One of the convicts behind the McMillions scam recounted in a hit HBO documentary has spoken out about his $24 million fraud – and says he ‘would do it all again’.
Former drug-runner Andrew ‘AJ’ Glomb, who stars in the popular miniseries McMillions, is soon to be played by Ben Affleck in a Hollywood movie about the scam, with Matt Damon playing the mastermind behind the criminal scheme, Jerome Jacobson.
Glomb told DailyMail.com he had few regrets over his role in the fraud which ran for 12 years before he and Jacobson were finally arrested in an FBI sting.
‘I would do it all again, just to make the millions to stick it up the government’s a**. I would donate fifty percent to Ronald McDonald’s charities,’ he said.
Andrew ‘AJ’ Glomb tells DailyMail.com he has few regrets over his role in the $24million McDonald’s game fraud which ran for 12 years
The story of the scheme is set to become a film starring Matt Damon as ‘Uncle Jerry’ and Ben Affleck as Glomb
The 77-year-old convict is lapping up the attention from the documentary and hopes to have a walk-on role in the upcoming movie.
But Glomb revealed that Jacobson, 78, who he still speaks to weekly, has refused to speak about his scam since his conviction in 2001 to 37 months in prison for mail fraud.
The former cop and security director, fondly known as ‘Uncle Jerry’ among prize-winners, kept his criminal history secret even from his friends at the Atlanta retirement community where he now lives – until the HBO documentary outed him when it began airing in February.
In 1989 Jacobson was working as security chief for Simon Marketing, a company running a promotion for McDonald’s based on the board game Monopoly which gave customers at the fast food restaurant a chance to win up to $1 million if they found a Monopoly game piece with their meal.
As part of his job, Jacobson flew winning pieces out from printing company Dittler Brothers in Atlanta to the packaging plants across the US.
When the distributor mistakenly mailed him a box of the anti-tamper stickers used to seal the envelopes he saw a golden opportunity, and began removing winning game pieces then resealing the cases.
Glomb revealed that ‘Uncle Jerry’ Jacobson, 78, who he still speaks to weekly, has refused to speak about his scam since his 2001 conviction for mail fraud
Glomb, who lives in Fort Lauderdale, Florida remains proud that his intentions were always to offer friends ‘some financial help’, but says that does not make him a ‘modern day Robin Hood’
‘I would do it all again, just to make the millions to stick it up the government’s a**. I would donate fifty percent to Ronald McDonald’s charities,’ Glomb said
Jacobson teamed up with mob boss Gennaro Colombo, giving the prizes to friends and associates and taking a cut of their winnings.
When Colombo died in a car crash in 1998, Glomb, who had served time as a cocaine trafficker in the 1980s, took over and helped dish out eight million-dollar prizes.
Jacobson quietly returned to a Georgia neighborhood to retire with his seventh wife and lived there anonymously until the HBO documentary exposed his past
The FBI got wind of the scheme, and in a sting operation using wiretaps the feds caught Glomb and Jacobson, and indicted 51 others in a huge bust – but not before the pair had helped fake winners claim $24 million in prizes over 12 years.
Glomb, whose role in the fraud was recruiting winners and distributing tickets, has little remorse about the crimes.
The Floridian insists that all his fellow co-conspirators are ‘stupid’ for feeling cheated and tricked, as ‘anyone with a brain knows no one just hands you a million dollars for free.’
Glomb believes that had a whistleblower not contacted the FBI about the crimes, he and Jacobson would never have stopped their scheme, though his accomplice had planned to end their fraud by splitting a planned $5 million super winning ticket.
Jacobson, a six-time divorcee, served his time in Federal Prison until 2004 when he quietly returned to a Georgia neighborhood to retire with his seventh wife.
He lived there anonymously until HBO aired McMillions.
‘Jerry knew it was on TV, but did not really want to talk about it,’ Glomb told DailyMail.com.
‘He told me he did not and will not ever watch it, because he was worried about what his family would say about him. He has no relationship with some of his wives, step brother or son, so knew it would cause him pain.
‘He has lived his last few years in Atlanta without anyone mentioning it so he was upset that retirees in his community in his area were talking about it and wanted to ask him about it. He never wants to talk about it to strangers.
‘He says: ”AJ, I will tell you the story one day, before I die”. I wonder if he will?’
