The Great McDonald's Monopoly Heist | Go Directly to Jail | 3

It's the middle of summer in 2001 at one of Jacksonville's mid-range hotels.

Gloria Brown, now in her early 40s, steps onto the elevator and rides it up a few levels. When it arrives on the third floor, she heads into the hallway, following the signs to the conference room.

As she approaches the door, Gloria feels her heart beating faster and faster, sweat beating on her forehead. She fishes a handkerchief out of her purse and pats her face dry, then takes a deep breath. She can do this.

She's been through this kind of thing before, and she survived. This is just more of the same. A couple of weeks ago, Gloria got a call from Amy Murray, of McDonald's corporate office.

The company wanted to interview her for another promotional video about the Monopoly campaign. Gloria wanted to say no. She even tried to turn Amy down, but that wasn't an option.

Four years ago, she'd signed a contract agreeing to participate in this exact kind of thing in exchange for her million dollar prize. Now, Gloria is hoping this will be the last time she ever has to talk to anyone about this. She hates lying.

All she feels is shame over being lured into taking part in a scam run by her friend's late husband. She'd give the money back if she could, but she knows it would never be that easy.

So, with no other option, Gloria opens the door to the conference room and walks inside. It's an airy space, and most of the furniture has been pushed against the walls.

In the center of the room are a couple of chairs, some lights, and a big film camera on a tripod. Amy Murray rushes forward to shake Gloria's hand. She's short, blonde, and has a kind smile.

She introduces Gloria to a small film crew milling around. A camera operator, a sound guy, and their director, who's got a high and tight haircut and the biceps of an athlete.

Everyone seems really friendly, but something about the whole setup seems off to Gloria. She can't work out what it is, but as Amy invites her to take a seat in front of the camera, Gloria can't shake the thought that this is all a trap.

But what can she do? She's made her bed, and now she'll just have to lie in it. From Airship, I'm Jeremy Schwartz, and this is American Criminal.

In early 2001, the FBI received an anonymous tip. Someone had been rigging the famous McDonald's Monopoly game for years. That was about all the information they had to go off of, though.

That and the names of some loosely connected people who'd all won big prizes from the incredibly popular promotion. The agents who received the tip were skeptical at first.

This was a massive marketing campaign run by one of the largest and most recognizable brands in the world. Anyone who was fixing this game would have to be some kind of criminal mastermind. Or they'd need to be deep inside the operation.

As federal agents debated how best to investigate such a big heist without tipping off the perpetrators, Jerome Jacobson was completely oblivious to the fact that there was a net closing in around him.

He had no idea that he'd only be playing one more game of Monopoly. And at the end of it all, there'd be one big loser.

Him.

This is the final episode in our three-part series on The Great McDonald's Monopoly Heist. Go directly to jail.

5:04

An Uncleʼs Offer

It's April 29th, 2000. Dwight Baker is heading for the front door of his South Carolina home. Very slowly.

A few months back, Dwight was clearing some land that he owns when the brakes on his tractor failed and it rolled backwards down a hill.

Dwight's spinal column was injured in the crash, and aside from the pain, it's been a constant source of stress for him. Dwight's a father of five, and he can't stop worrying about what'll happen to his family if he doesn't make a full recovery.

He's a real estate developer and broker, which involves a lot of getting in and out of cars to show people perspective properties.

What makes the whole thing worse is that he owes around 30 grand in back taxes, with inflation that would be close to $56,000 today. But Dwight's not supposed to be thinking about any of that right now.

His good friends come to take him for a drive to get him out of the house for an afternoon. Jerry Jacobson's supporting him, taking most of his weight as Dwight hobbles outside to Jerry's car.

Once Jerry helps Dwight get buckled in, they set off, driving through the wide open farmland surrounding the baker's property. The longer they're out there, the better Dwight feels.

I'm sure his back's still hurting, but everything that's been stressing him out feels less ominous out here. And then, Jerry makes him an offer that puts everything else out of his mind completely. You can probably guess what Jerry offers Dwight.

