McMillions (2020): Season 1, Episode 4 - Episode #1.4 - full transcript

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I don't know how to describe
Jerry Jacobson.

Jerry had a way about him.

You're either gonna love him or are
gonna hate him. There's no in-between.

He can 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 them
more times than I knew about.

Jerry Jacobson was actually
my stepfather.

He was prone to have a short fuse
and a pretty bad temper.

The most vivid memory I have,
we're in the basement.

I can't remember what the issue was. It
seemed insignificant to me at the time.



And Jerry just kind of lost it.

He picked my brother up by the head
and was bouncing his head off the wall.

And I was in the room 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.

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 around
and there he is.

Nobody knew how he knew
where my police calls were.

He was just there.



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 know 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 freaking gangster.

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

We all got to go some time.

There was a rumor going around
that it could have been a possible hit

to get my brother out of the situation.

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

MCMILLIONS

I was pushed against the wall
covered in blood.

I remember looking this way, and there
was a policeman and a fireman 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
'cause he was getting cranky.

They said, "Mrs. Colombo, stay still.
We'll cut you out with a Jaws of Life."

I said, "That's my son."

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

the pain just went 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 being airlifted to the hospital."

I said, "Are you sure you're alright ?"
And 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.

Most of the force of the truck
hit the passenger's door.

But it seemed like he was gonna be okay
which was odd because he's in ICU.

My brother said he had 15 or
20 thousand dollars in the glove box,

and then a couple hundred thousand
dollars in a suitcase

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

and told me, "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.

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

He made a little detour.

I made a little detour without anyone
knowing, and 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, 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 have 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.

Being a big guy,
when they put him into 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.

When they caught it, they realized his
lung collapsed, his ribs were broken.

Up to that time, he was joking.

It was lighthearted.
He did not seem like he was in shock.

Even till this day, I'm astonished.

Astonished that the man
was actively dying.

He was in and out of consciousness.

He had a ventilator, he wasn't able to
talk. They had him on these 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 got to get to the house."

My sister-in-law

didn't give a rat's ass about my
brother while he was in the hospital.

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

there was a fight.

Jerry's mother basically, "You did this
on purpose. You did this."

Her swearing up and down, "I didn't do
it on purpose. I didn't set this up."

If it was in fact, and if there was any
proof she was involved with that...

- She wouldn't be here right now.
- I can 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 Mothers' Day."
'Cause it was Mothers' Day.

And once that happened, his body just
started shutting down little by little.

There was nothing that no one can do.

And the last couple 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.

Till this day, I don't know if he heard
me or not, but I held his hand

and I stayed there until
the last monitor went down.

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.

I'm sorry.

Usually, I don't cry.

I couldn't let him sit there
by himself. I couldn't do it.

I stayed there with him.

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

He always wanted his son, Francesco,
to be in karate, and this and that.

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

"I'm gonna look over your son, make
sure he grows up to be a good kid."

And I promised him that he'd be okay.

"It's okay. I'll take care of him.
I'll watch over him."

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

the one thing he really cared about
was his son.

And that was it.
I just want to be sure that he knew.

His heart stopped

because
he didn't react to the medication.

Were you there ?

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.

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 was being...

Everybody's talking about him now
'cause in the 90s he's

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

So I'm his son.

Give daddy a punch.
Give daddy a karate kick.

That's no good.

When he got in the accident, three days
before my birthday, I was two.

I was in the backseat.

And one thing that always stood out
for me

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

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 nana, she showed me
a picture of the accident.

I believe I was like nine or ten.
And that traumatized me.

It's not something a kid should see.

Especially if that's the car their dad
was in, and that's why he's dead.

There you go.

There you go. All right.

My whole life, I've always known that
there was 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... So much
happened in this first year.

I guess this one. You like this ?

I'm sitting there playing with her,
and... Every day I think about my dad.

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 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.

I want him to know that we desperately
did try to be part of his life.

