“And I stumbled upon an article or a tagline that was a TIL: ‘Today I learned nobody really won the McDonald's Monopoly game.’”īut save for a local Jacksonville newspaper article, he couldn’t find much reporting about the case online. “I was laying in bed going through Reddit before I fall asleep, just killing time till I dozed off,” Hernandez says. (The story later gained wider attention in 2018, after it was the subject of a longform article for The Daily Beast by Jeff Maysh.) Still, he only learned of the little-covered crime via a trivia post on Reddit. “I loved that game as a kid, like most kids who grew up in the 90s,” says Hernandez, who worked under the golden arches in his first job after turning 16. It wasn’t until 2012 that McMillions co-director James Lee Hernandez first heard of the story, despite the fact that he was well-versed in the Monopoly promotion. Four had their convictions overturned.Įxplore To read the complete story at The Daily Beast, click here.The criminal trial that sprang out of this $24 million crime was, like many other stories ( remember Gary Condit?), understandably overshadowed by the September 11th terrorist attacks. Many received only probation and most were fined. Of the more than 50 defendants convicted of conspiracy and mail fraud, no other people than Jacobson were sentenced to more than a year and a day in jail. According to the Daily Beast story, he is in poor health. Jacobson was sentenced to 37 months in prison and ordered to repay $12.5 million. What happened to Jacobson and the others? Jacobson and the others involved in the scheme were arrested soon afterward. He notified McDonald’s that he had won the prize, but instead of getting his million dollars, he got arrested when, as part of the sting operation, two FBI agents showed up at his home pretending to be from McDonald’s documenting his win on camera. According to Hoover, that ticket was the winner. Hoover said he had purchased a People magazine and discovered an ad for an “Instant Win” game piece. The agency launched an investigation that unearthed the conspiracy.Īfter convincing McDonald’s leadership to continue the game in 2001 after they were informed about the FBI’s investigation, the agency set up a sting to nab Michael Hoover, the man who said he won the 2001 prize. The scheme came to an end when the FBI received an anonymous call about a $1 million prize winner. His network won almost every prize for the next 12 years, according to the FBI. He decided to resurrect the scheme he pulled off in 1989 when he gave his brother the $25,000 ticket.įrom that point, Jacobson reportedly spent the next decade stealing and then handing out winning game pieces to family members and the collection of "mobsters, psychics, strip club owners, convicts, drug traffickers, and even a family of Mormons” for a piece of the prize, according to the story. In 1995, according to Jacobson, he said he witnessed Simon Marketing re-do a random drawing that would have sent a big prize to a winner in Canada. Jacobson pocketed the first winning game piece in 1989, according to the story, and gave it to his stepbrother just to “see if I could do it.” He could do it and get away with it, and the piece was worth $25,000. It led to the plan to steal and cash-in on the game pieces. Jacobson’s attention to detail became more than a source of job pride. "He inspected workers' shoes to check they weren't stealing McDonald's game pieces," a former colleague of Jacobson's told the Daily Beast. By all outward appearances, he took the job seriously. Simon Marketing managed the printing of the game pieces, and was responsible for transporting them from Dittler Brothers to packaging factories for distribution.īecause Jacobson was on the ground in Georgia, the integrity of the trail of the game pieces fell to him. Jacobson oversaw production for Dittler’s client, Simon Marketing, and eventually, Simon hired him to oversee their $500 million contract with McDonald’s. The Daily Beast story tracked Jacobson’s scheme as it was hatched in the 1980s when he took a job at Dittler Brothers Printing. He would then pass them along to family members and acquittances in exchange for a cut of the prize. Jacobson’s scheme involved stealing the game pieces from Dittler Brothers Printing, the Oakwood, Georgia, printing company where they were produced. Jerry Jacobson, a former police officer, was the kingpin of the operation. How did it happen and how was it found out? Here’s a look at the scheme and the key player.
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