S01.E06: Episode 6

[Guest]

Airs March 9, 2019/Series finale

Quote

As the trial nears, any of the defendants take plea deals, but George Chandler and others decide to fight to prove their innocence; when Jerome "Jerry" Jacobson takes the stand, the remaining details of how he pulled off his scheme are disclosed.

 

[DoctorAtomic]

Fucking finally. 

[link417]

The best part was finding out the mother-in-law was the informant.

The editors are some shady bastards: The update card could have said Jerry was living with his “current” wife, but nooo, it had to say his “7th wife.” 🤣

[CeeBeeGee]

Good God, what a hot fucking mess the Columbo family is. I feel really bad for that kid, and can completely understand his aversion to negativity and drama. But literally everyone else is a dysfunctional bag of drama and grudges.

I go back and forth on whether or not George Chandler should've been prosecuted. Mostly I think he was a victim as well, because he didn't know about the game fraud--but the prosecuting attorney made a very good point that as far as George knew, he was helping to hide assets that a divorcing spouse should've known about.

The brother became best buddies with the prosecuting attorney???? I'm just shaking my head here.

Gumb is scum. "Tomorrow." Yeah, you pretty much learned nothing. Trash is trash, I guess.

[Guest]

They really could have cut out three or four episodes and made a much stronger show. Oddly almost everyone was more likeable in this episode once they stopped trying to drag out the story. 

The reveal of how he did it was anticlimactic after the buildup. Seemed like it was going to be some brilliant scheme and it ended up just being a random fluke that allowed him to do it. 

21 minutes ago, CeeBeeGee said:

I go back and forth on whether or not George Chandler should've been prosecuted. Mostly I think he was a victim as well, because he didn't know about the game fraud--but the prosecuting attorney made a very good point that as far as George knew, he was helping to hide assets that a divorcing spouse should've known about.

True but he can’t be charged with the crime he thought he was committing. It seems like what he actually did wrong isn’t something that the law is setup to punish.

I do find it unfair that some who made deals are still paying restitution while those that fought do not have to pay back the money. I wonder if McDonald’s could have went after Chandler and the others who had their convictions overturned in civil court. 

[Jextella]

This story is amazing, and the documentary makers did such a great job with it.  They brought the whole thing full circle with the final espisode.

Random thoughts....

• I wonder if Robin and Ma Colombo are still close after tonight's episode!
• My heart breaks for Gloria Brown.  I heard she is writing a book about her ordeal.
• In the end, I actually really like Robin.  She's feisty as hell and made all sorts of wrong life choices, but it seems she only knows how to live a chaotic and turbulent life.
• Devereaux seems as if he walked off of some Hollywood movie set in the 70's or something.  I'm dating myself here, but he's a mix of Dennis Weaver from Gunsmoke and James Garner from the Rockford Files (and to my tastes, very attractive).
• I think Devereaux and Mathews have equal amounts of charisma - just different flavors.

One nagging question...

• How come Frank and Heather Colombo weren't allowed to be part of Frankie's life?  It seems they were ostracized by the Columbo family, but we aren't told why.

McMillions "players" together at Sundance!  Another incredulous moment.

https://www.zimbio.com/photos/Rob+Holm/2020+Sundance+Film+Festival+McMillion+Premiere/g9frIe8rDcz

 

Edited March 10, 2020 by Jextella

[Annber03]

1 hour ago, link417 said:

The best part was finding out the mother-in-law was the informant.

The editors are some shady bastards: The update card could have said Jerry was living with his “current” wife, but nooo, it had to say his “7th wife.” 🤣

My eyes bugged out at the "seventh wife" bit :p.

I feel like it should've been so obvious to me that it was a relative who blew the whistle, given the talk in prior episodes about the family drama. Lord knows I've seen plenty of true crime shows where family members will go to all kinds of desperate means to get custody of children, so it's only natural that'd be a motive here. But even so, yeah, that's one hell of a twist. 

And then Frank's son working for McDonald's now. I can't even. That's amazing. 

1 hour ago, CeeBeeGee said:

Gumb is scum. "Tomorrow." Yeah, you pretty much learned nothing. Trash is trash, I guess.