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."
- Frankie.

Laugh. Oh, say Frank,
"I don't feel good." Be sad.

That's who I remember.

I don't see this 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 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 ?

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.

We heard your house with Jerry got
robbed and everything got cleaned out.

- Did that happen ?
- Yeah. Yeah.

There is a bunch of...
We had a casino.

And they got all our slot machines.

-This happened right after his death ?
- Yeah.

- Who did this, what happened ?
- 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 ?

I don't know.

I don't know.

My grandparents did put 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.

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.

Spin the Wheel of Justice.

Let's spin the wheel
and see who it lands on this week.

We've 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.

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 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 pocket book
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."

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'll admit. The first couple of days,
I had tickets in my hand. I'm like,

"Should I take over his business now ?"

- Because I could've easily...
- He could've.

I could've easily went to Uncle Jerry
and say, "Hey let's continue this."

I could've easily kept it going.

But I didn't, 'cause I didn't wanna
look over my shoulder.

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

So I wasn't gonna use them, give them
to anybody, or try to sell them.

I just destroyed them, hoping that
it was never gonna be found out.

That was my goal.

I said my whole life, you can get away
with something over and over and over,

you only got to be caught once.

You get caught once, you're done.

At this point,
Operation Final Answer was moving fast.

Everything was on the table.

It's like a factory. Everybody's
working. Everybody's writing.

They're reviewing tapes. 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 middleman was Jerry
Colombo who died in a car accident.

Okay. Now what ?

The one thing that was still out there
was really how mechanically is,

is Jerry Jacobson doing this.

And that was kind of this
nagging question mark.

We were just building the puzzle
from all the pieces,

and they were so many different pieces
that we were putting together.

We were working a lot with the Atlanta
division who had a surveillance team.

Like in the movies, guys parked in cars
or following with binoculars, cameras,

painting the picture of this guy,
his background, and 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 might 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 say,
"Hey, Jerry,

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

And he hung up on me.

I'm thinking to myself,

"Why do you think somebody
would find you so interesting

that they would wanna
tap your phones ?"

Jerry Jacobson was 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 fulltime job.

One of the middle men, AJ Glomb, came
on the radar, screened fairly early.

After Colombo died, Glomb had
a number of telephonic conversations

with Jerry Jacobson. And we 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 was like, "Oh, no, no."

I said, "I had enough of that
in my life!

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.

How did you get into selling drugs ?

Actually, that's one of the best parts
of the whole story.

First time I ever did any kind of
drugs was with Harold Robbins,

a writer.
And we were in Monte Carlo.

And he had a bunch of girls. Women
that were talking... And his books.

Whenever they were having sex,

they always did amyl nitrate
before they had an orgasm.

And so I said,
"Harold, do you have 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."

I said, "All right. Oh, my God.
Oh, my God. Oh, my God."

Everybody said, "What's wrong ?
What's wrong ?" I said, "I don't know."

So I called my friend. I said,
"Steve, get me out of here."

So that was my first thing with drugs.

So how I got into selling them...
I had a cousin. He says,

"Can you get me some Quaaludes ?"
"So let me ask one of my buddies."

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

He said, "Yeah. How many you want ?"
And I said, "I don't know."

I said "How much are they ?" He said,
"Well, how much do you wanna 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.

Next thing you know boom,
DEA comes out of everywhere.

So I got twelve years
for six ounces of cocaine.

I was supposed to report to
Montgomery, Alabama.

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

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.

You're 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.

So 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.

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,

"You know, Don,
I just got off a parole."

I said, "I don't think I wanna
know anything about it."

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

"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, "Yeah. You're right."

He said, "You know, they need winners."
He says, "I have one,

a ticket that you could cash in for
a million dollars, and we'll share it."

When somebody offers you a million
dollars, you're gonna take it.

Unless you got to kill somebody,
then you might not... be interested.

