Valuetainment - August 28, 2020


McDonalds Monopoly Game Scam Exposed - McMillions


Episode Stats

Length

1 hour and 5 minutes

Words per Minute

188.62729

Word Count

12,445

Sentence Count

792

Misogynist Sentences

7

Hate Speech Sentences

6


Summary


Transcript

00:00:00.000 If somebody asked you 10 years ago,
00:00:01.620 what would revolution today look like to you?
00:00:04.120 You would have deep racial divisions,
00:00:06.600 media split down the middle,
00:00:08.100 false information, narratives,
00:00:10.160 rioting, looting protests,
00:00:11.860 an unwillingness of authorities to either deal with them
00:00:15.120 or an inability to deal with them.
00:00:16.600 We have some or all of those things going on.
00:00:18.720 I think we have to talk about McDonald's first.
00:00:20.600 What really happened?
00:00:21.780 We get a call from an informant and says,
00:00:24.640 McDonald's Monopoly games are corrupted.
00:00:27.280 There's a guy named Uncle Jerry,
00:00:28.920 who's arranging for winners and stealing pieces.
00:00:32.100 A lot of just nose to the grindstone investigative work.
00:00:36.340 We went up on a wiretap, tied it all together.
00:00:39.060 You were a member of the SWAT
00:00:40.620 at the 1993 Branch Davidian siege in Waco, Texas,
00:00:43.720 and you were there for 51 days.
00:00:45.160 What do you think they need to do to recover from this
00:00:47.240 and gain the credibility again?
00:00:48.640 Like a business, it's critical to have a good reputation.
00:00:51.400 I hope we can recover from it.
00:00:52.840 Do you still follow the news of what's going on or no?
00:00:55.240 Certain things are stressful to watch.
00:00:58.740 Some of the footage of the rioting and looting hits close to home.
00:01:02.660 And I was a SWAT guy. I love this .
00:01:04.500 Could George Floyd's event have been prevented?
00:01:07.500 I think with a lot of these cops who really go bad,
00:01:10.560 it was always something there.
00:01:12.420 A lot of these guys, cops,
00:01:14.000 are not worried about somebody holding them accountable.
00:01:16.680 So the question is, how did we get here?
00:01:18.160 How did we get to where every small town police department has fancy tactical stuff?
00:01:23.920 They fuel the narrative of defunding the police.
00:01:29.680 So today my guest is Chris Graham.
00:01:32.680 Let me kind of set this up so you know how this thing works out.
00:01:35.740 So imagine you wake up, you go to college, you get out of college,
00:01:38.680 you become an accountant, and you've taken the safe route.
00:01:41.680 And then all of a sudden an event happens in your life that you decide to go from being an accountant to an FBI agent.
00:01:50.440 And then you do that for 26 years, and then you become a SWAT, and then you work undercover.
00:01:55.440 You do all these other crazy projects we'll talk about, and then one day you're a supervisor in Jacksonville,
00:02:02.200 working as an FBI agent for white collar crimes, and you get a call.
00:02:07.200 An informant calls in and says, hey, I think you guys got to look into what's going on with McDonald's.
00:02:13.200 And they say, what do you mean?
00:02:14.200 There's this guy named Jerry Jacobson, who apparently has taken $24 million, swindled $24 million,
00:02:22.200 over a 24-year period with the old McDonald's Monopoly game.
00:02:28.480 And that leads to a six-episode series on HBO called McMillions.
00:02:34.580 And today we're talking to the main character named Chris Graham that's going to unpack this for us.
00:02:41.080 And I don't know if he's going to inspire some of you guys to want to be FBI agents,
00:02:44.300 or some of you guys may never go back to McDonald's.
00:02:46.840 But we've got to find out the story here.
00:02:48.260 So Chris, thank you so much for being a guest on Viettainment.
00:02:51.000 Awesome. Thanks.
00:02:51.740 Honored to be here. Thrilled.
00:02:53.520 So first of all, why former accounting to FBI?
00:02:56.000 I mean, what happened there?
00:02:57.080 You know, that's a great question.
00:02:58.860 And I appreciate you asking it.
00:03:01.040 Because unlike a lot of young people today, when I went to college, this was in 1980, early 80s.
00:03:11.800 If you remember, the economy sucked.
00:03:14.260 I mean, especially coming out of the 70s.