One of those million dollar McDonald's game pieces. Jerry says he wants to help his friend. He knows it's been tough lately.

But although Jerry's playing the role of a generous benefactor, he's not that generous. He tells Dwight that the game piece will cost him a hundred grand.

Now, Dwight knows that Jerry knows he hasn't got that kind of cash just lying around, but Jerry's already thought of that. He says Dwight should find a friend to pay for the ticket, and then they could split the proceeds.

Does he know anyone who might have a small fortune just sitting around? Well, as it turns out, Dwight Baker knows exactly who to call. He gets in touch with his foster son, 28-year-old George Chandler.

A little over a decade ago, George showed up on the baker's doorstep. His mother had thrown him out of the house, and he had nowhere to go. So Dwight and his wife took George in, fostering him until he was ready to stand on his own two feet.

These days, George owns a successful plastic injection business, and money's not really an issue for him. He's also finalizing a bitter divorce, so Dwight knows exactly how to get him on board.

He tells his foster son that a friend is going through a divorce of his own, and is looking to sell a million dollar game piece to hide the money from his greedy wife. George doesn't ask too many questions after that.

He writes out a check to Dwight and takes the game piece to a nearby McDonald's. All three men, Jerry, Dwight, and George, are a lot richer. But George is the only one who doesn't know what's really going on.

After the deal is done, Dwight tells Jerry that he'd be down to pull the scheme again if Jerry can get his hands on some more winning tickets. That is not a problem for Jerry.

He's always on the lookout for more people who can recruit lucky winners for the game. Recently, he's had success with a guy called AJ Glom. He's in his late 50s and has a bit of a checkered past.

AJ's been Jerry's go-to guy since Jerry Colombo died following a car accident a couple of years ago. It's a partnership that's made AJ plenty of money, and he's hoping it'll continue for many years to come.

And from where Jerry's sitting, it doesn't look like there's anything that'll slow them down because no one's noticed a thing. Not at McDonald's corporate or at Simon Marketing, the company who actually run the campaign.

But no one can keep a secret forever. Over the years, more and more people have been told about the scheme. And sooner or later, someone's bound to run their mouth to the wrong person or be overcome by a fit of conscience.

Or in one specific case, be driven by a twisted desire for revenge. In early 2001, Jerry Colombo's mother, who everyone just calls Ma, is worried.

She's been raising her grandson Francesco for a couple of years now, after her son died and her daughter-in-law went to prison. And she can't help thinking about what's going to happen when Robin's eventually released.

Ma doesn't want Francesco just going back to his mother. In Ma's mind, Robin's responsible for Jerry's death. And if she'd been in the passenger seat that day instead of Jerry, maybe Ma's son would still be here.

That thought fuels Ma Colombo. Over the past few months, she's been playing with an idea, and eventually she places a call to the FBI. She tells them that the McDonald's Monopoly game is rigged, and that she has proof.

The tip has passed along to an agent who scribbles Ma's info down on a post-it. It doesn't seem like a high priority case to it, but one of his colleagues, Doug Matthews, spots the note and decides to call Ma Colombo back.

She gives him a list of million dollar winners who have different surnames, but who are all in the same family, and live in or close to Jacksonville. Then she tells him that someone called Uncle Jerry is calling the shots.

But Ma is still a Colombo, so she doesn't give Doug much more than that. And to be fair, it's really about the extent of what she knows. Still, she figures it's more than enough to lead them to Robin, who will hopefully get another prison term.

Then Ma can keep little Francesco all to herself. With just that little bit to go on, the FBI starts an official investigation. Pretty quickly, it's clear they'll need help to understand the logistics of how the game works.

That way, they can figure out how someone is stealing game pieces before they make it to stores. And that means Doug and his colleagues have a big decision to make. Who at McDonald's should they tell about this?

Having the company's cooperation will make their task a lot easier, but they have to consider that this is an inside job.

Given the value of the prizes involved, it seems likely that someone with a high level of security clearance has to be wrapped up in the scheme. What if the FBI accidentally alerts the McDonald's employee who's behind this whole thing?