I'm not surprised. This is the same guy who went from getting out of jail over drug charges right into this whole fraud scheme, so yeah. I can totally buy he'd do it all again. 

6 minutes ago, Jextella said:

My heart breaks for Gloria Brown.  I heard she is writing a book about her ordeal.

In the end, I actually really like Robin.  She's feisty as hell and made all sorts of wrong life choices, but it seems she only knows how to live a chaotic and turbulent life.

I'm so glad Gloria didn't wind up serving any jail time. I was hoping she'd get one of the lighter sentences. I like that she and Robin met up again-I feel like she'd be a good, stable presence for Robin. I could see them becoming good friends. 

I'm also very surprised that Robin has managed to rekindle a relationship with Columbo's family, given all that's happened. For the kids' sake, though, I think that's a good thing, so I hope that they can manage to continue healing those old wounds with time, and can find some kind of peace with each other. 

Quote

Devereaux seems as if he walked off of some Hollywood movie set in the 70's or something.  I'm dating myself here, but he's a mix of Dennis Weaver from Gunsmoke and James Garner from the Rockford Files (and to my tastes, very attractive).

He really does, yeah! It was very interesting to hear the arguments from both the prosecution and the defense regarding this case, and how seriously one should treat it. I mean, yeah, as far as fraud-related crimes go, it may not be the most serious crime ever committed, no, and for the most part, I think the sentences all involved got were to be expected. But since there were federal laws being broken, and since the mob was involved, and since a lot of people were negatively impacted in some form or another, some in particularly notable ways*,  yeah, clearly something had to be done about all of it. 

*I get why they had to shut down the businesses, but that really, really sucks that all those employees at Simon Marketing and Ditler Bros. lost their jobs as a result of all of this. I don't blame any of those people for being pissed, and feeling like the people who orchestrated it should serve more time. They had no part in this scheme at all and they still got screwed over. I hope Jacobsen does actually feel some remorse, but yes, even if he does, it'd sure mean a hell of a lot more if he weren't living his cushy lifestyle. I know he's paying restitution, but still. 

As for Dwight, well, that answers my question about whether or not anyone from his church had heard about this story. Ex-communicated, dang. 

It was nice to see Doug having a few sincere and reflective comments at the end here, too, and see his genuine sympathy for some of the people who were impacted.

Absolutely fascinating story, this. 

[DrSpaceman73]

I still disagree about George Chandler and agree with the prosecuting attorney.  I don't care if he knew about the larger conspiracy or not, he was still trying to hide assets in a divorce and he knew it was not his game piece.  It was still fraud.  But its not a huge deal.  He was a small part of the larger picture but him playing the innocent victim just doesn't sit well with me. 

Generally I can't believe all these people got off so light and it sounds like none of them regret what the did except the African American woman.  And she never really benefited anyway.  I still don't think she made any money off this and may have lost money.  And she is having to pay "restitutution" for not getting anything out of it.  I feel worse for her than George Chandler. 

So now the question becomes who sent those extra stickers to Uncle Jerry to replace on the envelopes.  I still think his ex wife was involved somehow.  And he gets 3 years?  That's it?  He did have to pay $12 million back but still, 3 years is a drop in the bucket. 

I think they all just got lucky that 911 happened, after that I think it all just lost steam and nobody cared as much, this case seemed much smaller after that. 

Dwight is an arrogant dick.  Don't care he was ex-communicated from the church.  Trying to claim "I didn't know the tickets were stolen!!"  Come on, he knew.  How did he think Uncle Jerry got these things. 

I feel worst for the companies and jobs lost out of all this.  They didn't have anything to do with it. 

[Msample]

Whoever decided Red Robin should receive so much air time should be sentenced to some sort of prison time. Ugh.

[PhilMarlowe2]

I kind of feel bad for Chandler but am also in the camp that the dude was lying. I mean, he knew he was pretending to win a contest that he didn't actually win. On some level, you have to know that if you're forking over money in secret, helping someone hide assets and pretending to be something you're not (with $1,000,000 on the line) that you're doing something shady. I think it's naive at best for him to maintain that he was some innocent victim in all of this.

That aside, are we just accepting Frank's claim that Ma Colombo was the informant? What about Robin's claim that it was Frank? What happened to that? Why would Frank rat out his own mother? Something seemed off to me about the final revelation.

