Speaker 1: Ridiculous crime. It's a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Do you a Elizabeth? Why? How are you doing?
Speaker 3: I'm good, I'm good. How are you?
Speaker 2: How is your heart?
Speaker 3: My heart is full. How's your heart?
Speaker 2: It's still kicking. So that's all I ask?
Speaker 3: Is running in a pumpin?
Speaker 2: Yeah? So I got a question for you other than
Speaker 2: about our cardiovascular health. Yes, sir, do you know it's ridiculous.
Speaker 3: I can tell you it's ridiculous.
Speaker 2: I was counting.
Speaker 3: Well, Actually it's not me. It's McKinley at the Bend
Speaker 3: Beer Vault.
Speaker 2: Okay, is this a friend of yours?
Speaker 3: She's a friend of the show, she emailed us.
Speaker 2: Oh rude dude.
Speaker 3: Nice, Yeah, total rude dude. Seems like a really cool person,
Speaker 3: she said. Love the show. My boyfriend and I have
Speaker 3: been listening for three years and it's definitely our favorite.
Speaker 3: We love having you two join along on our road trips.
Speaker 3: Y'all always bring a smile to our faces. Take care
Speaker 3: and stay ridiculous. It's McKinley. So McKenley sent us something, huh,
Speaker 3: and I'm going to tell you it's not a mashup.
Speaker 2: Yes, McKinley, you rock you and your boy She.
Speaker 3: Referred to it as a mashup. But it's not a mashup.
Speaker 3: It's m Kenley is still rock, She's still rockbous.
Speaker 2: I'm just suspicious of you.
Speaker 3: You should always be, all right, So this You like milkshakes? Yes,
Speaker 3: I mean your milkshake brings all the boys to the art.
Speaker 2: I mean you've tasted it.
Speaker 3: No, the milkshakes you like them?
Speaker 2: Yes?
Speaker 3: What's your favorite flavor of.
Speaker 2: Milkshake these days? Yeah, don't laugh, but I'm really into
Speaker 2: a vanilla.
Speaker 3: Oh really, I know.
Speaker 2: It's the flavor nobody nobody respects. Everyone acts like, oh,
Speaker 2: that's so vanilla. But it's actually a really nice flavor.
Speaker 2: So I've been really into, like it's not.
Speaker 3: Just like milk, like plain nothing flavor.
Speaker 2: Favorite My third favorite, thank you for asking, It would
Speaker 2: probably be peach. What about you? I like what's your
Speaker 2: third favorite? What's your second favorite?
Speaker 3: Chocolate?
Speaker 2: What's your first favorite?
Speaker 3: Milcha?
Speaker 2: Are? Okay?
Speaker 3: Well when as coffee one doesn't?
Speaker 2: Right? Right of course? Naturally?
Speaker 3: Yeah that's what I like. I like what I like.
Speaker 3: I don't like certain kinds of milkshakes.
Speaker 2: What kind is that, Elizabeth?
Speaker 3: That would be the ultimate cheese at milkshake? Cheese it.
Speaker 3: You didn't partner with anyone. This is cheese It did
Speaker 3: this to them, damnselves. It's on the recipes on their website.
Speaker 3: And they have other, like, you know, questionable recipes.
Speaker 2: I'm sure they do.
Speaker 3: But the ultimate cheese At Milkshake saren. Prepare your taste
Speaker 3: buds to sip it with this absurdly indulgent milkshake made
Speaker 3: with your favorite cheesy salty snack vanilla shake. Look you
Speaker 3: like that? Blended with cheese it crackers and the crushed
Speaker 3: cheese it cracker rim and topped with whipped cream, chocolate
Speaker 3: sauce and garnished with a cheese it cracker. Here's a picture.
Speaker 3: We'll have them put that on Instagram.
Speaker 2: I literally shuddered, like my whole body.
Speaker 3: Jesus in a vanilla of shake is just that I don't.
Speaker 3: I don't like that one bit.
Speaker 2: So it's it's a Cheddar shake.
Speaker 3: They have they it's a Cheddar shake, and they have
Speaker 3: other recipes like the non alcoholic cheese a rita.
Speaker 2: Wait, why would I want that? Pour in some brandy?
Speaker 3: I a Seltzer cheese it hot and spicy cracker infused
Speaker 3: simple syrup, lime and pineapple. It's made to spice up
Speaker 3: your dance moves. That's what it says. That's not me
Speaker 3: saying that. That's the cheese It. That's you know, the
Speaker 3: cheese talking Captain cheese It himself, the founder of cheese
Speaker 3: It's I'm just scrolling through here, and it's there's a
Speaker 3: lot of it's a lot of things that explain why
Speaker 3: our society's falling apart that these are acceptable things to
Speaker 3: put online. Cheese it's s'mores brownies. Those go with a milkshake.
Speaker 2: So Rome had bread and circuses. We have cheese hikes.
Speaker 3: We have cheese it's and milkshakes extra big. Cheese It's
Speaker 3: moores cookies. Make them extra big because you know you
Speaker 3: can't get enough.
Speaker 2: Zaren the test kitchen a cheese It must be a
Speaker 2: wild place.
Speaker 3: Saron cheese at Lemon Bars. I'll stop, Actually no, I won't.
Speaker 3: You'll never stop anyway. That's that's cheese at apple Pie.
Speaker 3: That's ridiculous.
Speaker 2: For your restraint, No.
Speaker 3: I have no you know me, I have zero restraint.
Speaker 2: I should have been yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So anyway, it's ridiculous, ridiculous.
Speaker 2: Well do you know what else is ridiculous? A lot
Speaker 2: of things go well, okay, I got a question, another
Speaker 2: question for you to start it off. Okay, do you
Speaker 2: remember the Monopoly game from McDonald's. I do, Yeah, did
Speaker 2: you play it?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Well, like the semi regular return of the Nick Rib, Elizabeth,
Speaker 2: I got good news for you. McDonald's Monopoly game is back.
Speaker 3: Baby. It was like in the eighties, right, yeah, eighties, nineties.
Speaker 3: I remember that as a kid.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's wild because, yeah, as you point out, you
Speaker 2: remember when you're a kid, if you know what happened
Speaker 2: back when it was first a popular game to play
Speaker 2: at the Golden Arches. Huh, it's wild that it's coming back. Really,
Speaker 2: And if you don't know, well you're in for a treat,
Speaker 2: because that's what I want to tell you about.
Speaker 4: I'm about to know today.
Speaker 5: This is Ridiculous Crime, a podcast about absurd and outrageous capers,
Speaker 5: hece and cons. It's always ninety nine percent murder free
Speaker 5: and one hundred percent ridiculous.
Speaker 3: Ridiculous, Elizabeth, ridiculous.
Speaker 2: Yes, what do you know about the story of lotteries? Uh?
Speaker 3: Lottery, I don't know. They're old. They're old as heck.
Speaker 2: They did them in the caves pretty close.
Speaker 3: But that was to kill a community member.
Speaker 2: Yes, it's like who survives the winter?
Speaker 3: Well, and that's what is it? The short story of
Speaker 3: the lottery. Oh, Shirley Jackson, Sure, there you go. There's that.
Speaker 3: That's a dim, dark lottery.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I was gonna say that's not really a fun one,
Speaker 2: but well, har I'll inform you about the history lottery.
Speaker 2: Still briefly, one of the first lotteries in history took
Speaker 2: place in the Han dynasty in ancient China. Okay, so
Speaker 2: roughly two oh five b c. So not in the caves,
Speaker 2: no post caves. The money was raised for this lottery
Speaker 2: by the Han dynasty, and the money that they generated
Speaker 2: from the lottery was used to pay for the construction
Speaker 2: of the Great Wall of China. Great Wall of China
Speaker 2: was paid for by gambling.
Speaker 3: They're like, you know, it's for a good cause, guys,
Speaker 3: it's for the wall. Like how people are like, it's
Speaker 3: for the schools, and that's not why you're buying a
Speaker 3: lottery ticket.
Speaker 2: The next time someone says gambling is a degenerate form
Speaker 2: of entertainment, you can tell them, I guess you don't
Speaker 2: like the Great Wall at China, right, because gambling built
Speaker 2: that wonder of the ward. Okay, so My point is
Speaker 2: gambling has been around for a very long time, right,
Speaker 2: and especially the lottery, and it's often been used to
Speaker 2: pay for the running of the government or to fund
Speaker 2: construction of grand endeavors. Of course, this is not always
Speaker 2: the case. Sometimes lotteries were designed to curry favor, like
Speaker 2: for instance, in ancient Rome in the time of the Empire,
Speaker 2: gambling was permitted only during special occasions like the celebrations
Speaker 2: of Saturnalia, which was not sure if you're familiar, I
Speaker 2: didn't know about this exactly, but it was the holiday
Speaker 2: time that Christmas would later replace. Oh really, okay, So
Speaker 2: when the Roman Empire adopted Christianity, they're like, well, it's
Speaker 2: just slot that right into Saturnalia and keep it balking.
Speaker 3: Big coincidence, Yeah, birthday.
Speaker 2: Well that and also the soul and Victis. But I'll
Speaker 2: get to that in a second. So way back in
Speaker 2: the fourth century CE.
Speaker 3: Wait, when does memit the second making.
Speaker 2: Appearance not in this episode? Surprisingly, Yeah, okay, So in
Speaker 2: the fourth century CE, or if you prefer ad on
Speaker 2: O Dominus, Yes, Pope Julius, the first issue a decree
Speaker 2: that Christmas, the celebration of the birth of baby Jesus
Speaker 2: was to be celebrated on December twenty fifth. It's thought
Speaker 2: that this was the to replace the pagan gift giving
Speaker 2: of Saturnalia with the new Christian gift giving of Christmas.
Speaker 2: It was also intended to combine celebrations. There was the
Speaker 2: Saturnalia and then also, as they said, the birthday celebration
Speaker 2: of Soul Invictus, who was the son god of the
Speaker 2: Roman Empire. His birthday was honored on when December twenty fifth.
Speaker 3: Nice.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So anyway back to Saturnalia as it plays out,
Speaker 2: The earliest European lotteries date back to Saturnalia the Roman Empire.
Speaker 2: So wealthy families they would hold these extravagant dinner parties
Speaker 2: and there's a lot of role reversal, like where the
Speaker 2: slaves get to be the master and that kind of stuff,
Speaker 2: and so rich people would invite all their friends over.