Eventually, though, they decide it's a risk they'll have to take. In March 2001, they call McDonald's Director of Global Security in for a meeting and lay out everything they've got so far.

It's enough to convince everyone that the game's been compromised. That's when the FBI find out that McDonald's isn't actually involved with running their own promotions.

They outsource to Simon Marketing, a firm they've had a relationship with for decades. So the executives the FBI agents are talking to have no idea how any of it happens.

They basically just tell Simon when they want a game to run, then sign the checks. But figuring out who's responsible for rigging their most popular marketing scheme isn't what McDonald's is most concerned with right now.

Because they're about to launch the game yet again, and they don't want to do it if it's all a scam.

Not only do they not want to knowingly give their money to criminals, they don't want to cheat their customers out of the chance to win the prizes they've been promised. And perhaps, more importantly, they do not want this in the news.

If word gets out that the Monopoly game has been rigged all this time, it'll undo years of goodwill and excitement the promotion has built for the company. It'll be catastrophic. Though these are totally valid arguments, the FBI shoots them down.

Running another game is the perfect opportunity to catch the thief in the act. Right now, the trail is cold. Another campaign?

It'll heat things up again. So, after talking it out, McDonald's agrees to launch this final version of the game. And their cooperation with the investigation is key.

If the FBI tries to go in and speak to people at Simon Marketing or any of their contractors, it'll likely get back to the mastermind real quick.

But McDonald's can deploy staff members to speak directly with the other companies because it just looks like they're doing their due diligence.

So McDonald's start gathering information about how the game operates behind the scenes and sending what they find to the FBI. Early on, the agents spot a red flag. They know there's someone called Uncle Jerry involved in the heist.

Hell, he might even be behind the whole thing. So when they find out that the head of security at Simon Marketing is a guy named Jerome Jacobson, they zero in on him. Is Jerome Uncle Jerry?

With that question in front of mine, the FBI files requests for wiretaps on phones of everyone they suspect is involved, including Jerry Jacobson as well as a bunch of past winners.

Then they start listening in, hoping someone will slip up and say the wrong thing.

But they don't hear anything useful, at first, which they figure is probably because once someone successfully claimed their prize, there's no need to keep talking about it. So the FBI decides that they'll need to stir things up.

They know from experience that a bit of extra attention can make some criminals very nervous. And attention is exactly what they intend to dish out. The plan is this.

When the next winner steps forward, a team of FBI agents will pose as a film crew who've been hired to interview the lucky customers. That way, they'll be able to capture the fraudsters lying on camera, which will be useful at any future trials.

And hopefully, the whole thing will inspire some activity on the phone lines. Then they'll invite past winners in for interviews, to really stir things up. When Michael Hoover becomes the latest McDonald's millionaire, everyone gets ready to go.

The FBI recruits the help of 28-year-old Amy Murray, a spokesperson from McDonald's corporate. It'll be her job to do the interviewing, make the whole thing feel like a genuine McDonald's production.

She's the one who calls Michael to set up the interview, which he's contractually bound to participate in as a condition of claiming his prize.

Once all their ducks are in a row, Amy and the FBI agents assemble in Westerly, Rhode Island and knock on Michael's door. The 56-year-old welcomes them in, seemingly happy to tell them about how he found his winning ticket.

He feeds them a story about losing his People magazine at the beach and stopping to buy another copy on the way home. For some of the Monopoly games, magazines and newspapers are sold with a game piece inside.

And the copy of People that Michael bought at the grocery store contained his winning ticket. All of this is a lie. In reality, Michael bought the ticket from AJ.

Glom, Jerry Jacobson's latest middleman. Jerry told AJ that the game piece was slated to be inserted into a People magazine in this corner of the country.

All information he'd pulled from the computer system that randomizes where the winning pieces are sent. So, when AJ sold Michael the ticket, he warned him that if anyone asked, he got the game piece in a magazine.

Now, as he speaks to the camera, Michael's proud of how creative his version of that lie is. Amy plays along with this story, asking questions and sounding more excited as Michael takes her through his every movement that day.