But I start thinking about it. I said,

"I better not do this to myself.
I don't want to go back to prison."

So I had a friend in San Diego.

I got a plane and 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,

"The last time somebody won,
they gave the ticket to St. Jude."

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

It's not going to anybody except me."

So that was it.
So he mailed it in and after that,

I made several trips out to California
to get the money from him.

After Stanley was Richard Sokolski,
I believe.

Victor Marcitello 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
and these newscasters said,

there's a guy with a heart transplant
eating McDonald's.

- Free food.
- Yup. We have free food.

- And another free sandwich.
- Yeah, there you go.

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

I don't think I met Jerry until
halfway through all these people.

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

What was your first impression of
meeting him ?

Nothing. I didn't think nothing on it.
To sort of non-descript.

Then eventually,
Don didn't wanna 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 can honestly say I never had
a close relationship with him.

Turned out Andrew Glomb
was a large recruiter.

Had provided quite a few, had enriched
himself and Uncle Jerry,

he had a wide net there of individuals

who were willing to participate
in this fraud scheme.

So when we're on the phones,
we need to be on the recruiters

and that's where we were focusing
our investigation.

Everybody got a bill every month with
all the long distance calls 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 yeah, that's how we started finding
other middle men.

So then you start looking at
Dwight Baker.

Gorgeous subdivision.

I developed it in '87, '88.

Well, half a million, about 450 or not.

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

I was gonna build a little golf course
in here.

I'm Dwight Baker. Developer.
Got a real estate broker's license

and builder's license and developed
quite a number of projects,

probably over 1400 different acres
in South Carolina.

I met Jerry.

When I sold Jerry a piece of property
in a subdivision

and ended up building him a house
and a dock.

Then I sold him a couple lots
in another subdivision.

Right below that sign there are
the two lots Jacobson owned.

Right here.
It's this property here.

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

My family

probably not gonna be happy with me
sitting here and telling this story.

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.

One of my biggest regret is being
involved in this McDonald's thing.

Yeah, I shouldn't have been involved
in it.

Yup.

At that time, I was so successful that

one day I jumped on a motor grader

and had an accident.

I was backing up the hill
when it was stalled out.

And I went into the big pile of rock.

Put me in the hospital 10 days.

That's when Jerry first let me know
what he did.

And it was quite interesting.

He called me while I was recuperating
from the accident

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

"Y'all have to pull up to the door
because I got a walker."

So he pulls up to the back door
and we go riding up the mountain.

He said 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 a hundred thousand dollars.

I didn't have a hundred thousand,

so, he said, "Listen, if you want one,
it's a hundred thousand dollars.

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 we were in, traded
game pieces and gave him money.

It is a secluded place, yeah.
It's a secluded place.

I knew he was selling game pieces. And
maybe he was doing something illegal.

And I ask him, "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 seven percent

out of twenty-six thousand stores.

Factoring in a million-dollar game
piece on that kind of money,

eighty-nine million, a hundred million
dollars. They didn't care.

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 didn't believe there was anything
other than we were cheating in a game.

I don't know if it was the oxycodone
from the accident, but I took my part.

I didn't know if I was ever gonna walk
again, let alone, work again.

"I don't have a hundred thousand,
but I might know somebody that does."

Breakfast, lunch, or dinner.
There's always a line.

- Hey, a Big Mac combo please.
- Yeah.

Serving over 13 million McDonald's
customers each year in the US,

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

George Chandler of Walhalla
just won a million dollars

in the Hatch, Match, and Win game
right here in West Union.

And Chandler was all smiles.

My breakfast, I got my hash browns
and coffee,

filled it off,
and there it was.

Oh, beautiful for spacious skies.

For amber waves of grain.

For purple mountain majesties.

Come on over here, girls.

Across the fruited plain.

America.
Come on.

America.

God shed his grace on thee.

Just like that. See ? They like it.

From sea to shining sea.