Speaker 2: Then they would try to like curry favor by then
Speaker 2: helding a lottery and everybody, guess, would all be given
Speaker 2: a lottery ticket when they entered the dinner party or whatever,
Speaker 2: and each ticket holder would win a gift, and some
Speaker 2: of the gifts were more lavish than others, and that
Speaker 2: was like the beginning of the lottery. This idea is
Speaker 2: then expanded upon by the first Great Roman Emperor, Augustus Caesar.
Speaker 2: He switched up the game by selling tickets for prizes
Speaker 2: and to the public instead of at like a dinner party,
Speaker 2: and some of the gifts that he was giving out
Speaker 2: were more spectacular than others. The funds that were generated
Speaker 2: he used those to rebuild the aging city of Rome.
Speaker 2: So Rome was also built on lottery win not in
Speaker 2: a day, well yeah, not in a day, or I
Speaker 2: guess lottery funds. Anyway, fast forward to colonial America, you
Speaker 2: could argue that the colonies were also built off the
Speaker 2: funds generated by gambling. Oh really, because oh my goodness, yes,
Speaker 2: tons liket like hundreds of them. Back in sixteen twelve,
Speaker 2: King James of England, King James the First he allowed
Speaker 2: the Virginia Company to offer a lottery in England to
Speaker 2: raise money for the struggling settlement because like they you know,
Speaker 2: post James Stower Jamestown's founding, They're like, this is not
Speaker 2: going well. These rich kids are not doing what we
Speaker 2: thought they would do. You mean to raise some money.
Speaker 2: So they do. And so from that very first English
Speaker 2: settlement aka Jamestown gambling has been part of America's story. Now,
Speaker 2: this holds true all the way through colonial times. Lotteries
Speaker 2: were used to raise money to build roads, canals, bridges.
Speaker 2: You want to build a church, let's hold a lottery.
Speaker 2: You want a library, Let's hold a lottery. And then
Speaker 2: the first universities in America, so like the earliest ones,
Speaker 2: not Harvard, but Princeton and Columbia, were both paid for
Speaker 2: with money generated from lotteriesday same for the University of Pennsylvania.
Speaker 2: So nearly half of the Ivy League was paid for
Speaker 2: off of gambling profits. That's what I mean by say
Speaker 2: America has always been cozy with gambling, so you know,
Speaker 2: enjoy that crypto anyway, When you have so much money
Speaker 2: generated by a lottery, some folks obviously will do what cheat? Yes,
Speaker 2: and then fraud follows, which is why in eighteen ninety
Speaker 2: in the United States, lotteries were officially pretty much banned
Speaker 2: in all but two states. You want to guess which
Speaker 2: two states are? Like, nope, we're keeping this. This is
Speaker 2: really good. Eighteen ninety Yes, obviously there's no Utah, Arizona exists,
Speaker 2: New Jersey, good guess. No, think of more corrupt than
Speaker 2: New Jersey more corrupt. Yeah Jersey not like you know
Speaker 2: a movie. Pennsylvania close, Delaware the home of the corporation.
Speaker 2: Yeah right.
Speaker 3: Louisiana, well that's its own thing.
Speaker 2: Like, yes, Louisian especially New Orleans. No Orleans like a
Speaker 2: city state in America, and Louisiana is like, we are
Speaker 2: different than New Orleans. You're still corrupt anyway. Once lotteries
Speaker 2: were banned, folks conspired to find new ways to gamble.
Speaker 2: They're like, okay, well we'll keep this rock and so
Speaker 2: thus the era of the sweep steaks was born. Difference,
Speaker 2: so the sweep The difference between lottery and a sweep
Speaker 2: sticks is that a sweep stakes it doesn't require the
Speaker 2: gambler to purchase the tickets. You've heard all your life, no.
Speaker 3: Purchase, purchase necessary, Okay, So.
Speaker 2: Instead the gambling tickets are part of a giveaway for
Speaker 2: like a product or a person can even also end
Speaker 2: in a request for a free ticket to place and
Speaker 2: self a dress stack?
Speaker 3: Isn't it like where it will be on like product packaging?
Speaker 3: But it's just nope. But like so you can like
Speaker 3: ask for a thing without buying exactly, but no one
Speaker 3: ever does.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so with sweepstakes. Sometimes the prize is a product,
Speaker 2: or sometimes it's a service like oh, get a free
Speaker 2: massage or whatever.
Speaker 5: Right.
Speaker 2: Other times it's a big cash prize aka gambling. Yeah,
Speaker 2: So sweepscakes. They become a very popular way for a
Speaker 2: business to drive traffic to come in and buy their whatever.
Speaker 3: My grandpa loved those.
Speaker 2: Really.
Speaker 3: If he could send in a ticket for a sweepstakes,
Speaker 3: he would, and he would send in multiples with variations
Speaker 3: on spellings on everyone's name in the household. Interesting and
Speaker 3: so like when I was a little kid, they had
Speaker 3: a Tony the Tiger baseball sweepstakes with what was that, yeah,
Speaker 3: frosted flakes. No one in the house ate frosted flakes.
Speaker 3: He went out and he bought a bunch of boxes
Speaker 3: of frosted flakes, and then he filled all of them out,
Speaker 3: and all of us had like variations on our names.
Speaker 3: You know, it was like Elizabeth Button and oh yeah.
Speaker 3: And so it's like because it was like one per household,
Speaker 3: one for whatever it was. So he sent all of
Speaker 3: these in and then we got inundated with Tony the
Speaker 3: Tiger baseballs. We got so many of them.
Speaker 2: Do you won baseball?
Speaker 3: We won baseballs. And then what was kind of cool
Speaker 3: is like later on, like after he passed away, about
Speaker 3: a month later, I got a puzzle book in the
Speaker 3: mail and his name m H that he had won
Speaker 3: in a sweepstakes.
Speaker 2: Do you still have it?
Speaker 3: Yeah? And it's like I love puzzles, and I was
Speaker 3: just like, this is incredible, like you know, still still
Speaker 3: raking it in.
Speaker 2: Well, you know who else loves sweepstakes? No fast food companies?
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, Well that's what we were talking about.
Speaker 2: Just like a lottery, the winner selected at random, and
Speaker 2: just like a lottery, sweepstakes become this theater for fraud
Speaker 2: and abuse because you can get to say a ticket
Speaker 2: or whatever the product is dan and you can win
Speaker 2: possibly a big cash prize, sometimes millions of dollars. Yeah,
Speaker 2: that's what I want to tell you about. The Great
Speaker 2: Monopoly scam for McDonald's. It's one of the most famous
Speaker 2: sweepsticks aside from Publishers clearing House. It's just like all
Speaker 2: true sweepstakes, it was a no purchase necessary form of gambling.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, Now do you remember the Monopoly game for McDonald's.
Speaker 2: Did you ever play it? I mean, like we know
Speaker 2: how it worked on the title.
Speaker 3: Because you would get and I feel like you had
Speaker 3: to go inside and there was like the police mat
Speaker 3: on the tray, was the board or maybe they gave
Speaker 3: you the board. I don't remember how it works, but
Speaker 3: they was like the monopoly board.
Speaker 2: Yes. So there was the early forms, yes, and then
Speaker 2: later on you just have to basically collect the like
Speaker 2: say the colors of a property on Monopoly.
Speaker 3: So you had to have the board so you knew
Speaker 3: like how many collector the only.
Speaker 2: Did you need to win, like say like like three, say,
Speaker 2: like you know, if you pick like Baltic Avenue, you
Speaker 2: only need the other light blue ones. I think Baltic
Speaker 2: Avenue is black, but anyway, and then if you have
Speaker 2: park Place on Boardwalk and you have those bright blue ones, right, yeah,
Speaker 2: that's all you need, just those two, you would win
Speaker 2: a million dollars.
Speaker 3: Right, But like the lesser ones you would collect and
Speaker 3: it was like, oh, you got some.
Speaker 2: Fries, yeah, well exactly you've been like yeah, free happy
Speaker 2: meal or you got some large.
Speaker 3: Fries yeah, Marvin Gardens ext.
Speaker 2: So this new Monopoly game for McDonald's was announced in
Speaker 2: September of this year, and it starts on October sixth,
Speaker 2: and as always, it's available for a limited time only.
Speaker 2: Now for the new rebooted version, there are still the
Speaker 2: same peeloy stickers that you would find on the cups
Speaker 2: and the fries, and those are the game pieces, just
Speaker 2: like it used to be. But now it's an app
Speaker 2: based game you play on your smartphone.
Speaker 3: Oh to scan the yes, exactly.
Speaker 2: It kind of ruins some of the fun for me
Speaker 2: because but you still get to peel them off, and
Speaker 2: then you scan onto your phone. Then it keeps track
Speaker 2: of them for you.
Speaker 3: But I saw a Reddit post where someone ordered McDonald's
Speaker 3: through like door dash or something, and the guy who
Speaker 3: delivered it had peeled the stickers off and it arrived
Speaker 3: denuded of its.
Speaker 2: That's amazing.
Speaker 3: You don't have to collect those little, tiny little things.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I loved collecting those. I mean back when cars had ashtrays,
Speaker 2: we kept all the McDonald's Monopoly pieces and.
Speaker 3: It was like we would use it as like, come on,
Speaker 3: we got Grandma. We're so close, yeah, so close to
Speaker 3: getting this Pennsylvania. I swear to god, you cannot have
Speaker 3: any more. Come on.
Speaker 2: So back to the new app. You still get the
Speaker 2: same game pieces as we said, and then you scan them,
Speaker 2: but then you also have to get the McDonald's app, right,
Speaker 2: and you have to join the McDonald's loyalty program, which
Speaker 2: I'm never gonna do, so I guess I'm just not
Speaker 2: going to play this time around anyway. If you do
Speaker 2: have the app, you collect all your digital game pieces.
Speaker 2: Just like with Monopoly, if you collect the properties of
Speaker 2: the color coded neighborhood boom, you can win prizes, so
Speaker 2: like for now, this time you can win a brand
Speaker 2: new Jeep Grand Cherokee, and for one lucky winner there'll
Speaker 2: be a big cash prize of one million dollars, which
Speaker 2: is what it used to be. Of course, a million
Speaker 2: dollars is a lot more money back when, totally like,
Speaker 2: do you know, do you remember the first McDonald's Monopoly game?
Speaker 2: Do you want to guess what year that first iteration
Speaker 2: came out?
Speaker 3: To see? Eighty five?
Speaker 2: Close? Really good? Eighty seven? Eighty seven April of nineteen
Speaker 2: eighty seven to be exact, okay, which coincidentally is also
Speaker 2: the same year as a Big Wall Street crash.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, right?