When they've got everything they need, Amy offers Michael her congratulations on being a winner. The disguised agents pack up their equipment and get on their way.

Just moments after the crew leave, Michael picks up his phone to place a call, unaware that his line's already been tapped. He dials the number of his buddy AJ Glob. It's all good, Michael tells AJ.

The interview went well. He told him his big story about the magazine, and they bought the whole thing. What's more, he's pretty sure that the young blonde from the McDonald's head office was into him.

The men chuckle, satisfied they've gotten away with their crime scot-free. But they won't be laughing for long.

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22:00

A Deal Gone Wrong

It's June 2001, and in the Jacksonville office of the FBI, agents are monitoring the phone lines of people involved in the McDonald's Monopoly scam.

It's late in the afternoon, when a call comes through between two people the Bureau have been circling for some time now, Jerry Jacobson and Dwight Baker. It's Dwight making the call.

He tells Jerry that he's got the money from their next winner, a man named John Davis from Texas. He's been brought in by a guy Dwight hooked up not too long ago. Now that he's handed $100,000 to Dwight, they can pass the game piece to him.

Jerry's pleased that another deal's gone through, but he's also greedy and impatient. He orders Dwight to meet him so they can do the exchange right now. He wants that money today.

Dwight's not super excited about heading into rush hour traffic, but he says he'll meet Jerry at the usual place as soon as he can get there. In the FBI wire room, the agents are already moving.

The recording of the phone call is one thing, but if they can get footage of the handoff, even better. So they pull out a map and look at the 110-mile distance between Jerry and Dwight's homes.

They decide that the men likely have a regular meeting spot about halfway. And the Chateau Elan Golf Resort in Georgia fits the bill perfectly. It's a guess, but it's their best bet.

The agents place a call to the Atlanta office, who scramble a surveillance team out to the golf course as fast as they can.

About an hour later, the team covertly film Jerry Jacobson slide into Dwight Silver Lincoln, then get out moments later holding a thick envelope. Got him.

After roping in his foster son George, Dwight Baker's brought plenty of people into Uncle Jerry's scheme. And although he takes a cut of the money every time, he's still dealing with hefty debts from a failed property development.

What he'd really like to do is claim a winning piece for himself. That way he'd be getting more than just a finder's fee, but he knows it's too risky to do that after George's win. They're far too close for people not to get suspicious.

This is pretty logical thinking, so Dwight gets points for that. But his reasoning skills only go so far. Because the person he decides to make a deal with is his wife's sister, Brenda Fiennes.

Dwight gives Brenda an instant win game piece worth $500,000. That would be about $900,000 today. And it's one that will be paid in a lump sum, instead of the 20 annual payments the million-dollar prizes are.

The agreement is that Brenda will give Dwight $90,000, with another $70,000 going to Uncle Jerry. Then Brenda keeps the rest, which is more than enough to cover the taxes and leave her with around $100,000.

Brenda lives in Indiana, but Dwight thinks they should set her up with a fake address somewhere else to claim the prize.

So they rent Brenda an apartment in Asheville, North Carolina, and a short time later, she heads to a local McDonald's to claim her prize. It all goes off without a hitch. But then Brenda stops returning Dwight's calls, and he freaks out.

He drives to Asheville and lets himself into the apartment, but it's completely empty, except for an open FedEx envelope from McDonald's. Brenda's screwed him over. She's taken the money and run.

The betrayal stings, but it's not as painful as the realization that Dwight still has to pay Jerry his 70 grand cut of the prize money. He's got no way to pay it, and he's not so sure that Jerry's the kind of guy to just forgive a debt like that.

So Dwight races home and confesses everything to his wife Linda. He's kept her in the dark about the monopoly scheme this whole time. But now that her sister's involved, it's time to bring her into the loop.

Linda's beside herself. She's not angry with her husband for getting them into this mess. She's furious with her sister for stealing their money.

With Linda's help, Dwight calls around to Brenda's friends and eventually finds out that she's flown to California to pick up her money from the Simon Marketing Head Office. But she's flying home to Indiana that day, July 20th, 2001.