00:03:16.340 And if you needed to get a job, I wasn't going to college to experience anything other than getting some piece of paper that would land me a job.
00:03:27.720 And at the time, being an accountant was a way to do it.
00:03:33.180 But I got out very easy.
00:03:35.400 It seemed, you know, it came naturally.
00:03:38.520 Took the CPA, passed it, blah, blah, blah.
00:03:41.940 Walked into work at a big eight accounting firm.
00:03:44.600 It was big eight back in the day.
00:03:45.960 And I would tell you by lunch on the first day, I knew I hated it.
00:03:52.200 I was miserable.
00:03:53.140 And I needed to get out and do something else.
00:03:56.400 So being whatever, you know, sticking with it, stuck with it for three, four years.
00:04:01.580 And at the time, the FBI was looking at and hiring a lot of accountants, a lot more than usual because of the savings and loan crisis in the late 80s.
00:04:10.880 And I had some friends who had kind of left, joined, went into the FBI.
00:04:16.320 And it just, it intrigued me.
00:04:18.200 And it sort of fit.
00:04:19.560 You know, one thing led to the other.
00:04:20.960 And, you know, I still remember first day showing up at the Academy at Quantico and just feeling, you know, this is it.
00:04:29.000 It fits.
00:04:30.860 I was right at home.
00:04:32.140 So, and then, you know, looking back now, it's, it's, 26 years goes by fast.
00:04:38.860 Looking back on it now and looking at all the, all the, all the experiences and things.
00:04:44.120 And, you know, I'm looking at like plaques I have on the wall from this, this experience, that experience.
00:04:50.560 You know, I, I am, I consider myself one of the most lucky people on earth to have stumbled into that.
00:04:57.440 And, you know, now, you know, now, now can sit back and, and, and relive some three days.
00:05:04.700 Yeah.
00:05:05.020 You know, that's the greatest part about it.
00:05:07.040 You know, the accidental, there was a book that was written.
00:05:09.760 The first Apple book that was written, the story of Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak was called The Accidental Millionaire.
00:05:16.680 And they wrote another book about Zuckerberg that started Facebook, The Accidental Billionaire.
00:05:21.520 If you ever write a book, you should title it The Accidental FBI Agent.
00:05:26.820 Yeah.
00:05:27.400 Well, you know, and the other thing, I mean, frankly, growing up around DC, which I did, government employees didn't have a great reputation.
00:05:35.760 So going that direction was, was completely against my parents' wishes and, and some others.
00:05:41.960 So, but you're right, accidental, just, just happened to, happened to be lucky and, and watch, watch the bank robbery happen once.
00:05:49.380 And that's, that's all it took.
00:05:51.480 But I, I don't think a lot's changed since the time you were growing up to now with Comey and McCabe and what's going on today.
00:05:57.700 You know, how FBI agents are seen.
00:06:00.180 I don't think FBI agents have the kind of trust and credibility they had a long time ago.
00:06:04.560 It's, it's a very weird time right now with FBI agents.
00:06:06.860 It's, it's a damn shame.
00:06:08.160 And, and we'll come back to McDonald's because, you know, we're McMillians.
00:06:10.660 I want to talk about that, but I'm glad you asked about, you know, about the, the image and then and now.
00:06:17.300 And like, like any business, the FBI is a brand and an image.
00:06:23.480 And we, when I started and throughout my career, we relied on that image to get access, to get somebody to talk to you, to knock on a door and you're standing there in a suit.
00:06:37.540 And you, people are going to tell you things because they believe, rightly or wrongly, they believe in the, the professionalism of the agency, the trust, the, the things like that.
00:06:49.820 And, and we got, it was critical.
00:06:52.060 We couldn't do the job otherwise.
00:06:54.340 This, and, and, and, you know, I'm not going to, I'm not going to dive into, you know, who's right, who's wrong, Comey, McCabe, all that jazz.
00:07:01.900 It's, it's, it's, it's a, it's a damn shame.
00:07:04.760 It has tarnished the reputation and the brand that's going to take, you know, it's going to take years to overcome it.