Speaker 2: In October, right, you have the Black Monday or Black Tuesday,
Speaker 2: depending on which one has both names. Did you know
Speaker 2: that Black Monday and Black Tuesday? I always I keep
Speaker 2: it as Black Monday, but I looked it up on
Speaker 2: Wikipedia both. Yeah, because people are like, well, I really
Speaker 2: lost more money the next day, so we call it
Speaker 2: black Tuesday here. I guess.
Speaker 3: I totally thought it was earlier than that. That's funny.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So anyway, do you want to guess the last
Speaker 2: year the McDonald's offered its monopoly game before bringing you back?
Speaker 3: Nineties? Right?
Speaker 2: Twenty fourteen?
Speaker 3: Twenty fourteen? Yeah, I don't really keep up with McDonald
Speaker 3: I haven't kept up with McDonald since I was a child.
Speaker 2: I know you haven't. Now you may be thinking that,
Speaker 2: you know, what does this have to do with crime?
Speaker 2: Great question, Elizabeth, because I'm about to tell you about
Speaker 2: that question. But the McDonald's Monopoly game, you know it
Speaker 2: was revealed to be rigged earlier than twenty fourteen. It
Speaker 2: was back in two thousand and one. Oh really, that's
Speaker 2: when the revelation came about, right, And it's hard of
Speaker 2: them limped along until twenty fourteen when it finally fizzled
Speaker 2: out as a promotion. So what happened back in two
Speaker 2: thousand and one?
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 2: Great question, Elizabeth, And after this break, I will tell
Speaker 2: you excellent, Elizabeth.
Speaker 3: There.
Speaker 2: So McDonald's Monopoly you were telling me about that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I was telling you all there was Okay, so
Speaker 3: here's what you need to know. So there was fraud,
Speaker 3: and it started in two thousand and.
Speaker 2: One, and I got revealed in two thousand and one,
Speaker 2: and it was.
Speaker 3: Spoke, it was revealed. You know, I don't know words.
Speaker 2: So nineteen eighty seven, it starts right now. You want
Speaker 2: to guess what year the insider fraud started. No, two
Speaker 2: years later. It took two years. Nineteen eighty nine is
Speaker 2: when our crime story begins.
Speaker 3: Only two It only went two beautiful years.
Speaker 2: Totally before someone's like, I can rig there.
Speaker 3: I got an idea.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so a first little bit about how you could
Speaker 2: win the McDonald's Monopoly game. Obviously you have you have
Speaker 2: to collect the game pieces, and you had to collect
Speaker 2: a complete set. You know, we've covered that, and then
Speaker 2: you could win a million dollars. So park Place and
Speaker 2: Boardwalk were the way to win a million dollars. But
Speaker 2: there was another way to win, which is you could
Speaker 2: find the elusive instant win game piece. Okay, so this
Speaker 2: piece that you would pull it off, it just says, oh, congratulations,
Speaker 2: you've won a million dollars, you won five hundred thousand dollars,
Speaker 2: you won twenty there's a bunch of big, big prizes.
Speaker 2: Now do you remember how wild it would be when
Speaker 2: people get park place and then all they needed was
Speaker 2: boardwalk and they would just be going back.
Speaker 3: I was firm believer that boardwalk was never printed, you
Speaker 3: know what I mean, Or they printed one and it
Speaker 3: was in a special cup, like in a safe so
Speaker 3: they could say.
Speaker 2: Oh, we printed technically did well. Obviously, the easier path
Speaker 2: to the million dollar cash prize was to find one
Speaker 2: of those hyper elusive instant win game piece, which meant
Speaker 2: it was to your benefit to go back to McDonald's
Speaker 2: as often as possible.
Speaker 3: Well, yeah, and that's especially with kids.
Speaker 2: They're the oh yeah, or teenagers who think they can win.
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2: This is how monopoly became easily, by far, the most
Speaker 2: profitable marketing campaign for McDonald's since they invented the happy meal.
Speaker 2: Those are like the two high points, right. It was
Speaker 2: the most lucrative marketing stunt in like the history of
Speaker 2: fast food. But what folks never knew at the time
Speaker 2: was the game was rigged like you weren't gonna find
Speaker 2: one of those instant win stickers, at least not after
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty nine. Oh no, you may be thinking, well
Speaker 2: why not, Zaren, great question, Elizabeth. The reason why was
Speaker 2: a man known as Uncle Jerry and Jerry Garcia of
Speaker 2: the Great Back. I'm talking about Jerry Jacobson from my
Speaker 2: first hometown, Atlanta, Georgia. Now, this Uncle Jerry, who was
Speaker 2: eventually the man responsible for defrauding the McDonald's monopoly game,
Speaker 2: was wait for it, a former cop.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 2: He was born at the end of the Silent Generation,
Speaker 2: nineteen forty three. He was raised in Youngstown, Ohio. Like
Speaker 2: you know that, he enjoyed this all American upbringing. When
Speaker 2: he's a teen, his family moves to Miami, Florida. And
Speaker 2: then when he's of age, he's ready to leave home
Speaker 2: and he goes to join the US Marines. But he
Speaker 2: gets kicked out of the core and basic training due
Speaker 2: to having high arches.
Speaker 3: All right, crazy, I know.
Speaker 2: Right, So my friend got kicked out for having flat feet.
Speaker 2: His feet were two flactually they were like convex. They
Speaker 2: were like bowed out.
Speaker 3: He had like a little rocker. He was like a
Speaker 3: rocking horse when he walked down the street, completely he
Speaker 3: stood still, he'd rock.
Speaker 2: You followed his footprints down the beach. It looked like
Speaker 2: what creature am I following your kid? Yeah? That's wow.
Speaker 2: There was no like normal footprint. It was the exact opposite.
Speaker 2: It was like the only the art fascinating. Yeah. So
Speaker 2: so at this point, right, this guy gets kicked out.
Speaker 2: He bounces around for a bit, and then Uncle Jerry
Speaker 2: in nineteen seventy six, he's he has his dream of
Speaker 2: becoming a cop, and that comes to pass. He joins
Speaker 2: the Hollywood, Florida Police Department. With Florida is the less
Speaker 2: famous Hollywood. Yeah, obviously located between Miami and Fort Lauderdale
Speaker 2: right there on like the eastern coast of Florida. Right, Okay, Now,
Speaker 2: much like his dream to be a marine, his time
Speaker 2: in the Hollywood Police Department didn't last long. Yeah, this
Speaker 2: time it was his wrist. He got into some altercation.
Speaker 2: I couldn't find out what it was. He injures his wrist.
Speaker 2: He goes out on medical leave. Right, this lasts for
Speaker 2: a long time because in nineteen eighty, still on medical leave,
Speaker 2: he collapses from paralysis and he loses feeling in his eyes,
Speaker 2: his arms, his legs, and his lungs. He has a
Speaker 2: hard time breathing.
Speaker 3: Oh, you're kidding me.
Speaker 2: He has this rare neurological condition. Right, So, in order
Speaker 2: to take care of her husband, his wife, Marcia, also
Speaker 2: a cop, she leaves the force and then, you know,
Speaker 2: since he'll never be a cop again, the department lets
Speaker 2: him go. So now they're both former cops.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: In order to start their new life together, in nineteen
Speaker 2: eighty one, Jerry and Marcia moved to Atlanta, Georgia. That's
Speaker 2: where Jerry gets this new job as a mechanic. Right.
Speaker 3: Wait, but he was like he can't breathe.
Speaker 2: Well, he eventually was able to walk again and the
Speaker 2: pass rehability. Yeah, it took him a while, but they've
Speaker 2: actually he got back on his speech now. Marsha, she
Speaker 2: gets the job as a security auditor for this accounting firm, right,
Speaker 2: and after she establishes herself at the firm, she finagles
Speaker 2: a job for her husband, Jerry, and she's like, you know,
Speaker 2: he's also a former cup really great guy. Fortunately, working
Speaker 2: and living together led to stress in their marriage. Two
Speaker 2: years later, they divorce. So Jerry those days at the firm, Yeah,
Speaker 2: so he's working private security for a client of this firm,
Speaker 2: this place called Dittler Brothers, right, and for them, he's
Speaker 2: working security for their big client, a company called Simon Marketing.
Speaker 2: That's the company that would later have a five hundred
Speaker 2: million dollar client called McDonald's. Yeah, Simon Marketing that they're
Speaker 2: responsible for making the Monopoly game pieces for McDonald's new
Speaker 2: promotion Sweake. Jerry gets put in charge of overseeing the
Speaker 2: security for the winning game pieces, and he was real diligent.
Speaker 2: He was like super, I'm a marine, I'm a cop, right.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: The former coworker of his recalled that Jerry was suspicious
Speaker 2: of anybody who would get near the game piece and
Speaker 2: anybody who's on the floor. He thought anybody could be
Speaker 2: a possible cheater. For instance, according to one former co worker,
Speaker 2: Jerry quote inspected worker's shoes to check that they weren't
Speaker 2: stealing McDonald's game pieces.
Speaker 3: Oh my god.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he was officious and real delta.
Speaker 3: He should have been like the cartels and made everyone
Speaker 3: work naked.
Speaker 2: There you go, that would have done it. McDonald's loves that.
Speaker 2: I bet they.
Speaker 3: I think that's you know, it's definitely part of their.
Speaker 2: Hr sweatshop rules. Baby bye lo. So the diligence of
Speaker 2: the Jerry impresses Simon Marketing. So in nineteen eighty eight
Speaker 2: they hire him away from Dittler Brothers and put him
Speaker 2: in charge of the security for all the Monopoly game pieces.
Speaker 2: Because now McDonald's like, this is a huge hit. We're
Speaker 2: going to keep doing this. Yeah, Fast Food Giant decides
Speaker 2: they'll run two limited Monopoly games each year. Oh wow, Yeah,
Speaker 2: I didn't realize that they're just it.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So to create the random winning game pieces, Dittler Brothers
Speaker 2: relies on this supercomputer, the Omega three. Right from there,
Speaker 2: the game piece suits, they talk to it, they get
Speaker 2: printed by a traditional printing press that runs twenty four
Speaker 2: hours a day. How many Monopoly game pieces were they
Speaker 2: cranking out, great question.
Speaker 3: Elizabeth, only in the United States, also Canada.
Speaker 2: Yeah, five hundred million game pieces, which was enough game
Speaker 2: pieces that that's basically two game pieces for every American
Speaker 2: in the US at the time. So Jerry, he's in
Speaker 2: charge of overseeing the creation of everything, including the ultra
Speaker 2: rare instant winner game pieces.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Once created these instant winner game pieces, they would be
Speaker 2: locked away in a vault. Like they took the security
Speaker 2: very seriously. They're talking like they had multiple security apparatus. Namely,
Speaker 2: they had two combination locks, a coded keypad. It was
Speaker 2: like a nuclear sub where you had to turn two
Speaker 2: keys at the same time.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So when it's time for him to deliver the instant
Speaker 2: winner game pieces, Jerry would take like a pair of
Speaker 2: scissors and he would cut them out from the printing
Speaker 2: press paper. Then he'd placed the instant winners in an envelope.