The Bakers don't waste any time. They grab the keys and start driving the 500 miles from their home near Greenville, South Carolina to Indianapolis. On the way, Linda decides to call her sister and try to make her see reason.

But reason doesn't come into the conversation. Linda puts the call on speakerphone as soon as Brenda picks up, and she and Dwight start yelling at her, ordering her to come home and give them the money she's stolen from them.

Brenda's not intimidated. She tells them that she's taking the money, and that's that. They can deal with it or not.

It doesn't bother her. Of course, the FBI are listening to this entire exchange thanks to their tap on Dwight's cell phone. And then when Brenda hangs up, Linda doesn't.

She either forgets to press the button to end the call or doesn't realize that she has to, but the line stays open. Which means the agents at the wire room in Jacksonville can hear everything the bakers are saying to each other on their drive.

At one point, Dwight makes an offhand comment that he's gonna kill Linda when they catch up to her. And in all likelihood, that's just hyperbole, but the FBI have to take that kind of threat seriously.

So, they alert the US Marshals and send them to the Indianapolis International Airport to make sure no one gets killed during this ongoing investigation.

When Dwight and Linda arrive, they've got no idea they're being watched by a team of marshals scattered throughout the terminal. The officers watch from afar, filming everything as the bakers find and confront Brenda.

The trio argue as travelers flow around them on all sides. Exactly what they say to each other isn't clear, but it seems like they come to some kind of arrangement and leave the airport without incident.

It's a call, then, to Dwight Baker's ill-advised decision to make a deal with his sister-in-law. The marshals let them go without making any arrests. The authorities aren't ready for that just yet.

But it's only a matter of time.

28:52

The Takedown

By the following month, August 2001, the FBI has gathered plenty of information, and they're confident they'll be able to take the case to trial.

They've interviewed most of the winners they suspect of involvement, all with the help of Amy Murray from McDonald's, and a team of FBI agents disguised as a film crew.

They've got footage of everyone, including Gloria Brown, Michael Hoover, and Buddy Fisher, Robin Columbo's dad.

And after months of listening to everyone's phone calls, they're pretty confident that Jerome Jacobson is the Uncle Jerry people keep talking about. The investigators still haven't worked out how he's getting his hands on the pieces, though.

The security process at Dittler Brothers and Simon Marketing seems so tight, but they're hoping that Jerry will tell them how he did it once he's in custody. So that's what comes next, arrests. But by this stage, the investigation is sprawling.

Jerry's network of finders have distributed winning Monopoly game pieces all across the country. There are eight people the FBI want to arrest, and another 12 they're interested in talking to.

And it's important that the arrests happen simultaneously to prevent any conspirators from tipping off the others. As the planning gets underway, it's decided that the sting will go down early on August 19th, a Sunday, to catch people off guard.

There's a lot of moving parts to coordinate something like this. Luckily, technology's made communication between offices easy.

About a week before the big day, a 30-page report detailing the entire case and the minute details of the planned sting is faxed out to all the regional offices that will be involved. Only the confidential plan doesn't just go out to FBI offices.

Somehow, it's also faxed to the Greenville News in South Carolina, who promptly place a call to the FBI office in Jacksonville to find out exactly what it is they're looking at. It's a huge screw up that threatens to jeopardize everything.

If word gets out that the FBI are on to Uncle Jerry and co., people could disappear. Some of them have made a lot of money over the last decade, and they could easily go into hiding or flee the country. That can't happen.

So a couple of FBI agents fly to South Carolina to meet with the editor from the Greenville News and the reporter who received the facts. And these guys are journalists.

They're not trying to ruin an entire federal criminal investigation just so they can scoop their competitors. They agree to hold off on publishing anything about the case until after the arrests go down.

In exchange, the newspaper will get exclusive information about the case. Crisis Averted. On the morning of August 19th, FBI agents maneuver themselves into position outside various homes around the country.

