You know,
nothing ever occurred to me.

We're talking
about Dwight Baker.

- I didn't take any cut
out of the money, okay?

It was all Jerry's.

I told him, I said,
"George, listen."

I said, "You just give me
a Navigator and a laptop

and we'll be happy,"
you know?

Didn't want George
to think bad of me...

[laughs]

For--
[chuckles]

For actually having
a little larceny in my heart,

you know?

I didn't want a whole lot.

I just wanted a little laptop
and a Navigator.

[chuckles]

Then I went to Ronnie Hughey
and offered it to him.

Well, that's how my greed
kicked in.

Ronnie was just a high roller.

And Ronnie was going through
a divorce, and he said,

"I'll take two
or three of those."

[laughs]

♪ ♪

That was probably the real...

Where I really stepped over
the boundary

was when Ronnie said,
you know,

"I'll take one or two
or three of them."

And I knew he could.
[chuckles]

Oh, and I remember Jerry
telling me, he said,

"You're getting
a little greedy, ain't you?

Yeah.

♪ ♪

Each time
was a little different.

Jerry, he brought me
fries and a drink

and it had the game pieces
on it, you know?

And I'd pay him
in a brown McDonald's bag,

had just the cash, give him
the McDonald's bag money.

♪ ♪

- Never asked him.

You know,
Jerry used to say all the time,

"This is gonna be
the last one.

This is gonna be
the last one."

And then one time, he said,

"There's gonna be
a $5 million prize

"that they're gonna give.

"You take that one,"

and I don't know
how we were gonna split it,

but he said, "Then that's it.

We'll ride into the sunset
and forget it."

You know, so...

- Jerry was--he was
very private, very secretive.

I mean, he never talked about
anything with anybody else.

I knew he could sell me
game pieces,

but I didn't know
to what degree.

Jerry told me,
he said, "Listen,

"there was a $1/2 million
game piece

where McDonald's issued
one $500,000 check, cash."

You wouldn't have
to wait $50,000 a year.

And I wanted it.

And so...

I made arrangements
with my wife's sister, Brenda,

and I said, "Cash that check,
and we'll split it."

I thought it would've been
a tough sell, you know?

But...it wasn't.

We created an address for her

in Asheville, North Carolina.

She turned in the game piece.

We didn't talk for a while,
but time had lapsed.

There was no reason for her
to have not

been paid on the game piece.

I said, "I'm gonna go up
to Asheville

and see what's going on."

And I went up there, and...

the damn FedEx thing
had been opened

and fallen on the floor,
and...

I said,
"She's got the damn money."

[tense music]

Brenda decided that she
was gonna keep all the money,

run with the money.

That scared the shit
out of me

because I knew Jerry
wouldn't be very damn happy.

Jerry told me
if there's a problem,

I'd get a visit
from his cousin Guido.

And I took that
pretty serious.

♪ ♪

Went to my wife, and I said,

"She's running
with the money."

And that's what really
hooked her in.

That's where
she got a problem,

'cause she looked at it
as her money.

[engine turning over]

- Yeah.

[indistinct arguing]

♪ ♪

And...my wife could not
stay off the telephone.

♪ ♪

- Dwight Baker made
a phone call to Brenda Phenis

and for whatever reason didn't
quite disconnect the phone...

[chuckles]

Which we were
still monitoring.

And it was like
having a bug in their car.

- So inside the wire room,
we're hearing

how Brenda Phenis
was running around

the Indianapolis Airport

and Dwight was looking
to bury her somewhere.

- They're saying, you know,

he's following her
to the airport.

He says he's gonna kill her.

There was a lot of concern
on that.

- What are we gonna do

if they are in fact
really gonna harm her?

We obviously have
to intervene,

but that would have
serious consequences

for the investigation.

One little slipup, you know,
could shut it down.

[suspenseful music]

♪ ♪

- To me, Dwight was a man
of integrity and character.

It just did not occur to me

that he would do
something like that.

♪ ♪

If you can't be trusted,
what do you have?

- Okay, George.

[crowd shouting "George!"]

- Let's have fun, y'all.
[country music playing]

- ♪ She got runned over
by a damn ♪

[crowd singing along]
- Yeah, yeah, yeah!

♪ And so I'll hang around ♪

♪ As long as you will let me ♪

♪ ♪

Oh, that sounds good.

♪ And I never minded ♪

♪ Standing in the rain ♪

♪ No, oh, yeah ♪

- Because it's an airport,
everything is monitored live.

It's a public place,

and we had people on scene
there watching the cameras,

agents who just could blend in

in the crowd at the airport,
ready to take action.

[suspenseful music]

♪ ♪

You know, in a lot of cases,
really bad things happen.

Things go wrong.
They always do.

[country music]

- ♪ Called me by my name ♪

♪ Whoo! ♪

[laughs]

[choir humming
"America the Beautiful"]

♪ ♪

I didn't have a clue
that they were onto this case.

Nothing.

♪ (INTENSE MUSIC PLAYS) ♪

CHRIS GRAHAM:
The initial stage

was the indictment
of the first eight.

The rest were scheduled
to all go down at the same time.

I'm gonna get my guy
before anybody else.

Then we mobilized quick.

Then I look out the door
and see FBI.

DOUG MATHEWS:
He was behind a fortress.

"Oh, God. I'm gonna ram
this car through the--

(LAUGHS)
The front gate.

I ran and I kicked
the door open.

(POLICE SIRENS WAILING)

DOUG: If anybody ever knew
how close this was just to...

blowing up.

♪ (MUSIC CONCLUDES) ♪