We should've brought some more feed
to the girls.

I'm a pretty lucky guy.

It's not within my personal capacity

to have achieved a lot of things
I've been able to do in life.

I don't know, they say God looks after
fools and children.

I don't know which category I fall
into, but it's one of them.

All right. Where do we go from here ?

I'm George Chandler. I grew up in
abject poverty. I was raised Mormon.

One of eight kids and we grew up here
in rural Oconee County, South Carolina,

and we were poor. I didn't have
running water until 1986.

We're not talking about ancient history
here, we're talking about 1986.

Most people have running water at that
point and we were still using a well.

What do you think ?

Dwight was very successful.

He had a family and he had five kids.
I became friends with his son.

And when I was about 12, I left home

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

Well, George and I, we went to church
together, families so we took him in.

We became foster parents for George
and he grew up with our kids.

Being in such a big family
and being poor especially,

why would I not wanna move in
with Dwight ?

He drove a BMW and had
those successful characteristics

that I wanted.

George has always been highly special.

He wanted just to absorb knowledge,
absorb anything you could teach him.

He knew if he's gonna get out,
he needed to work hard.

When I was 15 years old, I quit school.

I grown a moustache to make me look
older and called some local employers

that I was 18
and I immediately went to work.

I worked sixteen hours a day
instead of eight.

That proved to work for me
and became an entrepreneur.

Communications company, septic system
installers, security company,

medical alarm monitoring, industrial
programming, residential rentals,

commercial rentals.

I probably would've been a millionaire
by the time I was 25.

So when Dwight came to me
with a ticket,

he knew that I was in a position that
I had some cash to work with.

This is a million-dollar winning ticket

and he's got it in a Ziploc sandwich
bag that's not even zipped

and he lays it down on my desk,
and I take it out, look at it.

It just says one million dollar winner,
call 1-800 whatever.

I said, "A friend got this million
dollar game piece from McDonald's."

"He's going through divorce."
I said, "He offered to sell it to me."

"I'll split it with her and pay the
taxes." I said, "I'll sell it for 100K"

Because he's going through a divorce

and he doesn't think the ticket
should be considered marital property.

With Dwight's friend, I didn't know
this guy from Adam, never met him.

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

So I felt like it was
a legitimate concern.

He was already separated

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

Why did you think you'd have to tell
a divorce story,

instead of just telling him
what Jerry told you ?

Well, because...

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

in something that wasn't real.

That had a tent of...

I knew Jerry has done something wrong,

it didn't feel like it was the right
thing to do for me to be involved.

But yeah, I did it
out of expediency maybe

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

Because if it did backfire
and it wasn't going... it wasn't right,

he didn't need to have any knowledge
of anything.

I took that all on my shoulders.
So...

He basically asked me,

would I be interested in buying the
ticket from them and then redeeming it.

Everybody was collecting the tickets.

They're buying and selling
these tickets on the internet.

Not million-dollar winners,
but certainly prize-winning tickets

and ones that matchup
like Boardwalk and Park Place.

I told Dwight, "Yeah, I'll probably do
a hundred thousand dollars."

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

And 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'll gain something. It wasn't a
tremendously beneficial thing,

it wasn't like I was just gonna get
this 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 firm
and then we start to figure out,

"Is there anything with this person,
George Chandler ?" Yeah.

There might be something there.

Many times, we thought, "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.

What Jerry did with other people,
as far as the money goes, I don't know.

To the best of my knowledge,
all of mine, I believe, were 50,000.

You could go down this list.

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

Out of giving away $10 million dollars,

I made $614,000.

So how stupid am I ?

Then we come to Michael Hoover.

August 2001.

Michael Hoover was one of
the most generous people we ever met,

a great, great friend, just real
easygoing, nothing bothered him.

He sold a lot of drugs.

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 said, "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.

I'm glad that after the beach,
I stopped and picked up another one.

He called me and said, this production
company did the commercial.