In Florida, Texas, South Carolina, Georgia, Indiana, and even outside a hotel in Wisconsin. When the word comes in from Central Command, everyone moves out and picks up their targets. Gloria Brown, Michael Hoover, Dwight Baker, Brenda Phoenix, AJ.

Glom, and Jerome Jacobson. All of them nabbed in one fell swoop. Over the next couple of days, the press gets a hold of the story, detailing the investigation and the numerous arrests of the people involved.

And as word gets around, people are PO'd. Sure, people are angry at Jerry Jacobson and his ring of thieves, but there's also a lot of animosity towards McDonald's.

The Monopoly game has had everyone flocking to the fast food staple for over a decade in the hopes that they'd become one of the lucky million-dollar winners. But it turns out that none of them ever had a chance, it's infuriating.

This is not good news for McDonald's, who have been struggling a little bit lately.

An outbreak of mad cow disease in the UK earlier this year has shaken the public's trust in beef products in general, and a strong US dollar has seen international sales fall.

Still, the FBI publicly praises the company for their full cooperation in the investigation, and for going ahead with the most recent version of the game. Doing that allowed the Bureau to gather evidence on people they would have missed otherwise.

But after spending decades earning their customers' trust, McDonald's knows it can't leave it at that. So the company vows to run a new giveaway to make amends.

They plan to hold an instant win competition, with millions more in prizes ready to be claimed. They also fire Simon Marketing, a company they partnered with for nearly 30 years.

A spokesperson for McDonald's says that Simon, quote, betrayed us and our customers. Simon Marketing's stock plummets 80% in just 24 hours. Within days, they've been removed from the New York Stock Exchange.

Both they and Dittler Brothers will be out of business before the year is done. In short, it's a public relations nightmare for everyone involved, and the case hasn't even made it to trial yet.

But what looks set to be a drawn out public debate over who's to blame for this mess is about to be overshadowed by one of the most impactful events of the new century.

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It's August 19th, 2001. Robin Colombo is shown into the jail warden's office. She's been serving time for credit card fraud for a few months now, and isn't too far off her release date.

When she steps into the office, though, her heart sinks. It's not just the warden who wants to see her. This can't be good.

Still, Robin's plenty experienced to talking to law enforcement by now, and she's spent long enough married to Gennaro Colombo to know when to shut up.

So, when the agents tell her that right this second, their colleagues are arresting anyone involved in Jerry Jacobson's McDonald's heist, Robin plays it cool. She tells them she doesn't know what they're talking about. The agents shrug.

That's not a problem. Though they warn Robin that they have more than enough evidence that she was involved in the scheme. This is her one and only chance to make a deal, they say.

Robin doesn't even break a sweat. So the FBI agents stand up, shake the warden's hand, and leave the office. Seconds later, a pair of corrections officers step into the room holding shackles, ready to escort Robin back to her cell.

She freezes, asks them what the hell is going on, and they tell her that her security status has been changed. Her life in jail is about to be a lot less comfortable.

Suddenly panicked, Robin dodges around the guards and out into the hall, where she can just make out the backs of the FBI agents. She calls out to them, she's ready to talk, she says, she'll tell them everything.

In total, the FBI arrested eight people in their coordinated strike on August 19. Those people represented some $13 million of stolen prizes from McDonald's various promotional games.

And like Robin, most of those people were eager to confess everything they knew in hopes it would earn them leniency down the road. So they started naming names. And eventually, the FBI were able to bring indictments against dozens more individuals.

With the total amount of stolen prize money reaching $24 million. During his first interview with the authorities, Jerome Jacobson, Uncle Jerry, tried to deflect some of the blame.

He told investigators that McDonald's and or his employer, Simon Marketing, had rigged the contest to make sure that no major prizes went to Canadian stores. It was their actions that justified his actions, he said.

But there was never any evidence to back up his claims of a larger conspiracy against Canadian customers. Even if there was, he wasn't getting off the hook. Anyway, the government moves quickly on this one.

An assistant US attorney has been involved in the investigation from the very beginning. So he's ready to take the case to trial, and things get going for the first batch of defendants in a Jacksonville courtroom on September 10th, 2001.