Speaker 2: Then he'd seal that envelope with a tamper proof sticker.
Speaker 2: Right then, that's not all then, since he's the one
Speaker 2: who's going to carry this to the places to be
Speaker 2: like to the companies that make the cups and the
Speaker 2: fries and be a fit. He carries the sealed envelope
Speaker 2: over to the McDonald's factories and then says, okay, you know,
Speaker 2: bring me a palette of fries and then he picks one,
Speaker 2: puts it on, mixes it all up, and goes, okay,
Speaker 2: distribute these no way totally. So to get to these factories,
Speaker 2: he would fly on commercial airlines, first class all the way. Baby.
Speaker 2: But he didn't fly alone. He was escorted by a
Speaker 2: second security official and an accountant. Like I said, like
Speaker 2: a nuclear submarine. They always got the two keys.
Speaker 3: Do you like the suit case, the briefcase with the.
Speaker 2: Handcuffs, Yeah, totally.
Speaker 3: I mean I would have requested that just because it
Speaker 3: looks so cool.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, and people know you're important. Yeah. So
Speaker 2: the security team Jerry and the other security official goes unnamed,
Speaker 2: would travel to a McDonald's factory where they would then
Speaker 2: have like us, he's had a whole forkload of like
Speaker 2: drink cups or French fried cadamos brought over, and then
Speaker 2: they would select a random cup and then add the
Speaker 2: instant winter game piece, both of them watching right. Everything
Speaker 2: has to be done in doubles, and then this is
Speaker 2: ensuring that the winner is actually a random customer. So
Speaker 2: he does this legitimately a few times in nineteen eighty eight.
Speaker 2: Then in nineteen eighty nine he decides why should he
Speaker 2: send out the instant winners to be randomly found by
Speaker 2: some chinook when he could just as easily pretend to
Speaker 2: affix it to a French fry container and keep it
Speaker 2: for himself. Yeah, and then he could select the winner
Speaker 2: of say like a big cash.
Speaker 3: Prize, which would be him.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Well no, no, he could.
Speaker 2: That would be too obvious. Yeah, so that's one. I
Speaker 2: keep that in.
Speaker 3: Mind a lot of times with all these kind of
Speaker 3: sweepstakes and stuff like if you are if you work
Speaker 3: in a certain industry or you have Yeah, so he'd
Speaker 3: have to be like outside of the family exactly.
Speaker 2: I thought, you're usually it's the imediate family, but really
Speaker 2: McDonald's is going to be your family. Yeah, and your neighbors,
Speaker 2: your block, you know.
Speaker 3: And you've ever made iicon this period in time.
Speaker 2: His salary was seventy thousand dollars, which was good.
Speaker 3: It's a lot.
Speaker 2: That was good pay. In nineteen eighty eighty eight. That
Speaker 2: would be equivalent to one hundred and ninety one twenty
Speaker 2: five a lot, like, that's good pass that is a lot.
Speaker 2: But that's seventy grand. Wasn't much compared to a million dollars.
Speaker 3: God, what was a million? What's a million dollars in
Speaker 3: eighty eight worth?
Speaker 2: Now, I do not know. I didn't look that up.
Speaker 3: Look it up.
Speaker 2: I'm so sorry here to live for that. Let me
Speaker 2: look that up for you, Elizabeth, because I know you do.
Speaker 3: Look you look helps me get oriented, It helps me
Speaker 3: understand the world, because you know, I'm like, I don't
Speaker 3: know what does that mean to me? What's time to
Speaker 3: a pick?
Speaker 2: That would be two point seven million dollars, Elizabeth.
Speaker 3: That's the only inflation from eighty eight to.
Speaker 2: Two point seven four? Is that better? No?
Speaker 3: That's it should be like, that's be one hundred and
Speaker 3: eighty billion dollars.
Speaker 2: Two and seventy percent increase.
Speaker 3: That's not enough for me.
Speaker 2: Okay? Well, Jerry at this point, right, he realizes the
Speaker 2: only cost to him would be his integrity. So I
Speaker 2: got so and I've already you know what, what's that
Speaker 2: to a pig? So he starts out small. He doesn't
Speaker 2: hand out a million dollar Instant Winter right off the bat.
Speaker 2: He doesn't. He's like, that would be too obvious. So
Speaker 2: at first, he starts out with a twenty five thousand
Speaker 2: dollars Instant Winner game piece. He takes one, swipes it,
Speaker 2: takes it home. But Jerry, you know, he's like, oh,
Speaker 2: do I give this too? So he's at a family
Speaker 2: function in nineteen eighty nine and he slyly hands over
Speaker 2: to his stepbrother the winning game piece. He's like, he's
Speaker 2: got a different last name. Oh yes, Jerry later said, quote,
Speaker 2: I don't know if I just wanted to show him
Speaker 2: I could do something, or was bragging or has he
Speaker 2: also put it He may have just wanted to quote
Speaker 2: to see if I could do it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, just take a test run.
Speaker 2: So then fate with a capital F stepped in. It
Speaker 2: arrived in the form of his butcher. His trusted meat
Speaker 2: supplier heard that Jerry was the man who ran security
Speaker 2: for the McDonald's monopoly game, and being an ambitious and
Speaker 2: unscrupulous man, his butcher tells Jerry he sure would like
Speaker 2: to win that McDonald's monopoly game. And Jerry tells him,
Speaker 2: you know, he happened to have the power to make
Speaker 2: that happen, and so he's like, really is solid. But
Speaker 2: he's like, but you know, I couldn't do that because
Speaker 2: we're friends and they you know, not only that, were neighbors,
Speaker 2: and so they'll figure it out if you're my friend
Speaker 2: and name the butcher listens to him, he goes, you
Speaker 2: know what, I got an idea. What if it wasn't
Speaker 2: me who won, but instead a trusted friend of mine
Speaker 2: who lives far away. No one would suspect that he
Speaker 2: doesn't have to be the million dollar prize. I'm not greedy.
Speaker 3: I like to imagine that He's like an old style
Speaker 3: like cartoon butcher. He's like holding like a string of sausages.
Speaker 2: He's talking a string of sausage. So he's like, well,
Speaker 2: what if it was like a lesser instant winter game piece,
Speaker 2: they probably wouldn't even do investigations into that, Like maybe
Speaker 2: like one of the ten grand game pieces. Yeah, if
Speaker 2: you could arrange that. The butcher tells them, I'd split
Speaker 2: the winnings with you, Jair. He says, I'll give you
Speaker 2: two grand of the winnings.
Speaker 3: Yeah, because someone's got to pay taxes on it.
Speaker 2: There's that. I don't think they were thinking about the text.
Speaker 2: So at this point they're thinking it's a surefire plan
Speaker 2: and makes some quick cash. Right, So Jerry does it
Speaker 2: and their fraud works perfectly, But then with the capital
Speaker 2: left stepped back in this time, it had nothing to
Speaker 2: do with Jerry directly, but it affected his power to
Speaker 2: pick winners. You can see, Elizabeth. Other folks had the
Speaker 2: same idea. They're like, what have I kept these game pieces?
Speaker 2: So there was this guy who worked for McDonald's who
Speaker 2: was a seventeen year old. Yeah, and he stole about
Speaker 2: three thousand game pieces from like a restaurant. He gets caught,
Speaker 2: he gets arrested, so McDonald's like, oh, we got to
Speaker 2: have to come up with new security protocols. So it
Speaker 2: would take years later for Jerry to have another chance.
Speaker 2: In nineteen ninety five, he's finally back in a position
Speaker 2: to get his hands on them instant Winter.
Speaker 3: Game pill doing the same job.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, still doing the same job. They see Elizabeth.
Speaker 2: The technology McDonald's used had changed. Now the winning game
Speaker 2: pieces were fixed through a new process, and Jerry was
Speaker 2: responsible for delivering the instant Winner game pieces to the
Speaker 2: people who did the affixing. And he decides this is
Speaker 2: his big chance to get paid. Yeah, so if you
Speaker 2: can believe it, Fate with the capital left steps back
Speaker 2: into his life. The maker of the tamper proof stickers
Speaker 2: was located overseas in Hon Kong. By a mistake, one day,
Speaker 2: the company sent a bunch of the tamper proof stickers
Speaker 2: to Jerry directly. So now he's got a way to
Speaker 2: seal the envelope after he opens the envelope, and nobody
Speaker 2: would be the wiser. So he's in this enviable position
Speaker 2: to being the one guy who can decide who could
Speaker 2: win the big cash prizes. Forget you supercomputer. It's all
Speaker 2: about jer Bear. So at this point, remember how he
Speaker 2: traveled with a second security official an accountant, So there's
Speaker 2: this double fail safe, right, so that'd be no cheating.
Speaker 2: Jerry would just have to think of a way to
Speaker 2: get around this one person. That's all he to do.
Speaker 2: And then, you know, or he could cut them in
Speaker 2: on the deal. That would be an ancientous But you
Speaker 2: know what they say about the one fool proof way
Speaker 2: for two people to keep a secret, right is to
Speaker 2: kill one of the other people or kill the other person.
Speaker 2: And since we have a ninety nine percent murder free guarantee,
Speaker 2: I can promise you this Jerry didn't murk anyone good.
Speaker 2: So how does Jerry get around this second security official?
Speaker 2: Really great question, Elizabeth. To answer that, I'd like you
Speaker 2: to close your eyes and I'd like you to picture it.
Speaker 2: It's mid morning, and at the moment you are waiting
Speaker 2: for some action, you hear the familiar sound of water
Speaker 2: splashing against a sink basin. This is soon followed by
Speaker 2: the bang of a hand against an oversized metal button,
Speaker 2: which is followed by the hum and below of a
Speaker 2: hand dryer, then the sound of a man's shoes across
Speaker 2: a tiled floor, punctuated by a door opening and then closing,
Speaker 2: and finally silence, and you you go back to waiting.
Speaker 2: A moment later, though, you hear the door open again,
Speaker 2: you eagerly perk up your attention. You hear a man's footsteps,
Speaker 2: the rhythm of dress shoes as they crossed the tile floor,
Speaker 2: and then the squeak of hinges as a partition door
Speaker 2: swings open to a bathroom stall. It's your stall, and
Speaker 2: then you see him, a middle aged man a little heavy, said,
Speaker 2: he looks like a regular business traveler. He closes the
Speaker 2: stall behind him, and you wait, eager to be of
Speaker 2: assistance because you, Elizabeth, are a roll of toilet paper
Speaker 2: in an airport men's room. The man takes off his
Speaker 2: blazer hangs it on the hook of the stall door.