00:07:11.820 And, you know, well, I will, I will kind of dive into it a little bit.
00:07:15.480 But every time the Bureau has had a, a significant national embarrassment or a problem like this, not every time, but, but most of them, if you go back and look, most often it has happened when higher ups at headquarters who are in, in the ivory tower of headquarters and believe they still can work cases and believe that they're smarter than everybody else.
00:07:42.120 Nelson, maybe, maybe they are, but, you know, smart is only part of the, part of the equation to get, get a case done.
00:07:50.080 Every one of those, or almost every one of those has been the result of headquarters taking over control and trying to run a case.
00:07:57.940 And that's, you know, that's what went on with, with, with, with not so much, well, Comey was the director, but McCabe, Strzok, and all that.
00:08:06.680 And, you know, plenty of, plenty of agents have a lot more intimate knowledge about that than I do, but that's the, that's kind of the big thing.
00:08:14.320 And, and, you know, the reputation, like I said, it's, it's like a business.
00:08:19.060 It's critical to have a good reputation.
00:08:21.080 I hope we can recover from it.
00:08:22.960 So I hope so as well.
00:08:24.360 That's my two cents.
00:08:25.440 I hope so as well, because yesterday, just yesterday, and I know this isn't you, former CIA officer charged with spying for China, CIA, that's yesterday.
00:08:36.260 And then 38 minutes ago, former FBI attorney pleads guilty in Durham probe.
00:08:42.120 I don't know if you just saw this.
00:08:43.060 Yeah.
00:08:43.180 It just came out right now.
00:08:44.720 The Justice of Obama, unusual providence, you know, investigation links between Trump campaign and Russia netted its first guilty plea Wednesday as former FBI attorney Kevin Kleinsmith admitted to altering an email used to seek surveillance warrants against former Trump campaign advisor Carter Page.
00:08:59.980 I mean, this is some ugly stuff going on in these agencies.
00:09:03.860 What do you think they need to do to recover from this and gain the credibility again?
00:09:08.620 You know, there's no magic bullet.
00:09:11.100 I mean, it's just, it's, it's, it's stay the hell out of, stay the hell out of national scandals.
00:09:17.080 Highlight the good work, the great, I mean, that's what we try to do with McMillions.
00:09:20.040 And, you know, I know we'll keep coming back to that, but I think one of the, one of the focuses of McMillions was to highlight a case that was a success and, and, and that the agents involved weren't, you know, weren't egotistical assholes and, and, and, and things work the way they should.
00:09:38.400 But that's what it's going to take.
00:09:39.900 It's going to take dozens and dozens of those cases.
00:09:42.600 Going back to the FBI attorney though, let me just, I'll kind of defend.
00:09:46.540 When you hear FBI attorney, that's usually a career attorney who's come in as a, as a civilian.
00:09:52.380 General, I don't know this, but my, my, I'm 95% sure it's not an agent.
00:09:57.240 So the agent ranks, you know, that's, that's your career.
00:10:00.620 That's all you do.
00:10:01.440 You don't, you know, you don't move in and out.
00:10:03.400 You don't join a law firm.
00:10:04.680 You, that's what you do.
00:10:06.260 So, but you're right.
00:10:07.320 I mean, these, the, these, the case, the CIA case yesterday, this one today, it's almost, it's almost every, you know, every week we have one of these.
00:10:16.580 And, you know, it's like bad cops.
00:10:18.780 I mean, you know, you got 90, I, you know, I heard you say on one of your, you know, your recent, your recent talks that, you know, the bad cops are 1%, 99% are good people.
00:10:31.040 Well, that 1% impacts dramatically the other 99% who are trying to do and generally do the right thing.
00:10:39.100 So, okay.
00:10:40.140 So, you know, it's crazy.
00:10:41.160 You're saying that, you know, when you're talking about the, you know, the good agents and what they're doing.
00:10:45.260 I remember a long time ago, a friend of mine, he and I met when I got out of the military, he went and became a cop.
