Original subtitles

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) ♪