Speaker 2: But then he doesn't unzip and drop his slacks and
Speaker 2: take a seat on the toilet. No, Instead, you watch
Speaker 2: as he puts on a pair of disposable latex gloves.
Speaker 2: Then he reaches into his vest and he retrieves an envelope.
Speaker 2: That's odd, you think, But it's not drugs or even
Speaker 2: money that he pulls out. Instead, he carefully opens the
Speaker 2: envelope and pulls out what looks to be a small
Speaker 2: printed sticker. You're unsure what you're looking at. He rifles
Speaker 2: through the printed squares until he's satisfied. A wide smile
Speaker 2: spreads across his face. One of his latex hands reaches
Speaker 2: into his slacks pocket pulls out a ziplock sandwich bag.
Speaker 2: He carefully places the small printed square into the ziplock
Speaker 2: sandwich bag. He seals that and shoves it into a
Speaker 2: pocket of his slacks. Then he reaches into the other
Speaker 2: pocket and pulls out a similar looking printed square and
Speaker 2: places that one in the envelope, taking the place of
Speaker 2: the one he's just taken out. And then you watch it.
Speaker 2: He pulls out from his pants pocket an iridescent metal sticker.
Speaker 2: He holds it in his teeth. That's curious. Then you
Speaker 2: watches he reseals the envelope. He uses the metal sticker
Speaker 2: to secure it closed. Ah, it's a security sticker. You
Speaker 2: think you're a smart roll at toilet paper. The man
Speaker 2: chuckles to himself proudly, and he says, too easy. Then
Speaker 2: he returns the envelope to his vest pocket. He reaches back,
Speaker 2: grabs his blazer, pulls an arm for a sleeve, and
Speaker 2: then another. He chuckles again to himself, and he says,
Speaker 2: a perfect crime. He flushes the toilet as cover, but
Speaker 2: he never touches a square of your soft white toilet paper. Instead,
Speaker 2: he opens a stall door. You just hear him walk off.
Speaker 2: The door opens, he doesn't wash his hands, and then
Speaker 2: it closes. You don't know it, but you just watched
Speaker 2: a man steal a million dollars.
Speaker 3: Oh my god.
Speaker 2: So there you go, Elizabeth. That's how Jerry worked his scam.
Speaker 2: He used the men's room at the airport. Why because
Speaker 2: the second security expert, the accountant, was a woman.
Speaker 3: Oh well, even so he could go into the stall
Speaker 3: totally total privacy.
Speaker 2: But then he like you would hear maybe the envelope
Speaker 2: when any other guy came in, like, oh bathroom, What
Speaker 2: a good.
Speaker 3: Idea, right right, that's amazing.
Speaker 2: So now that he has his method all worked out,
Speaker 2: the only other thing he needs to do was to
Speaker 2: salve his soul from what he plans to do with
Speaker 2: these big cash prize winners. Yeah, and also he wanted
Speaker 2: to do some sort of like you know, grand gesture,
Speaker 2: something that might help him out down the line, like
Speaker 2: say that with a judge should he ever get caught
Speaker 2: in the future. Sure, So what did Uncle Jerry do
Speaker 2: to both salve his soul and to look out for
Speaker 2: his future legal defense?
Speaker 3: That's a great question, SARAE.
Speaker 2: Well. On November twelfth, nineteen ninety five, working at these
Speaker 2: Saint Judes Children's Research Hospital in Tennessee, a donation's clerk
Speaker 2: opened an envelope that had a greeting card in it.
Speaker 2: The donation clerk spotted secreted away inside of the greeting
Speaker 2: card a McDonald's Monopoly game piece. It was an instant winner.
Speaker 2: And not just any instant winner, Elizabeth, it was the
Speaker 2: big one, a one million dollar instant winner, that's right.
Speaker 2: And he sent it to Saint Jude's.
Speaker 3: Oh my god.
Speaker 2: The donation clerk, she can't believe her eyes. Right, she's
Speaker 2: like losing it. And if you can believe it, she
Speaker 2: didn't keep it for herself. She's like recognized this is
Speaker 2: gonna be so much for the kids she works at
Speaker 2: Saint Jus, so she hands it over to her boss.
Speaker 2: They're equally flabbergasting. Who on earth would get the million
Speaker 2: dollar instant Winder game piece and then give it away?
Speaker 2: They can't believe Saint Jude's incredible luck, the warm hearted
Speaker 2: generosity of this anonymous donor, because there was no note,
Speaker 2: no signature, nothing, just a postmark that later revealed that
Speaker 2: it was sent from Dallas on the day after Thanksgiving.
Speaker 2: Inside of the unmarked envelope was just the instant winter ticket.
Speaker 2: That was it. Because The New York Times would later
Speaker 2: report officials from McDonald's flew out to Saint Jude's to
Speaker 2: authenticate the winning game piece, it was confirmed to be legit.
Speaker 2: After that they hold a press conference.
Speaker 3: Yeah, because that's a great story.
Speaker 2: Right, they loved it. Saint Jude's children to hospital a bunch
Speaker 2: officials that you've got Ronald McDonald with his red fright
Speaker 2: wig out there doing like they a pr although.
Speaker 3: They're like duking it out the Ronald McDonald house and
Speaker 3: saintscho good point they were handed him.
Speaker 2: They probably do now some they were like happy to
Speaker 2: now some kind heart had donated one of the three
Speaker 2: one million dollar prizes from this semi annual monopoly game.
Speaker 2: Now Saint Jude's would receive annual installments of fifty thousand
Speaker 2: dollars to be paid over twenty years. So while both
Speaker 2: the Saint Jud's McDonald's opted to honor the wishes of
Speaker 2: the anonymous donor. The New York Times is like, no, no, no,
Speaker 2: let's see if we can figure out where this is.
Speaker 3: Well, you know, because like they've got to be just
Speaker 3: so relieved that it's not some dirt bag who like
Speaker 3: smacks his kids on TV and from like hitting it
Speaker 3: like just some horrible person.
Speaker 2: Keep that thought in mind.
Speaker 3: Oh boy, try try the.
Speaker 2: New York Times might They couldn't figure out who'd given
Speaker 2: away a million dollars. They do a full on investigation.
Speaker 2: They can't find Jerry. Uncle Jerry's secret is safe yea.
Speaker 2: So now he's feeling confident he can get away with
Speaker 2: it again. The New York Times couldn't find him. Oh Butler,
Speaker 2: He makes plans to select a new big winner. This
Speaker 2: time it would be someone he knew, and just like
Speaker 2: as Butcher had pitched it to him way back in
Speaker 2: the day, he would get a cut of the winnings.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So, Elizabeth, let's say you had the power to hand
Speaker 2: out big cash prizes, like in the neighborhood of one
Speaker 2: hundreds of thousands of dollars or even a million dollars,
Speaker 2: how would you go about arranging it. Who would you trust? Like,
Speaker 2: who would you even want to help out like that?
Speaker 3: If I'm going to be criminal about it, I don't know.
Speaker 3: I don't know. Why would I announce that on this platform?
Speaker 3: You're not going to trap me?
Speaker 2: Well, I'll tell you this much. Uncle Jerry goes back
Speaker 2: to his butcher Nicess, So take a little break, and
Speaker 2: after these messages, I'll tell you how it plays out
Speaker 2: for Uncle Jair and his meat supplier. Elizabeth. You're ready
Speaker 2: to hear more about Uncle Jair and how it all
Speaker 2: goes down.
Speaker 3: I am. He has a very close relationship with his Brodcher.
Speaker 2: He does, they were tight.
Speaker 3: No, I don't know my butcher like that. I don't
Speaker 3: have a butcher. But if I did, I wouldn't know him.
Speaker 2: Like, oh, you gotta have a guy guy. So Uncle Jerry,
Speaker 2: since it worked so well the first time, right, he
Speaker 2: pitches his butcher on the idea of rigging the game again.
Speaker 2: His butcher, though, he's like, you know you can't win
Speaker 2: it for the same reason as before. You're my friend,
Speaker 2: you're my neighbor, you live down the street from me,
Speaker 2: Like it'll be too obvious, Yeah, but if you can
Speaker 2: find someone you trust, I can make it happen. So
Speaker 2: his butcher's like, yeah, totally, my sister I can trust her.
Speaker 2: She lives in Maryland, that states away. Yeah, So their
Speaker 2: plan is simple. The butcher would go visit his sister
Speaker 2: and she would be the one to buy some food
Speaker 2: from McDonald's and then she would say, oh, my goodness.
Speaker 3: I won the instant winner game guyes.
Speaker 2: And unlike with Saint Jude's, he didn't, you know, go
Speaker 2: with a million dollar prize. He started small. He offered
Speaker 2: his butcher and the sister a two hundred thousand winning
Speaker 2: game piece. Okay right, and in his for his cut,
Speaker 2: he wanted forty five grand. Not bad, right. The only
Speaker 2: trouble was his butcher went up to Maryland and instead
Speaker 2: of his sister, he claimed he won the two hundred
Speaker 2: dollars tramps. Jerry has no idea he's doing this. He
Speaker 2: finds out when he sees his butcher on tight TV
Speaker 2: celebrating his big win. Oh no, but worse than that,
Speaker 2: the butcher stiffed Jerry for his cut. He only gave
Speaker 2: him four grand instead of forty five. He has, what's
Speaker 2: Jerry gonna do? Yeah, he gotta called cops exactly. So
Speaker 2: Jerry learned a hard lesson about crime that day. He
Speaker 2: also learned that he needed someone he could trust if
Speaker 2: he wanted to keep rigging the Big Tunnel's Monopoly game.
Speaker 2: But when you know it, yet again, Fate with a
Speaker 2: capital F steps in. He's in the Atlanta airport and
Speaker 2: he meets a man named Gennaro Colombo, who was described
Speaker 2: as looking a lot like my man al Capone and
Speaker 2: had the morality to match. So the two men they
Speaker 2: get to talking. Jerry asked Colombo, Hey, where are you
Speaker 2: flying to? And Gennaro Columbu's like, hey, yeah. He pulls
Speaker 2: out this huge wad of one hundred dollars bills and
Speaker 2: he says, I'm headed to Atlantic City and this gets
Speaker 2: the men talking, like this is my kind of guy.
Speaker 2: So Colombo tells the former cop that he is a
Speaker 2: member of the Colombo crime Family aka one of the
Speaker 2: Five Families of.