00:10:49.960 And he says, Pat, I got to tell you this badge and this gun that I carry and I walk into a restaurant changes me.
00:10:56.120 It changes people.
00:10:57.160 I said, what do you mean?
00:10:58.140 Because I saw him went from being a nice guy, got along with everybody.
00:11:01.260 And then he started snapping in restaurants, started losing his cool all the time.
00:11:04.820 I'm like, what is wrong with this guy?
00:11:06.520 And eventually he lost his job.
00:11:08.080 He lost his badge.
00:11:08.800 They took everything away from him.
00:11:09.960 I said, what happened here?
00:11:11.300 He said, it does something to you.
00:11:12.620 The badge and the gun does something to you.
00:11:14.280 So, you know, I hope there is a resolution to do something because I do think there is a need for these organizations out there to do what they're doing.
00:11:23.040 I just don't think there's any need for manipulation, which is what's happened a little bit lately.
00:11:27.680 So, Chris, here's your resume.
00:11:30.320 You were a member of the SWAT at the 1993 Branch Davidian siege in Waco, Texas, which we talked about, Gary Nestor, and we had it on.
00:11:38.340 You were there for 51 days.
00:11:40.980 You've been deployed to Egypt and later chosen to open the first, I believe, FBI office in Milan, Italy, handling FBI operations there for three years, which I'm sure you had a good time in Italy.
00:11:51.320 You conducted dozens of interviews with detained al-Qaeda and Taliban leaders and operatives, which maybe we'll get to that here in a minute.
00:11:59.960 But out of all these crazy things you've done, I think we have to talk about McDonald's first.
00:12:04.160 For whatever reason, that one's getting the most attention.
00:12:07.240 So this phone call comes in from the informant to kind of walk us through what really happened.
00:12:12.660 Was it McDonald's?
00:12:13.860 I heard it was really a marketing agency, and McDonald's had no clue what was going on.
00:12:18.240 It was more on this.
00:12:19.160 Walk us through with what happened there.
00:12:20.900 Yeah, so you're right, and ultimately it was an agency, a marketing agency, but we didn't know that at the time, nor do we know the name of the person who was doing this crime.
00:12:34.460 So you got to, let's just kind of put it in perspective here.
00:12:38.020 I've got a squad of 10, 12 agents, and we work in high-priority white-collar stuff, which is police corruption and healthcare fraud, which was a big, big, big problem back then.
00:12:49.240 We get a call from an informant to one of the guys on my squad and says, guess what, McDonald's Monopoly games are corrupted.
00:12:59.460 There's a guy named Uncle Jerry who's arranging for winners and stealing the pieces and has been going on forever.
00:13:07.180 So easy enough to say, all right, well, what's this guy's motive?
00:13:13.080 I mean, what's, you know, this is kind of ridiculous.
00:13:15.300 How could McDonald's let this happen?
00:13:17.360 But to me, it's kind of one of these things that if it's true, you can't ignore it.
00:13:23.020 You have to, it may be a remote chance that I've got to run this down.
00:13:26.220 So we start, we start getting some basic information, some names of some winners.
00:13:32.040 It all checks out.
00:13:33.280 The informant gave us a couple of names of winners.
00:13:35.800 Turns out these winners, we were able to associate them in terms of addresses and friends and relatives.
00:13:43.980 That's right away.
00:13:45.140 Now, now statistically, it's impossible.
00:13:47.140 It's starting to check out.
00:13:48.100 A lot of just, and, you know, we can, we can talk about, you know, traditional police work, but a lot of, or investigative work, a lot of just nose to the grindstone investigative work that went on for a couple of months, looking at phone records, making the connections, doing the charts, et cetera.
00:14:07.160 However, we came to a point where we had to make a decision to contact McDonald's and bring them in, not knowing a whole lot of details, not knowing if McDonald's is involved, if somebody on their staff's involved, et cetera.
00:14:25.100 The reason we had to bring them in, the main reason, there was a lot of reasons, but we needed to get, you know, we needed to get lists of winners.
