Breaking Down How the Mom Scammed McDonald's

Here's How a Single Mom in Florida Got Wrapped up in a $24 Million McDonald's Scam

Apr. 27 2020, Updated 4:02 p.m. ET

HBO’s newest docuseries McMillion$ is each nostalgic and infuriating for any person who was once old enough to purchase McDonald’s in the Nineteen Nineties. It tells the tale of how one guy scammed the rapid food large out of $24 million through rigging their immensely in style Monopoly sales promotion.

In actuality, that one man — Jerome P. Jacobson — pulled off the elaborate scheme with assist from a network of co-conspirators. One of the ones other folks was Gloria Brown, a single mom from Jacksonville, Fla. who had no thought what she was once getting herself into when she agreed to take a $1 million game piece.

How did Gloria Brown get fascinated about the 'McMillion$' fraud?

The then 39-year-old turned into a part of the rip-off in 1997 through her good buddy Robin, who used to be married to one in all Jacobson’s "recruiters," Gennaro "Jerry" Colombo. At an Applebee’s, Colombo presented to sell Brown a $1 million prize tab, given to him via Jacobson, for just $40,000.

"He said, 'People are picked to be winners. This is how it’s always been done,'" Brown recollects in a clip from McMillion$. "And he told me he would let me know what the next step was."

At first, she viewed Colombo’s be offering as a stroke of excellent luck. "I thought to myself that it was a blessing that came knocking at my door," Brown shares on digital camera. "My son was young. I was making probably $24,000 a year… I just wanted a better life and I just felt like this was my opportunity."

In order to come up with the $40,000 had to secure the $1 million game piece, Brown remortgaged her space at Colombo’s recommendation. He then traveled along with her to a McDonald’s in South Carolina to "find" her prize. There had already been too many "winners" from Jacksonville, so they had to go state strains to avoid suspicion. 

"It was so secretive," she remembered of the travel in a 2018 article through The Daily Beast. Colombo and one among his cousins told Brown what to mention to McDonald’s staff about the winning price ticket. "I had to just tell, you know, outright lies," she admitted.

Brown almost were given chilly toes, however in the end went thru with the scam, returning to her car with a prize form. "[Colombo and his cousin] were a little nervous because it took so long," she said. To make it look like she in fact lived in South Carolina, Brown used the cousin’s cope with and even recorded a voicemail message on his gadget.

In a newspaper clipping dated May 18, 1997, Brown informed journalists that she discovered the uncommon Boardwalk game piece when cleaning out her automobile. "I keep thinking that I’ve got to be interpreting this wrong," she stated at the time. "I would never have dreamed in a million years that this could happen to me."

What came about to Gloria Brown from 'McMillion$'?

A mysterious tip about Jacobson’s role in the scheme led FBI brokers to Brown’s door after they came upon that she was rerouting her annual $50,000 assessments from South Carolina to Jacksonville. It was precisely what Colombo’s sweetheart's father were doing with his prize cash after "winning" the sport in New Hampshire.

Brown pled guilty to conspiracy charges in September 2001 and faced five years in prison, plus $300,000 in potential restitution. McMillion$ co-director James Lee Hernandez said the scam ruined her even earlier than she got caught.

Because she had remortgaged her area, Brown’s monthly bill went from $Three hundred to $1,000 and she or he was once compelled to pay taxes on all of the prize cash despite having given half to Colombo. "She was a single mom who thought this might be her miracle," Hernandez noted. "But she got in so deep and could not get out."

New episodes of McMillion$ air Mondays at 10 p.m. ET on HBO.

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