[Guest]

1 hour ago, PhilMarlowe2 said:

That aside, are we just accepting Frank's claim that Ma Colombo was the informant? What about Robin's claim that it was Frank? What happened to that? Why would Frank rat out his own mother? Something seemed off to me about the final revelation.

I’m not. According to the first episode and the Daily Beast story the tip and early investigation focused on Uncle Jerry. Frank said that his mother only gave them Robin, Robin’s father and Gloria but that doesn’t match what the FBI said. Agent Matthews said it was the names of three million dollar winners and Uncle Jerry.
 
It’s not as sensational but the FBI agent who said it was a disgruntled non-participant is probably the one who is telling the truth. 

1 hour ago, PhilMarlowe2 said:

 

I kind of feel bad for Chandler but am also in the camp that the dude was lying. I mean, he knew he was pretending to win a contest that he didn't actually win. On some level, you have to know that if you're forking over money in secret, helping someone hide assets and pretending to be something you're not (with $1,000,000 on the line) that you're doing something shady. I think it's naive at best for him to maintain that he was some innocent victim in all of this.

I don’t feel bad for him because like you and others have said he was perfectly willing to screw over a women he didn’t even know and to lie repeatedly about winning the money. I can sort of understand agreeing to claim the prize because it a life changing opportunity but Chandler also agreed to do the promotional stuff. I’m always going to side-eye someone who is willing to lie repeatedly like that. Particularly when compared to Gloria is was extremely nervous and guilty the entire time. 

However none of that is criminal so I do think he is innocent of the crime he was charged with even if he’s still shady as hell. 
 

Edited March 10, 2020 by Guest

[Annber03]

7 hours ago, DrSpaceman73 said:

So now the question becomes who sent those extra stickers to Uncle Jerry to replace on the envelopes. 

That part of the story was crazy. What luck, indeed. 

[Mr. R0b0t]

I'm here to eat all my crow....It was the flight attendant!  Or Frank's mom!?

Edited March 11, 2020 by Mr. R0b0t

[biakbiak]

20 hours ago, DrSpaceman73 said:

now the question becomes who sent those extra stickers to Uncle Jerry to replace on the envelopes.  I

The extra stickers weren’t hard to get because they weren’t worth anything. The only ones that were under security measures were the winning tickets.

[Quilt Fairy]

11 hours ago, biakbiak said:

The extra stickers weren’t hard to get because they weren’t worth anything. The only ones that were under security measures were the winning tickets.

This is from the Daily Beast article:

Quote

Not long afterward, Jacobson opened a package sent to him by mistake from a supplier in Hong Kong. Inside he found a set of the anti-tamper seals for the game-piece envelopes—the only thing he needed to steal game pieces en route to the factory.

Presumably, the anti-tamper seals have at least the company's name on them.  They wouldn't have gone to the extraordinary lengths they did to print and distribute the winning tickets in a secure manner  and then use blank seals you could buy at OfficeMax. 

I found Jacobsen's 3 year sentence extremely disappointing.  His other scam (that he had MS and didn't have long to live) must have worked on the judge.  It seems he's doing well 15+ years later. 

[biakbiak]

4 minutes ago, Quilt Fairy said:

Presumably, the anti-tamper seals have at least the company's name on them.  They wouldn't have gone to the extraordinary lengths they did to print and distribute the winning tickets in a secure manner  and then use blank seals you could buy at OfficeMax. 

Sorry by stickers I meant the extra play pieces that he put into the envelope to replace the winning tickets which were also stickers not the anti-tamper seals. They showed him accidentally receiving the anti-tamper seals in this episode.

Edited March 11, 2020 by biakbiak

[rmontro]

On 3/10/2020 at 12:11 AM, link417 said:

The best part was finding out the mother-in-law was the informant.

They sure took a roundabout way of revealing that.  Heightened the mystery, I guess.  Made sense in the end that the motivation was revenge and fighting over a grandson.  Amazing that she and Robin ended up being close.  Sometimes humans can be more forgiving than we give them credit for.

 

On 3/10/2020 at 1:16 AM, Dani said:

I do find it unfair that some who made deals are still paying restitution while those that fought do not have to pay back the money. I wonder if McDonald’s could have went after Chandler and the others who had their convictions overturned in civil court. 