Speaker 3: These things.
Speaker 2: He's like, I'm a made man, a real life mobster. Right,
Speaker 2: but he lives in South Carolina.
Speaker 3: Okay, so no so, because that's where he ran.
Speaker 2: An underground casino and sports book. He also had a
Speaker 2: strip club like the Bottom Bang Run Sopranos, Right, But
Speaker 2: in the South, things were a little weird, like they
Speaker 2: especially about strip clubs. So when he wanted to expand
Speaker 2: his business into Georgia, Colombo had to find a way
Speaker 2: to get around the laws like the like the zoning.
Speaker 2: So when he opened his strip club in Georgia, he
Speaker 2: called it a church. Yes, he named his new strip
Speaker 2: club the Church of the Fuzzy Bunnies.
Speaker 3: Stop.
Speaker 2: He told Jerry, you know what I got to He
Speaker 2: came to me. I had this dream and God came
Speaker 2: to me and told me to start a church.
Speaker 3: It's called the Church of the Fuzzy Bunny Bunnies.
Speaker 2: So this impresses Jerry. He's like, man, you're a real criminal.
Speaker 3: Oh wait, So Jerry, do you not have any close friends.
Speaker 3: Like You're going up to people in the airport that
Speaker 3: you meet who claimed to be mobsters, look like al Capone,
Speaker 3: look like a Capone and tell you, hey, nice to
Speaker 3: meet you. I'm a mobster.
Speaker 2: Well they took a little bit, but they got there. Yeah.
Speaker 2: So he's like, well, this guy, he's like me. He
Speaker 2: likes to get around the rules. He knows how to
Speaker 2: do it. So at some point Jerry tells Colombo but
Speaker 2: he does for a living and naturally a made man
Speaker 2: like Colombo. He sees dollars signed, right, So the two
Speaker 2: get to talking more, and then later that year they
Speaker 2: reconnect and Jerry gives Colombo an instant Winter Game piece.
Speaker 2: Not like recently we got the grand Jeep, Grand Cherokee
Speaker 2: Dodge Viper. Yeah. So but once he's confirmed as the
Speaker 2: winner instead of the car, Colombo takes the cash. He's like,
Speaker 2: what's the cash value? So it's Colombo. He becomes Jerry's
Speaker 2: new trusted confidant, right, he's on the inside that he
Speaker 2: becomes such fast friends. He gives Jerry a new nickname, Uncle.
Speaker 2: Jerry becomes totally together. The two then get into work, right,
Speaker 2: they distribute instant Winter game pieces and not more cars.
Speaker 2: Now they start going for real money. And so Jerry
Speaker 2: trusts this mobster Colombo to help.
Speaker 3: Him find legitimate mobster.
Speaker 2: Yeah he is. He is a legitimate member of the
Speaker 2: columb Both. No, but you know he's a South Carolina
Speaker 2: He tacked the family, kicked him out in New Jersey.
Speaker 3: Totally kicked him out and sent him to South.
Speaker 2: Carolina totally not too far south because we can't get
Speaker 2: into the traffic conti way, you know, exactly you can't
Speaker 2: go all the way to Florida Miami. It's gonna be
Speaker 2: a problem.
Speaker 3: Where you're going to stick out like a sore thumb.
Speaker 3: So South Carolina.
Speaker 2: Exactly, you would think. So one of the winners that
Speaker 2: Colombo picks because he's the one now in charge of
Speaker 2: finding new winners that they can trust, and they both
Speaker 2: now get to take a big cut from him, he's like, oh,
Speaker 2: I got the perfect one. My wife's father. So he
Speaker 2: becomes the million dollar winner, right.
Speaker 3: So wait, he wins a car in his name, and
Speaker 3: then his father in law is going to.
Speaker 2: Be and then it gets better because the next million
Speaker 2: dollar winter he picks out is his brother in law.
Speaker 3: These are just a brain trusts.
Speaker 2: And this time, unlike his butcher, they pay Jerry his cut. Right,
Speaker 2: So this is starts a run of million dollar winners.
Speaker 3: So wait, so his brother, his father in law.
Speaker 2: All these winners are hand selected by Colombo and his wife, right,
Speaker 2: his wife Robin. Now, in nineteen ninety seven, Jerry meets
Speaker 2: a new potential big winner in an Applebee's in Jacksonville, Florida.
Speaker 3: What is wrong with this man? Is he just also?
Speaker 3: Is he just chatty?
Speaker 2: Like?
Speaker 3: When's the last time you made a friend in an airport.
Speaker 2: Oh, don't ask me these questions. You know, I make
Speaker 2: friends with places.
Speaker 3: Nobody.
Speaker 2: I told her this, I will talk to an airport.
Speaker 2: I talked to more people in public than I do
Speaker 2: like in my private life.
Speaker 3: I I'll chat with people, but I'm not going to
Speaker 3: like share my information with them.
Speaker 2: Oh no, people I trustworthy. I don't tell HI much
Speaker 2: about me.
Speaker 3: No what I'm saying, I'm not going to make a
Speaker 3: friend in an airport. Get out of here. I got
Speaker 3: enough friends. I don't need you people. I'm not gonna
Speaker 3: go Well, first of all, I wouldn't go on an
Speaker 3: Applebee's if I were in there. I'm not going to
Speaker 3: make friends. To get out of there as fast as
Speaker 3: I can.
Speaker 2: So Columbo's wife, Robin, introduces Jerry to her friend, a
Speaker 2: woman named Gloria. Now, Jerry asked her, like, how much
Speaker 2: would you pay for an instant winter game piece? She
Speaker 2: says she could get him forty grand in cash. Jerry's
Speaker 2: like deal. So a few weeks later he meets her
Speaker 2: alongside Interstate ninety five. That's the one that runs up
Speaker 2: and down the Eastern seaboard, the Big Dog ninety five. Yes,
Speaker 2: so Gloria hands him forty grand in cash. He hands
Speaker 2: her a tiny bottle I imagine like a liquor bottle,
Speaker 2: like one of those air like airplane liquor bottles, with
Speaker 2: a with a winning piece inside. And you have to
Speaker 2: assume he used gloves to make sure he left a
Speaker 2: fingerprints on the game piece.
Speaker 3: Make sure it's fully dry inside, right.
Speaker 2: One of the thing. Now, Gloria drives back to South
Speaker 2: Carolina to buy a McDonald's meal deal and discover her
Speaker 2: winning game. Pole on.
Speaker 3: So this is just a rando from Applebee's.
Speaker 2: No, No, robin is is the Columbo's wife. The new
Speaker 2: rando is Gloria her friend. He doesn't know.
Speaker 3: Her, Okay, I get it, okay, right, So.
Speaker 2: She goes back to South Carolina, buys a McDonald's meal
Speaker 2: deal and then goes, oh my goodness, look I won.
Speaker 2: And then she goes to Colombo with He takes her
Speaker 2: to the fast food spot and then he coaches her
Speaker 2: on how to fake find the instant winners. Okay, look,
Speaker 2: here's what you want to do, right, And then he
Speaker 2: waits in the car well. She goes in and buys
Speaker 2: her big Mac or whatever. And because she's a terrible liar.
Speaker 2: Nervous about getting caught, Gloria does what all liars do.
Speaker 2: She tells this rambling story about how she found the
Speaker 2: winning game piece while she was cleaning out her car.
Speaker 2: And it was a kind of like a child would tell, right,
Speaker 2: but it works perfectly, So far, so good.
Speaker 3: All these are collected in South Carolina.
Speaker 2: For the most part, so or even.
Speaker 3: If McDonald's were so stupid that they just thought, oh,
Speaker 3: then it makes it makes Jerry look bad like you're
Speaker 3: not mixing these up enough. They're all going for the
Speaker 3: same truck, yeah, to these various restaurants.
Speaker 2: So how long can your luck hold out when your
Speaker 2: partner is a made man from Sicily who's a member
Speaker 2: of the club with crime family and you're working he's
Speaker 2: working a strip club, underground casinos in his South.
Speaker 3: Carolina everything, his whole existence.
Speaker 2: Yeah, not to mention he's the proprietor of the Church
Speaker 2: of the Fuzzy Bunny, right exactly. Anyway, if you want
Speaker 2: to keep a secret between two people, only way to
Speaker 2: do that is to kill the other person. Right, But
Speaker 2: now Uncle Jerry has this growing circle looking huge who
Speaker 2: know about a secret? And the butcher Yeah, and one
Speaker 2: of them is a legitimate made man from the five family.
Speaker 2: So yeah, exactly. So at this point the late nineties,
Speaker 2: Uncle Jerry is minting new millionaires with his stolen game pieces,
Speaker 2: but still no one's the wiser. So what does he do?
Speaker 2: Of course, he gets sloppy with it. He didn't only
Speaker 2: work with Colombo because he liked to be like the
Speaker 2: fairy godmother of stolen monopoly money. So he decides he'd
Speaker 2: give a step brother another instant.
Speaker 3: Winner game piece out of here, so he didn't win twice.
Speaker 2: Yes, when that works, he gave you the first time,
Speaker 2: he gives him another, and get this, Jerry goes here broke.
Speaker 2: He gives his brother in law a million dollar instant winner. What, yes,
Speaker 2: but his brother in law claims he never cashed it in.
Speaker 2: He says he put it in the toilet and flushed it.
Speaker 2: He's like, he's an idiot. I don't want to get caught.
Speaker 3: Yeah right, that's smart.
Speaker 2: So Jerry moves on to other family members. He's at
Speaker 2: a family wedding and he gives his nephew a two
Speaker 2: hundred grand instant winner in exchange for forty five grand
Speaker 2: and so yeah, and then while they're talking about it,
Speaker 2: a cousin. Hears them talking and he's like, you know,
Speaker 2: I could use an instant win. Your uncle jer Jerry
Speaker 2: hooked him up too.
Speaker 3: So now he's he's.
Speaker 2: Really pressing his luck. It's nineteen ninety eight. It's only
Speaker 2: a matter of time before Jerry's secret philanthropy for his
Speaker 2: family gets discovered. Plus he's now handing out nearly all
Speaker 2: of the big cash prize winners. At this point, there
Speaker 2: are no legitimate winners anymore, so to make.
Speaker 3: Everyone else is just looking for fries pretty.
Speaker 2: Much, Jerry legit. There was no million.
Speaker 3: Dollars large soda.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's all you're getting. Maybe a Dodge Viper.
Speaker 3: If you're lucky, big mac.