"This girl is really hot.
I think she really liked me."

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

In the wire room, we're listening
some of those phone calls to Hoover.

Glomb was on the other side going,
"Really ? What did she look like ?"

I think all of the winners thought
I really liked them,

that's the kind of person I am.
I was interviewing them like a friend,

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

She was sick to her stomach.
That was her reaction and she goes,

"What ?
How could he ever get that vibe ?"

I guess she wasn't.

I guess I'm a better actress
than I thought I was.

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

even been as far away as
North Carolina one time.

But I've never been to a place 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.

Good job, Gary.

Nice job, Gary. Nice job.

To tell 'em exactly why I'm innocent.

This is the McDonald's
where it all happened.

There was a press conference, a party
and a real Ronald McDonald was here.

It was kind of surreal.

He said, "Mom, I won a million dollar,"
I said, "Prove it !"

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

I didn't he was serious, I was like,
you're not serious.

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

George Chandler says he will 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, and
I already run up 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 had to put out a hundred thousand
dollars of my own money for this thing.

And I had no question whatsoever

about the authenticity or legitimacy
of the ticket

or the origination...
None ever occurred to me,

and we're talking about Dwight Baker.

I didn't take any cut out of the money.
And it was all Jerry's.

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

"You just give me a Navigator
and a laptop and I'll be happy."

Didn't want George to think bad of me,

for actually having a little larceny
in my heart.

I didn't won a whole lot, I just won
a little laptop and a Navigator.

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

And that's how my greed kicked in.

Ronnie was just a high roller. He was
going through a divorce and he said,

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

That was probably the real...

... where I really stepped over the
boundary was when Ronnie said,

"I'll take one, or two, or three
of that."

And I knew he could.

And I remember Jerry telling me,
"You're getting a little greedy."

Yeah.

Each time is a little different. From
Ronnie Hughey I got a lake lot or two.

Jerry brought me fries and a drink,
and you had the game pieces on.

And I'd pay him in a brown McDonald's
bag, cash in the McDonald's bag, money.

Did Jerry at any point
ever tell you how he got the tickets ?

Never asked him.

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 five-million-dollar
prize that they're gonna give.

You take that one...

And I don't know how we're gonna
split it, but he said, then that's it.

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

Jerry was very proud
but very secretive.

He never talked about anything
with anybody else.

I knew he was selling the game pieces,

but I didn't know to what degree.

Jerry told me, "There's
a half-a-million-dollar game piece,

with a McDonald's issue on
$500,000 check cash.

And we didn'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 was gonne be a tough sell,
but it wasn't.

And 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.

And I said, "I'm gonna go up to
Asheville and see what's going on."

And I went up there.

The damn FedEx thing had been opened
and fallen on the floor,

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

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 wasn't gonna be happy.

Jerry told me, "If there's a problem,
I'd get a visit from his cousin Guido.

And I took that pretty serious.

I 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.

Because she looked at it as her money.

Did you try to stop her ?

Yeah.

And...

my wife could not stay
off the telephone.

Dwight Baker made a phone call to
Brenda Phenas and for whatever reason

didn't disconnect the phone
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 Phenas was
running around the Indianapolis Airport

and Dwight was looking
to bury her somewhere.

They're saying he's following her
to the airport,

he says he's gonna kill her,
but there was a lot of concern on that.

What are we gonna do if they are
in fact really gonna harm her?

We've obviously have to intervene.

But that would have serious
consequences for the investigation.

One little slip up could shut it down.

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

It just did not occur to me that
he would do something like that.

He can't be trusted what he have.

Okay !

George...

George ! George !

Let's have fun, y'all.

She got run over by a damn... yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

And so I'll hang around
as long as you will let me.

Oh, sounds good.

And I never minded standing here
in the rain.

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 could blend in the crowd
at the airport ready to take action.

In a lot of cases,
really bad things happen.

Things go wrong, they always do.