Our legal system is screwy.  I guess some would say it isn't perfect, but it's the best we have.  I'm sure McDonalds could have sued them, but they probably wanted to put it all behind them.  Oddly, McDonalds isn't that big of a victim here.  I feel worse for the customers who thought they had a chance of winning, and the people from that printing company who all lost their jobs.

 

18 minutes ago, Quilt Fairy said:

I found Jacobsen's 3 year sentence extremely disappointing.  His other scam (that he had MS and didn't have long to live) must have worked on the judge.

If you would have told me at the start that the longest sentence in the whole case would be three years, I would have been very surprised.  Funny how you can steal 25 million dollars and only get three years.  

The legal arguments were interesting.  How the winners didn't technically know the tickets were stolen (but the jury convicted them anyway).  Obviously the judge took that into account when giving out the relatively lenient sentences.  Robin got the most time (aside from Jacobson) because she was already in prison for another crime.  

Amazing that Deveraux and Marvin (Uncle Jerry's step-brother) ended up being good friends.  Truth really is stranger than fiction.

This was an enjoyable documentary, but I thought it could have been put together in a more coherent way.  It was confusing at times.  I probably would have done better binge watching them all together instead of watching one episode a week as they were released.  Because I'm sure I had forgotten details from the first episode by the time I was watching the last.

[marny]

This documentary should have been at least 2 episodes shorter. The story itself is interesting, but it got incredibly redundant and long-winded. Actually it would probably be better as a podcast than a visual documentary since it relied so heavily on actor re-enactments and b-roll type shots since they didn't have very much video footage of anything important.

[opus]

21 hours ago, rmontro said:

Amazing that Deveraux and Marvin (Uncle Jerry's step-brother) ended up being good friends.  Truth really is stranger than fiction.

It was kinda worth the six hours just for that twist alone.

[DoctorAtomic]

Yes ok, you didn't 'know' the pieces were stolen. 

I missed something. I don't recall Jerry carrying the tickets in a briefcase. I thought it was in the truck age then they flew there. 

Edited March 13, 2020 by DoctorAtomic

[DoctorAtomic]

On 3/9/2020 at 10:37 PM, CeeBeeGee said:

Gumb is scum. "Tomorrow." Yeah, you pretty much learned nothing. Trash is trash, I guess.

Yeah but I liked him because he dgaf. The others all tried to rationalize their bullshit. He most did not. 

Even Gloria. She thought she deserved the money. 

Edited March 13, 2020 by DoctorAtomic

[DoctorAtomic]

On 3/10/2020 at 6:00 AM, DrSpaceman73 said:

He was a small part of the larger picture but him playing the innocent victim just doesn't sit well with me. 

Yeah, that aw shucks attitude wasn't working with me. He knew it wasn't legit. That's your church for you though. 

I'm having a tough time that it's the mother in law given that none of the agents confirmed and she couldn't have known the full picture. 

Overall, I'm not impressed with the narrative of the documentary. They just had all these people and wire taps seemingly out of no where, and not nearly enough time was doesn't on the case. 

Maybe because each episode was so fractured. 

 

 

[rmontro]

22 hours ago, DoctorAtomic said:

Yeah, that aw shucks attitude wasn't working with me. He knew it wasn't legit. 

Well, he thought he was helping a guy hide the money from his soon to be ex-wife, because he was going through a divorce.  I thought it was interesting that they brought that up.  The prosecutors said that was a sleazy thing to do, but the defense pointed out there really was no wife.  So there was an imaginary victim there.  But I do believe that he (out of the whole bunch) did not know the ticket was stolen.  What he thought he was doing was shady, but I don't think he thought the ticket was stolen.

[Johnny Dollar]

I don’t ask for much, but I would like a show about Agent Doug, and I would like the show to be called “Agent Doug” and I would like Agent Doug to be played by Timothy Simons. 

Edited March 15, 2020 by Johnny Dollar

[Guest]

10 hours ago, Johnny Dollar said:

I don’t ask for much, but I would like a show about Agent Dan, and I would like the show to be called “Agent Dan” and I would like Agent Dan to be played by Timothy Simons. 