Speaker 2: So Jerry, at this point he does the thing you're
Speaker 2: not supposed to do. He buys himself a new house
Speaker 2: for he and his new wife, who, by the way,
Speaker 2: claims she knew nothing about any of her husband's monopoly fraud.
Speaker 2: And you know, because you know, I guess she just
Speaker 2: believed Jerry's family was really lucky at Monopoliesonald's. By this point,
Speaker 2: Uncle Jerry's tight with the Columbo crime family, right, so
Speaker 2: tight that they give him a new nickname. They start
Speaker 2: calling him Heraldo Constantino.
Speaker 3: Wait the stop why Italian?
Speaker 2: He goes from being Jerome Jacobson the Heraldo Constantino. Meanwhile,
Speaker 2: Jerry's investing his cut from all the fake winners into
Speaker 2: Lake front Land. He joins this like really hoity toity
Speaker 2: club for classic car lovers, because you know that's the
Speaker 2: big deal in the South. There he meets a member
Speaker 2: of this club. He likes the guys are He's okay,
Speaker 2: you want an instant winter Ka peson.
Speaker 3: He is so desperate for people to like it totally.
Speaker 2: The guy is like totally, and he uses it to
Speaker 2: buy an ultimate Beile. I Remember Colombo. The mobster has
Speaker 2: his wife Robin right Yeah, After she found out that
Speaker 2: Colombo was banging his personal trainer, things grow a little
Speaker 2: weird between them, but just before she could leave him,
Speaker 2: they get into a really bad car accident. After weeks
Speaker 2: in a hospital, the mobster Colombo dies from his injuries.
Speaker 2: After that, Uncle Jerry he now needs a new agent
Speaker 2: to help him find fake winners, so he tries partnering
Speaker 2: with a few other morally compromised men in the southern
Speaker 2: eastern United States. None of them really have it like
Speaker 2: that mobster. A Lumba right until he meets Andrew Glom.
Speaker 2: G l Omb Glam. He was a professional gambler and
Speaker 2: a former cocaine smuggler.
Speaker 3: Perfect, absolutely perfect? Did he is that? How he met?
Speaker 3: They met like a bus stop and he was like, Hi,
Speaker 3: I'm Andy. I used to smuggle coke? What's your name?
Speaker 2: In eighty three and while he was out on bail,
Speaker 2: he fled to Europe, stayed there for sixteen months, and
Speaker 2: then eventually gets caught, sent back to America, does prison,
Speaker 2: does his twelve year stretch inside, and once he gets free,
Speaker 2: that's when he meets Uncle Jerry at a dinner party
Speaker 2: in Atlanta.
Speaker 3: Oh my god, who's dinner party?
Speaker 2: What's that that?
Speaker 3: So that's a good question.
Speaker 2: So Uncle Jerry and Glam they go into business now
Speaker 2: finding new fake winners. Instead of picking trusted confidants the
Speaker 2: way Colombo had, or picking family members the way Jerry did,
Speaker 2: Glom picked his former associates in the drug smuggling.
Speaker 3: Business because they want they want to be have the
Speaker 3: spotlight on it.
Speaker 2: You probably imagine how that played out Nald's commercials.
Speaker 3: Oh my god, they're just like rubbing their noses, like
Speaker 3: all of them.
Speaker 2: We put the next year, in nineteen ninety nine, one
Speaker 2: of McDonald's monopoly million dollars winners was a junior gangster
Speaker 2: who ran a numbers recket out of an Italian restaurant
Speaker 2: in Pittsburgh. So he was smuggling four hundred pounds of cocaine.
Speaker 2: So now this is his big comeback. So there he is,
Speaker 2: like the leather jacket, their slick back hair, just total
Speaker 2: dirt bag in it. So over time, Uncle Jerry gave
Speaker 2: glom eight different million dollar winning game pieces to hand
Speaker 2: out to his dirtbag associates. Eight of them.
Speaker 3: Well, you know, he gets the big thing, and McDonald's
Speaker 3: is like, we're not gonna do when's the press conference.
Speaker 2: He's like, they run national ads and they're like in
Speaker 2: People magazine. It's crazy. So McDonald's has all these goombog
Speaker 2: gangster it just happened to be really big McDonald's eaters. Meanwhile,
Speaker 2: Jerry is still handing out lesser prizes to the people
Speaker 2: in his own life. For instance, his psychic who was
Speaker 2: also his kind.
Speaker 3: Of wait wait wait wait.
Speaker 2: No, it's better than that. His psychic was also his chiropractor.
Speaker 3: Stop it, no, you stop this. Are you just pulling
Speaker 3: these out of a bag. Do you have like a
Speaker 3: crown royal bag full of crazy paper with crazy like
Speaker 3: magnetic tiles, refrigerator, psychic chiro.
Speaker 2: He gave a second chiropractor a fifty thousand dollars instant
Speaker 2: winter in exchange for some psychic readings and body alignments. No,
Speaker 2: and get this, Elizabeth. His psychic chiropractor couldn't see that
Speaker 2: Uncle Jerry's good fortune was about to change.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 2: I remember how Colombo died from that really bad car accident. Right,
Speaker 2: that family wasn't convinced that his wife, Robin didn't have
Speaker 2: something to do with it, because she survived. She's in
Speaker 2: the car.
Speaker 3: Was it like a Tony and Christopher?
Speaker 2: That's what she was. That's what the family's thinking. So
Speaker 2: they cut her off. After Colombo passes then, which means
Speaker 2: she gets, you know, to keep living a good life,
Speaker 2: she has to turn to pulling forgery jobs, credit card fraud,
Speaker 2: insurance fraud. She's not good at it. She gets caught,
Speaker 2: she goes to prison. Oh well, she's inside. The Columbo
Speaker 2: family takes care of her son, Frankie, who is their grandson. Yeah,
Speaker 2: but when she gets out of prison, she wants her
Speaker 2: son back. And as she put it, Frankie was their
Speaker 2: first grandson. And you know how Sicilians are, sure we
Speaker 2: all do. So it's no surprise to me that after
Speaker 2: Robin tries to cut off contact with the Colombos and
Speaker 2: then they have to take her son, and then she
Speaker 2: gets out of prison and she wants her son back
Speaker 2: and she tries to cut off contact again. I don't know,
Speaker 2: they tried to take the grandson away from her, and
Speaker 2: then she's like trying to fight this. And then suddenly
Speaker 2: somebody anonymously reports to the FBI that Robin's father, her
Speaker 2: best friend, her cousin had all won the McDonald's monopoly game.
Speaker 2: Sure was a lucky.
Speaker 3: Family af rely very lucky.
Speaker 2: So in March to two thousand, the FBI launches an investigation.
Speaker 2: By this point, there was a new game show on
Speaker 2: TV that also gave that million dollar priz It's called
Speaker 2: Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? So the FBI named
Speaker 2: their investigation Final.
Speaker 3: Answer Stop itah so good.
Speaker 2: Especially Agent Richard Dent was on the case right working
Speaker 2: with the nationwide team FBI agent's helping him chase down
Speaker 2: every lead and investigating all these million dollar winners dating
Speaker 2: back all the way through the nineties. Meanwhile, Uncle Jerry
Speaker 2: still busy minting new millionaires as fast as he can.
Speaker 2: So after a year, flash forward to July of two
Speaker 2: thousand and one, McDonald's informs the FBI that they're about
Speaker 2: to launch the second of their bi annual McDonald's Monopoly games.
Speaker 2: Because they know about the FBI's investigation, they're working with them.
Speaker 2: The folks a corporate They want to cancel the game
Speaker 2: since they know it's rigged, and it's only a matter
Speaker 2: of time before the news comes out and McDonald's gonna
Speaker 2: have a pr nightmare. But the FBI is like, hey,
Speaker 2: do one more game and we'll bust whoever's behind it soon.
Speaker 2: We prompt it'll all be over. CEO McDonald's has to
Speaker 2: make up their mind. He's like, let me think it over.
Speaker 2: Eventually he's like, okay, sure, let's let's do it. So
Speaker 2: the fast food Giant runs the new Monopoly game right
Speaker 2: before single winner is announced. Uncle Jerry managed it to
Speaker 2: steal both of the million dollar instant Winter games. He
Speaker 2: hands over one to his partner, the former cocaine smuggler Glom,
Speaker 2: and he gave the other instant winner to a friend
Speaker 2: of who had had some hard times and could really
Speaker 2: use the money, right, And he's like, so his friend's
Speaker 2: able to get like seventy grand together, and he buys.
Speaker 3: The winning game in the Southeast.
Speaker 2: Yes. Total. Meanwhile, the FBI is on the case, right,
Speaker 2: So thanks to wiretaps, they're now following Glom, the cocaine smuggler,
Speaker 2: and Uncle Jerry. So the FBI follows Uncle Jerry to
Speaker 2: a small town called Corbin, Kentucky, where the agents watch
Speaker 2: him meet up with the new fake winner, this guy
Speaker 2: Dwight Baker. His sister in law had already had a
Speaker 2: five hundred thousand dollars instant winner. So now the FBI
Speaker 2: is watching Baker and Uncle Jerry get this a McDonald's bag,
Speaker 2: nice cute touch inside is the seventy grand. In return,
Speaker 2: Jerry hands him the million dollar winner. So the FBI
Speaker 2: watches it. They're like, okay, good to rights. Yeah, the
Speaker 2: Baker passes a ticket off to a trusted confidant who
Speaker 2: lives in Texas, right who then you know, they contact
Speaker 2: McDonald's to inform them of their good luck. Folks from
Speaker 2: McDonald's corporate call the FBI. They're like, and the FBI
Speaker 2: is like, is the new winner? On Davis from Granbury, Texas.
Speaker 2: They're like, whoa, you guys are good. The McDonald's court
Speaker 2: people are totally impressed. The g men had been clocking
Speaker 2: it all with their wire taps. They'd figured it all out.
Speaker 2: So now they set their trap right. Not only do
Speaker 2: they plan to celebrate the latest million dollar winter, but
Speaker 2: they tell them that we're gonna invite all the previous
Speaker 2: winners to Las Vegas for a winners reunion.
Speaker 3: Oh my god, this is so good.