Jacobson teamed up with mob boss Gennaro Colombo, giving the prizes to friends and associates and taking a cut of their winnings
In 2001, a film crew from McDonald’s pitched up at the modest Rhode Island home of 56-year-old Michael Hoover (pictured), he welcomed them in with open arms
Jerome Jacobson stole the winning game pieces and sold them for a share of the prize money. He was convicted of mail fraud and conspiracy and sentenced to three years in federal prison
Glomb said Jacobson had little remorse for the crime either, though they both regretted the job losses at Simon Marketing and Dittler Brothers following their arrests.
‘I have never heard him express any remorse about McDonald’s,’ said Glomb. ‘They boasted when they ran Monopoly sales surged by 70 per cent and when million dollar winners were announced, things surged again.
‘Jerry saw them make tens of millions – of which the winners took a fraction of that. They didn’t really care who won, because it was a license to print money and generate greater interest in the game.
‘How many kids were addicted to going to McDonald’s because of this? I am surprised that nobody filed a suit against them for becoming gamblers.
‘But Jerry has always felt very bad for those people, some of his friends, who lost jobs at Simon marketing and the printers. He never meant for them to get caught up in it.’
‘He doesn’t blame anyone other than himself. And I do not blame him for me going to jail either. Nobody made me any promises. He and I have always thought we were the master of your own fate.’
In the HBO documentary, Jacobson’s son claimed the former cop still has large sums stashed away. Glomb says though he made hundreds of thousands from the fraud, he doubts there’s any left.
‘I don’t know how much money he made from all his deals. If you think about it he got fifty grand from just about everybody, and there were many winners who were not charged,’ he said.
‘He lives in a modest nice home with his seventh wife. If he had twenty million dollars tucked away, he would be living a very different life. What has he got to lose now?’
‘Even though I handed over eight millions dollars, I made just $614,000,’ he added.
‘That is a pretty poor rate of return when you are talking about the numbers.’
Glomb also gave short shrift to claims the mafia were involved in Jacobson’s scheme through the mob family-connected Colombo.
‘That guy connected to the mob? No, he was connected to his a**. He was so f***ing stupid,’ he said.
‘When I was dealing drugs you would always meet these guys who say they ”have a cousin, Louis the blade.” So what? Big f***ing deal.
‘It’s nonsense… These Colombo guys must have been the worst mafia ever. They were a**holes. They distributed tickets to winners within a few hundred miles of each other. Ten to like one zip code. So they were f***ng stupid. That is not organized crime.’
Glomb told DailyMail.com he was much more careful selecting winners to share their ill-gotten gains.
‘I never just picked people randomly,’ he said. ‘I would call them and learn their situation to see how they were. It was like vetting them, not just handing them proxies because they were on their a**. A couple I shied away from because I never trusted their wives.
‘Then I would fly to them with tickets, and then I would be explaining how it would work.
‘And even though I was giving them free money, I would be the one picking up the bill for dinner.
‘I always thought at least they could have taken me for dinner… They didn’t even take me to McDonald’s.’
In the documentary Colombo’s widow Robin, who served time over the scam, claims that Jacobson urged her to leave the mob boss for him as their marriage hit rocky patches in the late 90s.
‘I tease Jerry about Robin’s claims,’ said Glomb. ‘He says that never happened, and there was no way he was marrying her. But he laughed ”She was a knockout twenty years ago.”
‘His ex wife Marsha was very unflattering in the show, but he insists she was such a hottie back then. I told him now she will cut your wrists.’
He and Jerome Jacobson were finally arrested in an FBI sting, the focus of hit HBO documentary McMillions
The 77-year-old convict is lapping up the attention from the documentary and hopes to have a walk-on role in the upcoming movie
Glomb, who lives in Fort Lauderdale, Florida remains proud that his intentions were always to offer friends ‘some financial help’, but says that does not make him a ‘modern day Robin Hood.’
‘A lot of those guys did have financial problems. I gave a couple tickets because they did something nice for me,’ he said.
‘And it was a real high to say to someone ”I like you. I am going to make you a millionaire today.”
‘I still insist we weren’t hurting anybody.
‘It was a great opportunity. To me I look at it as a corporate crime, that is the cost of doing business. If Jerry had not done this who knows who would have won? Many of the winning tickets were tossed in the trash can and never collected.
‘Hundreds of millions of dollars of payouts never happened. It was only happening because Jerry started giving away the tickets.
‘None of my friends think it was a big deal. People still ask me if I have any tickets. I always end my phone conversations with Jerry ”Do you have any tickets?”’