Who’s Agent Dan? I can’t remember anyone with that name. Unless you mean Agent Dent. 

Edited March 14, 2020 by Guest

[Johnny Dollar]

8 hours ago, Dani said:

Who’s Agent Dan? I can’t remember anyone with that name. Unless you mean Agent Dent. 

Oops!  I meant Agent Doug. 

[Tdoc72]

On 3/10/2020 at 2:20 AM, Annber03 said:

hope Jacobsen does actually feel some remorse, but yes, even if he does, it'd sure mean a hell of a lot more if he weren't living his cushy lifestyle. I know he's paying restitution, but still. 

 

On 3/10/2020 at 8:00 AM, DrSpaceman73 said:

.  And he gets 3 years?  That's it?  He did have to pay $12 million back but still, 3 years is a drop in the bucket. 

He’s probably laughing all the way to the bank....or wherever he hid his money. Restitution of $12 million at $370 a month. Sure he’s been paying since he got out of jail in 2005 but he’ll never even get close to $12 mill. He’s paid roughly $64,000 (based on number of months out of jail).  One article said he’s in his late 70s and in declining health. How many months could he even have left in his life? 

 I agree w/those who said this should have been 2-4 episodes. 

I also really liked the Billy Joel song at the end credits. I’d never heard that one. 

[rmontro]

3 hours ago, Tdoc72 said:

One article said he’s in his late 70s and in declining health. How many months could he even have left in his life? 

Then Josh Gates will be on Expedition Unknown hunting for "Uncle Jerry's Treasure".  Ground penetrating radar, digging, the whole nine yards.

[meep.meep]

On 3/14/2020 at 6:56 PM, Johnny Dollar said:

Oops!  I meant Agent Doug. 

Too late!  Now we are getting a show about Agent Dan.  🙂

[Johnny Dollar]

I can’t believe he found a seventh wife to marry!  I guess at that age, having much of your hair and the ability to make left turns are worth something. 

[Robert Lynch]

On 3/16/2020 at 11:01 PM, Johnny Dollar said:

I can’t believe he found a seventh wife to marry!  I guess at that age, having much of your hair and the ability to make left turns are worth something. 

With the Covid-19 and Jacobson's MS diagnosis, he must be a higher risk right now.

[Black Knight]

On 3/10/2020 at 5:00 AM, DrSpaceman73 said:

I still think his ex wife was involved somehow. 

I really doubt that, because she would have been a major suspect due to her employer and connection to the ringleader. There's no way they didn't check her over top to bottom like they did the CPA, Hilda, who accompanied Uncle Jerry. But it's just not that hard to determine that neither she nor anyone in her circle benefited financially and so she wasn't involved. So in the end I think she's right that her ex did not tell her what he was doing because he knew she would blow the whistle.

I think this show works pretty well as a binge-watch, which is what I just finished. It's a little padded, but on the other hand I didn't really mind that because I got into the various people being interviewed. They were such characters!

I was relieved that Gloria did not have to serve time. And I don't know where she was being interviewed, but if it's her house like it was for most of the interviewees, she's doing well for herself now.

I'm glad Amy has risen to the senior management position she now holds at McDonald's. She seemed like such a trooper during all this.

AJ Glomb probably ended up being my favorite of all. His humor really cracked me up. Yes, he is a scumbag, but he's a charismatic scumbag.

I also really enjoyed Robin, and learning that she is regularly involved with her husband's family (aside from the brother-in-law, who apparently with his wife has been shut out of the family for years, wonder what that's about) makes sense of some of her interview tidbits from earlier in the season. For instance, when asked about Uncle Dominic's death and her reply of, "We don't talk about that." It also puts her naming Frank as the informant in a different light - like she was trying to point the finger away from her mother-in-law, at the relative who's on the outs with the family. I don't know if the mother-in-law really did it, but I'm guessing Robin at least understood that the Colombos look suspicious because all the family drama meant that Colombos had great motives for turning informant, especially her mother-in-law and brother-in-law, and so she directed it at Frank.

"It was Ma Colombo!" is certainly an amazing answer, but there's that family estrangement we never got any information about. Frank may just feel bitter towards his mother. Or maybe he truly believes it was her, but that doesn't mean that he's correct.