Speaker 2: But the FBI is like, no, no, man, that'll probably
Speaker 2: tip our hands. They're gonna talk, they're gonna think that
Speaker 2: they know each other too obvious. So instead they focus
Speaker 2: on the new winner that came forward, the one that
Speaker 2: glom the former cocaine smuggler head selection. So they set
Speaker 2: up a commercial shoot featuring this latest lucky winner. The
Speaker 2: man's name is Michael Hoover. He's from producer D's home
Speaker 2: state of Rhode Island. So August third, two thousand and one,
Speaker 2: film crew shows up in Westerly, Rhode Island. Right they
Speaker 2: arrived with one of those giant checks to be featured
Speaker 2: in the commercial. Cameras are rolling. They knock on the
Speaker 2: door of a town ass the home of the new winner,
Speaker 2: this fifty six year old bachelor who also happens to
Speaker 2: be a recently bankrupt casino pit boss. The big Lucky
Speaker 2: writer Michael Hoop. The cameras rolling the folks from McDonald's
Speaker 2: corporate hand Michael the giant check, and they asked him
Speaker 2: to tell us about yours, you know, the stroke of
Speaker 2: luck for you winning the monopoly millions. Right, Hoover tell
Speaker 2: us some cock of amy story. Once again, another child's
Speaker 2: lie about how he was. You know I was. I
Speaker 2: was sleeping on the beach. Stop No, but I woke up.
Speaker 2: I went down to the water's edge to like, you know,
Speaker 2: wipe the sand from me, and he stooped over and
Speaker 2: my copy of People magazine dropped into the water right
Speaker 2: there in the Atlantic. Me being an avid read of
Speaker 2: People Magazine, I went to a grocery store and I
Speaker 2: got myself a fresh copy. So would you know inside
Speaker 2: of that it's the second copy of People. I find
Speaker 2: the instant win a game piece. What luck? That's his story? What? Yes,
Speaker 2: it was in.
Speaker 3: A copy of People magazine.
Speaker 2: Because remember it's a sweepstake. So in this case, they
Speaker 2: had put him out because they.
Speaker 3: Had game pieces in the.
Speaker 2: Most recent People.
Speaker 3: Why do we have to hear?
Speaker 2: So the folks from McDonald's corporate, they're trying to keep
Speaker 2: straight faces as he tells his obvious lie. So is
Speaker 2: the film crew. It turns out the film crew is
Speaker 2: also undercover FBI agents. It's incredible a week and a
Speaker 2: half later, satisfied that they have great courtroom evidence now,
Speaker 2: especially because they have this fake commercial filmed and you
Speaker 2: know Jerry's love that that kind of stuff. The sting operation,
Speaker 2: this is great. With the pig check and the People
Speaker 2: magazine form in the Atlantic to the FBI. They make
Speaker 2: their move. And you know how the FBI they love
Speaker 2: to show up at your front door for a pre
Speaker 2: dawn raid and catch you sleeping. Well, that's how they
Speaker 2: grabbed Uncle Jerry.
Speaker 3: Knock knock knock.
Speaker 2: They let him out of his house in his handcuffs
Speaker 2: to embarrass him in front of all his neighbors, right
Speaker 2: and instead, then they go and they arrest the five
Speaker 2: most recent fraudulent winners. And then also they arrest Jerry's partner,
Speaker 2: the former cocaine smuggler glom All. In all, fifty defendants
Speaker 2: were arrested as part of this FBI's case fifty. When
Speaker 2: the news breaks on this Elizabeth, it's huge national news.
Speaker 2: The Attorney General at the time, John Ashcar and now
Speaker 2: the news of the FBI bus. He informs the press
Speaker 2: that those involved in this type of corruption will find
Speaker 2: out that breaking the law is no game. How long
Speaker 2: do you think he worked on that line up?
Speaker 3: A workshop that at home for a very long time.
Speaker 2: Now, while we're talking about John Ashcroft's abundant creativity, do
Speaker 2: you remember John Ashcroft's song Let the Eagle Soar?
Speaker 3: I do? I also remember how the statues of Justice
Speaker 3: he didn't like that they were bare breasted in the
Speaker 3: severed and fabric.
Speaker 2: Do you know he also had a music group when
Speaker 2: he was a US senator. I'm no surprise, barbershop quartet.
Speaker 2: They were called Good Lord the Singing Senators. You want
Speaker 2: to guess who was in the Singing Senators? It was
Speaker 2: John Ashcroft. He sang baritone, Larry Craig he sang lead,
Speaker 2: Jim Jefferts was the tenor, and Trent Lott sang bass.
Speaker 3: Wow Wow.
Speaker 2: They're known for their barbershop quartet redition of the Oakridge
Speaker 2: Boys hit song Elvi. They sang it at the Kennedy Center.
Speaker 2: They also sang it on the Today Shows sickening. The
Speaker 2: group broke up in two thousand and seven after Senator
Speaker 2: Larry Craig include contact and solicitation of sex in a
Speaker 2: Minneapolis airport men's room tapping. Yeah exactly. He was busted
Speaker 2: by an undercover cop and due to the scandal, he
Speaker 2: had resigned office.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Anyway, remember how Uncle Jerry gave that million dollar ticket
Speaker 2: to Saint Jude's Children's Possible and he thought, if I
Speaker 2: ever get busted, that will help me out. Yeah, it
Speaker 2: did not, Elizabeth. He was looking at forty five years
Speaker 2: behind bars. If he ever got out of prison, he'd
Speaker 2: be one hundred and four years old. Right, So in staid,
Speaker 2: he cuts a deal, right, He agrees to plead guilty
Speaker 2: and receives a sentence of fifteen years behind bars. Of course,
Speaker 2: he loses everything. He loses his home, his like front property,
Speaker 2: his classic car collection, he loses it all wall in court,
Speaker 2: Uncle Jerry confessed it. Over the course of his career
Speaker 2: as a Monopoly game fixer, he handed out sixty winning
Speaker 2: game pieces worth twenty four million dollars. And that's how
Speaker 2: Uncle Jerry aka Heraldo Constantino gets busted for rigging the
Speaker 2: McDonald's monopoly game. And get this. Of the reason why
Speaker 2: this story got memory hold and a lot of people
Speaker 2: have never heard of it is that the FBI's court
Speaker 2: case began on September tenth, two thousand and one, you're kidding,
Speaker 2: one day before nine to eleven. So the story gets
Speaker 2: lost in the news. It pales in comparison to the
Speaker 2: birth of the new post nine world.
Speaker 3: Keep happening, you keep hearing these things. That's wild.
Speaker 2: I should point out the McDonald's did agree to honor
Speaker 2: the winning ticket that Uncle Jerry gave to Saint Jude's
Speaker 2: Children Hospital, so that's good and good and the actually
Speaker 2: they didn't even really play it up for pr but
Speaker 2: some people did find out that McDonald it was just
Speaker 2: to say it was like a good karma, right yeah.
Speaker 2: But still people found out that McDonald's have been running
Speaker 2: a rig game, but none of their customers had a
Speaker 2: chance of winning for twice a year for at least
Speaker 2: six years. That is what's a ridiculous takeaway here.
Speaker 3: Oh my god, if you're gonna crime like I don't know,
Speaker 3: you can't. You can't spread it out that wide. And
Speaker 3: if you are gonna if you have to spread it,
Speaker 3: you can't like you cannot, and don't go to a
Speaker 3: psychic Kira, don't go to a chiropractor, but especially his
Speaker 3: psychic carap ridiculous tackling.
Speaker 2: Oh man, I think that he should have stayed with
Speaker 2: the mob and not gone to the B level like
Speaker 2: cocaine smugglers. I think they're just messy glom Definitely. I
Speaker 2: think if you would have stayed with the Colombo crime family,
Speaker 2: they either they would have whacked him when it was like, oh,
Speaker 2: we're gonna run into trouble, this is gonna be bad news,
Speaker 2: and then all of a sudden Fi is like, oh
Speaker 2: her main suspect is gone or you know, I think
Speaker 2: that you know, that would be where I think he
Speaker 2: made his mistake. And also the other one is try
Speaker 2: to limit who you talk to in airports because you
Speaker 2: end up in a scenario. Absolutely, so you in the
Speaker 2: moved for a talkback. We can watch this all down
Speaker 2: like a nice tall soda.
Speaker 3: Um.
Speaker 2: Yes, PRIs, can you favor us with one? Oh my god,
Speaker 2: did you just see the.
Speaker 3: Helled?
Speaker 6: Hello Sarn Elizabeth and producer Dee. This is Hannah. I
Speaker 6: am a new listener, really enjoying the show, and I
Speaker 6: just listened to the college Football Pranks episode and that
Speaker 6: reminded me. You know what's ridiculous. My grandmother once stole
Speaker 6: the Washington State University's mascot, which is a live cougar.
Speaker 6: She and her friends drove down from Gonzaga University, picked
Speaker 6: up the cougar, brought it back with them to Gonzaga,
Speaker 6: and once they sobered up, thought better of it and
Speaker 6: took it back. This is allegedly all true, or so
Speaker 6: it says, Grandma.
Speaker 2: Your grandma Mountain Lion.
Speaker 3: Aha. That's incredible, amazing, amazing, so good.
Speaker 2: Props to grandma.
Speaker 3: Right, that was excellent, Oh my god, thank you for that.
Speaker 3: Come from a long line of amazing women.
Speaker 2: It sounds like, well, thank you for listening. Always. You
Speaker 2: can find us online at Ridiculous Crime on social media,
Speaker 2: and now we have our Ridiculous Crime Pod on YouTube,
Speaker 2: so go check that out. It's they're awesome. It's fun
Speaker 2: to watch or listen. And also we have our website,
Speaker 2: Ridiculous Crime dot com. And of course you know we
Speaker 2: love your talkback, so go to the iHeart app downloaded
Speaker 2: record one and maybe hear your voice here. We'd love
Speaker 2: to hear it also email us if you want a
Speaker 2: Ridiculous Crime at gmail dot com. We do love your
Speaker 2: story suggestions and there you go. That's all I got
Speaker 2: for you. Thanks for listening, and we will catch you
Speaker 2: next crime. Ridiculous Crime is hosted by Elizabeth Dutton and
Speaker 2: Zarin Brenette, produced and edited by the Singing Senator sound
Speaker 2: engineer Dave Houston, and starring Annalys Rutger as Judith. Research
Speaker 2: is by Burger King loyalists Marissa Brown and Jabari Davis.
Speaker 2: Our theme song is by our resident house band, Ronald
Speaker 2: and the McDonald's aka Thomas Lee and Travis Dutton. The
Speaker 2: host wardrobe provided by Botany five hundred guest Haaron, makeup
Speaker 2: by Barcleshot and mister Andre. Executive producers are the lead
Speaker 2: vocalists of the Men's Choir for the Church of the
Speaker 2: Fuzzy Bunnies, Ben Bolin and Blen Brown.
Speaker 1: Gus Cry Say It one More Times Cry. Ridiculous Crime
Speaker 1: is a production of iHeartRadio four more podcasts. My Heart
Speaker 1: Radio visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
Speaker 1: listen to your favorite shows.