SakshiPutting The Pieces Together
One of the winners Amy Murray contacted was Ronald E. Hughey. She offered him the opportunity to get featured in the commercial. But he denied outrightly much to the surprise of Amy. The reason he gave for turning down the offer was his worsening state of depression. Dent and other officials did not doubt his reason but what made them raise their eyebrow was the fact that Hughey’s “Tennessee” phone number was nothing but a call-forwarding machine. It clearly meant that Hughey was not residing in Tennessee. On further investigation, Dent found that this suspicious winner was the resident of South Carolina’s small suburb. What more surprising was the fact that George Chandler who too was a winner had his house hardly a mile away from Hughey’s house. Things got clearer when a woman going by the name of Brenda Phenis came forward to claim her prize. No doubt, Baker had taken care of everything from getting her a new house, phone number, mailing address to opening her a new bank account in another state. Despite that Dent managed to find out that the woman was living in a small town in South Carolina. It was then Dent came up with another idea. He decided to check the map and trace the location of each winner’s house. There he got another clue! All the suspected winners had their house hardly a miles away from each other. And it was Jacobson’s house that came in middle that.
Confusing McDonald’s CEO
FBI had enough evidence to put Jacobson and his Accomplices behind the bar. But still, they wanted to catch Jacobson red-handed. So, they planned on organizing another Monopoly game. It was a great shock for Jack Greenberg, the CEO of McDonald. He had decided to call the game off. That is why he got confused when agent Dent asked him to continue with the game. He knew if he keeps up with the game despite knowing that the game has been corrupted would be like invited a lawsuit but on the other hand punishing Jacobson for his deed was equally important.
The Nail In The Coffin
Eventually, Jack Greenberg gave his nod for another round of the game. The game that was organized in July 2001 was named “Pick Your Prize Monopoly.” Just after a few weeks of the introduction of the game Baker and Jacobson made their way to Texas. They had $1 million game piece with them at that time. They had a meeting with Hughey who was going to hand the piece to his friend John Davis. However, the duo could not realize that the FBI surveillance team was following them all through their journey. The pair got $70,000 as a kickback for giving the piece. Hardly a week had passed by when Dent received a call from Amy Murray who told him that they have been contacted by someone claiming the game piece worth $1 million. And the name of the man was John Davis.
Arrest Made
After accumulating enough evidence, FBI decided to make progress in the case by arresting the culprits. Interestingly, in August 2001 FBI took eight people in its custody that included Dwight Baker along with his wife Linda, Andrew Glomb, Brenda Phenis, and John Davis. The police charged Jacobson of committing mail fraud. Along with that, he was charged with about nine other crimes. Resultantly, his bond was settled at $1 million. The crimes that he committed carried five-year penalty which means he would be over 100 years old at the time of his release. The scared man nodded to plead guilty to three counts. Thereafter he signed a confession statement enlisting all his crimes. In return, he was sentenced to 15 years in jail. Not only that the government confiscated all his property along with boats and vehicles.
Jacobson And His Accomplices
Dent had never thought that the wings of this conspiracy would be so vast. By the time the case reached its final stage, more than 50 people were charged for mail fraud. However, many of them got away easily. For instance, Robin Colombo’s wife was penalized with only 18 months in jail and that too she tried to evade by faking health issues. Whereas Jacobson’s recruiters got one year and one day in prison. They were charged with hefty fines too. The Mormon church ostracized Baker but Brenda Phenis and his wife were given probation only.
Biggest Mistake Of His Life
The official trial started on September 10, 2001. The day was special in the sense that it was just a day before the gross terrorist attack took place on the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and Pennsylvania. The attack was so hazardous focus of everyone including media soon got shifted to the attack. Jacobson received the sentence of only three years in jail. Along with that, he has to pay $12.5 as a fine. He stated in the court, “All I can tell you is I made the biggest mistake of my life.” He even went up to Dent and shook hands with him before stepping out of the court.