Apart from whatever's going on between Frank and the other Colombos, it was actually really nice to see some of the healing and connections others had.

[Black Knight]

Something that occurred to me this morning is, we do know that the informant came from the Jerry Colombo "group" of family members, lottery winners, and their close ones.

That's because the one name that the FBI confirmed they were given was that of "Uncle Jerry," and that is a name for Jerome Jacobsen that was only in use in the Jerry Colombo group. As Robin explained in a previous episode, Uncle was a title given to Jerry Jacobsen by her husband out of respect. It was not in use among the other recruiter groups.

I wonder if Robin was not just directing suspicion away from her mother-in-law, whom she wouldn't want to piss off for obvious reasons, but actually right. Frank and Ma Colombo do have the strongest motives to turn informant. Frank might have been pointing the finger at her not out of bitterness, but to cover up for himself.

We never got to hear from Ma Colombo directly, so we don't have much of a sense of what she's like as a person. Frank absolutely does seem like someone who would impulsively call the FBI. I really wish we knew why his family won't have anything to do with him. Seems like violating omerta is one of the few things that would get one cut off in a family like that. It might have been something where Frank thought it was okay because his brother was dead, but the rest of the family didn't agree, whether just out of general "principle" of omerta, or because they didn't like Jerry Colombo getting tagged for something even after death, or because so many people they knew ended up getting caught up in the maelstrom, or because while Robin obviously wasn't popular with the family back then she was still Jerry's widow and mother of his son. As Frank and his wife noted, the family let her live even though her driving got her husband killed because they believed it was accidental on her part, so they clearly weren't irrational haters.

[Tachi Rocinante]

Per the newspaper article they briefly showed, Chandler didn't even "win" his million from the Monopoly game.  It was from a different promotion.

[Hanahope]

So not fair how light Uncle Jerry got off, but so typical of white collar crimes.  Destroy people’s jobs, who cares?  But sell a few drugs and it’s 10 years in prison.

I heard Gloria wrote a book about the scam.  Hopefully it will sell and help her pay her restitution, more than she ever got from it.

On 3/12/2020 at 10:35 PM, DoctorAtomic said:

Yes ok, you didn't 'know' the pieces were stolen. 

I missed something. I don't recall Jerry carrying the tickets in a briefcase. I thought it was in the truck age then they flew there. 

the truck had all the regular pieces, some of which still had some value.  Jerry carried the 37 ‘high value’ winning tickets.  They both then went to the company that made the cups and fry boxes and applied the tickets there.
 

So the FBI initially only got a couple of names from the informant, but then how did they get the other winner names to connect familial relationships?  Google?  Or did McDonalds give out that info?

 

 

[lynxfx]

Is it just me or were the restitutions extremely low? The guy bankrupted two companies which caused who knows how many jobs. $24m stolen (although McDonald's never actually paid all that out) and all he has to pay is $370 a month? My car payments are twice that. He is only paying $4440 a year and since getting out has only paid $62k in the last 14 years. No wonder they say white collar crimes pay and that one guy said he would do it again tomorrow. 

Doc was decent in the beginning but I lost interest as the episodes lost focus. It really could have been told in a solid 2 hour doc. 

I remember playing so much in my high school years and with my friends. This was in the mid 90's. I always wondered about who actually won. I completely missed this case and the fact that it was rigged for all those years. In that regard it was good to see it brought back up. 

Edited April 11, 2020 by lynxfx

[pigs-in-space]

I just finished watching tonight and that was definitely a crazy ride.  Clearly the other employees at the marketing company and the printing company were the real victims here. 

I wavered between amusement and annoyance at Agent Matthews but in the end I settled on amusement. He reminded me of an overexcited puppy but he was funny and this might have been the most exciting case of his career. No wonder he wanted to brag - I would too! Although if he was the one who accidentally faxed that briefing to the newspaper...yikes! It would explain why his ride in the Cessna was so uncomfortable though!

I buy that Ma Colombo was the confidential informant. The timeline and her wanting to keep custody of her grandson makes sense. Maybe she told Robin Frank was the informant and that's part of the breach between them. Regardless none of them seemed like very pleasant people to be around so it doesn't surprise me they're not on speaking terms.