And then, history happens. The very next day, al-Qaeda terrorists hijack commercial planes in a coordinated strike on US targets on the East Coast.

The September 11th attacks are a turning point in world history, but they're also a turning point for the Great McDonald's Monopoly Heist. Before 9-11, the case was still being talked about around water coolers and in the media.

Afterwards, it was all but erased from public memory. It just didn't seem important anymore. As for the resources being channeled towards prosecuting Jerry Jacobson and his co-defendants, they were diverted.

Government agencies were directed to focus on counter-terrorism efforts instead, leaving a bare-bones team to move ahead with a trial that no one was watching anymore.

In the end, 46 of 53 defendants pled guilty to the charges against them, including Jerry. His recruiters mostly receive one-year terms, and most of the quote-unquote winners like Gloria Brown get probation.

Robin Colombo is an exception, possibly because of her existing criminal record. She gets another 18 months. And everyone has to pay restitution, with most people saddled with monthly repayments of 25 or 50 dollars.

As for the few people who don't take a deal, well, their day in court comes a year after their arrests.

One of those people is George Chandler, Dwight Baker's foster son, who was convinced to buy a winning game piece to help an imaginary man hide assets from his wife.

George's lawyers argued that because he didn't know the game pieces were stolen, he wasn't in the wrong when he claimed the prize.

It's an idea the judge seems inclined to agree with, but the assistant US attorney points out that the game's rules state that pieces are not allowed to be purchased. Still, that's only breaking McDonald's rules, not the law. There's more though.

The prosecutor tells the jury that because George believed he was helping a husband keep money from his wife during a divorce, he's a bad guy. And sure, that's definitely one way to look at things. But here's another.

Neither this man or his wife ever existed. It's a compelling idea, though. And George is convicted, along with a couple of the other remaining defendants.

They'll eventually launch a successful appeal and have their sentences thrown out. But for a few years, George and his young son will be pariahs in their small community. The family who screwed everyone else out of a million bucks.

Jerry Jacobson, the mastermind of the heist, is sentenced to 37 months behind bars. And he also agrees to finally explain how he was getting his hands on the winning game pieces.

He tells the authorities, as well as at least one jury, how he got the code for the briefcase, how he'd sneak into the airport bathroom and swap the winning pieces for regular ones, then use a holographic sticker to cover his tracks.

Then he'd find a winner to claim the prize in a corner of the country where that specific game piece was supposed to be found, strike a deal, and move on to the next. Just how much money Jerry made from the scheme over the years isn't clear.

But by the time of his arrest in 2001, he owned several cars and was ordered to pay 12.5 million in restitution. But his crimes affected more than just the integrity of a popular marketing scheme.

Jerry Jacobson's actions directly led to the closure of two successful businesses. Simon Marketing and Dittler Brothers never recovered from the damage to their reputations.

A lot of people lost their jobs because one greedy man decided that it was okay if he screwed people over, so long as he was getting rich. Which, when you think about it, sounds like a regular old game of Monopoly to me.

From Airship, this is the final episode in our series on The Great McDonald's Monopoly Heist. On the next series, a small-time bootlegger turned bank robber pulls off an audacious crime, making himself a powerful enemy in the process. J.

Edgar Hoover. We use many different sources while preparing this episode.

A few we can recommend are the Daily Beast article, How an Ex-Cop Rigged McDonald's Monopoly Game and Stole Millions by Jeff Meish, the HBO documentary series McMillions, and the book of the same name by James Lee Hernandez and Brian Lazardi.

This episode may contain reenactments or dramatized details. And while in some cases, we can't know exactly what happened, all our dramatizations are based on historical research.

American Criminal is a co-production of Airship and Evergreen podcasts. It's hosted, edited, and produced by me, Jeremy Schwartz. Audio editing and sound design by Sean Ruhl-Hoffman.

Music by Thrun. This episode is written and researched by Joel Callan, managing producer Emily Burke. Executive producers are Joel Callan, William Simpson, and Lindsey Graham.