You can start to tell towards the end that they were really playing a bit fast and loose with the timeline. The Matthew Hoover interview was in early August 2001. Either this was a very short investigation or the filmmakers were moving stuff around to try and create a better story.

[Popples]

8 hours ago, pigs-in-space said:

I buy that Ma Colombo was the confidential informant. The timeline and her wanting to keep custody of her grandson makes sense. Maybe she told Robin Frank was the informant and that's part of the breach between them. Regardless none of them seemed like very pleasant people to be around so it doesn't surprise me they're not on speaking terms.

Yeah, I think she purposely kept Frank away so she could play everyone off of each other. Frank said that he wasn't allowed to be in his nephew Francisco's life while his own mother had custody of the boy. And now everybody gets to play at being one big happy family except Frank and his wife (and possibly their children) on the outskirts. That was all really weird to me.

[TV Diva Queen]

On 4/11/2020 at 12:27 AM, lynxfx said:

Is it just me or were the restitutions extremely low? The guy bankrupted two companies which caused who knows how many jobs. $24m stolen (although McDonald's never actually paid all that out) and all he has to pay is $370 a month? My car payments are twice that. He is only paying $4440 a year and since getting out has only paid $62k in the last 14 years. No wonder they say white collar crimes pay and that one guy said he would do it again tomorrow. 

Doc was decent in the beginning but I lost interest as the episodes lost focus. It really could have been told in a solid 2 hour doc. 

I remember playing so much in my high school years and with my friends. This was in the mid 90's. I always wondered about who actually won. I completely missed this case and the fact that it was rigged for all those years. In that regard it was good to see it brought back up. 

I think it’s all depends on how much you make. Similar to wage garnishments. I worked in legal for a medical center, 12k employees and I was always getting garnishment orders to fill out. There’s a specific formula I had to work with that came right from the court. 

Edited April 16, 2020 by TV Diva Queen

[nlkm9]

dishonesty obviously makes for poor aging, not to be mean but most of those people did not age well at all........its interesting how the news cycle work, 9/11 just blew the story into near obscurity and I having been an avid monoply mcdonalds player, never knew about this!!

[Jextella]

On 3/10/2020 at 7:36 AM, Msample said:

Whoever decided Red Robin should receive so much air time should be sentenced to some sort of prison time. Ugh.

I thought Robin was a great story teller.  

On 3/12/2020 at 12:12 PM, opus said:

It was kinda worth the six hours just for that twist alone.

I thought 6 episodes was perfect.  It fit the number of turns the case took and wrapped up the story nicely.  IMO, the documentary was assembled and presented in a way that fit the ludicrouse circumstances of it all.  It was as entertaining as it was informative - not a heady documentary by any means.

Edited June 10, 2020 by Jextella

[Carolina Girl]

On 4/10/2020 at 10:27 PM, lynxfx said:

Doc was decent in the beginning but I lost interest as the episodes lost focus. It really could have been told in a solid 2 hour doc. 

I'd be interested in the "American Greed" version.  It would be pretty tight.

[Kel Varnsen]

On 4/7/2020 at 10:45 PM, Hanahope said:

So the FBI initially only got a couple of names from the informant, but then how did they get the other winner names to connect familial relationships?  Google?  Or did McDonalds give out that info?

McDonalds knows who all the big winners are, so they just started digging into their lives. That was what the 1st or 2nd episode was about with the fake reunion. Then they had the winners call records and realized a lot of them were calling the same people.

On 3/11/2020 at 4:11 PM, rmontro said:

Robin got the most time (aside from Jacobson) because she was already in prison for another crime.  

Did they ever say what Robin was doing time for before the Monopoly case broke?

On 4/11/2020 at 1:27 AM, lynxfx said:

Is it just me or were the restitutions extremely low? The guy bankrupted two companies which caused who knows how many jobs. $24m stolen (although McDonald's never actually paid all that out) and all he has to pay is $370 a month? My car payments are twice that. He is only paying $4440 a year and since getting out has only paid $62k in the last 14 years. No wonder they say white collar crimes pay and that one guy said he would do it again tomorrow. 

Didn't they say they also seized a bunch of assets? Like I would hope if he used the cash he made to buy a giant house, he isn't still living in that house and only paying $370 a month.