00:14:32.100 We needed their cooperation, and ultimately, we wanted to go up on a wiretap, a title-free wiretap.
00:14:38.320 Well, if you think about it, the games are historical.
00:14:42.060 They're past.
00:14:43.040 So somebody's won, they've claimed their prize, and it's over.
00:14:46.940 There's nothing, there's nothing going on anymore.
00:14:50.220 By that time, we had, we had made some connections through phone records between winners, between what I call middlemen, and a main guy named Jerry Jacobson, who, you know, you mentioned earlier,
00:15:01.200 he was the mastermind behind this.
00:15:04.740 He didn't work for McDonald's.
00:15:05.760 He worked for a company called Simon Marketing.
00:15:07.960 But, again, we still don't really know the connections between him and McDonald's folks.
00:15:15.420 But back to my point, so we've got to prove up this case currently.
00:15:21.760 Historical records are great, but they're not going to get us there, per se.
00:15:26.540 It's going to take forever.
00:15:27.900 We want McDonald's to run the game again.
00:15:32.500 But for them to run it, you know, why is the FBI telling you, hey, we need you to run this game, and we need to be talking to you when you're running the game?
00:15:42.160 In the context of that, they know there's a problem.
00:15:45.220 The games have been compromised.
00:15:46.280 So if you're, you know, if you're a risk management person or an executive at McDonald's, you are now confronted with what I, you know, I think it's a horrible decision.
00:15:58.540 It's like the least, what's the least worst answer?
00:16:01.920 Do we tell the FBI, you know, no way, take a hike, we can't stomach this risk?
00:16:08.100 Knowing that the case is probably not going to go away, we may run with it anyway, and McDonald's gets named as they're not cooperating.
00:16:17.040 Or we cooperate, and we get in bed with them, and we got to live with the consequences.
00:16:23.500 And they did the latter, thankfully, and to their credit, because they paid, you know, they paid the consequences later on with public relations, with lawsuits, et cetera.
00:16:35.540 But we couldn't have done this without McDonald's.
00:16:39.600 You know, I said in the show, I think we expected an immediate answer.
00:16:43.620 We brought them down to Jacksonville.
00:16:45.600 We had them in the conference room, all the executives, and we said, hey, here's the case, you know, here's all the stuff we got.
00:16:51.420 We need to run the game again.
00:16:53.280 And we thought, well, of course, they're going to say, yeah, why wouldn't they?
00:16:56.740 We're the FBI.
00:16:57.880 You know, our reputation was still pretty good back then.
00:17:00.920 They're going to say yes.
00:17:02.460 Well, they were kind of like, well, we got to talk about this.
00:17:06.400 And off they went.
00:17:07.320 They got on planes and went back.
00:17:08.540 And we were a little perplexed.
00:17:10.280 Now I see, you know, working in the corporate world, I see exact, that was a massive decision that went all the way up to their CEO,
00:17:18.480 who, again, I think made the right decision.
00:17:22.340 We went up on a wiretap, recorded incredible phone calls, tied it all together.
00:17:28.340 We did some undercover work, which I'll get into in a minute.
00:17:31.760 But we were even able to tell McDonald's before the last winner, the winner that claimed it during the game they were running,
00:17:42.520 knowing it was compromised, we were able to tell McDonald's, you're going to get a call from a guy named Brown in Texas,
00:17:48.280 who's going to claim to be the winner a couple days before he did.
00:17:52.280 We knew that because we were listening on phone calls.
00:17:54.420 And we heard, we heard the passage, we actually were able to surveil the passage of the stolen piece.
00:18:01.760 That's how it, you know, that's, Jacobson was, and I won't get into all the details, but, you know,
00:18:06.600 Jacobson had figured out a way to essentially shoplift the winning piece in route where he was going to theoretically place it into circulation.
00:18:15.480 And he would, he would switch them out, put a, you know, a shitty one for French fries and where the winning one was supposed to be,
00:18:22.320 hang on to the winning one, and then take, recruit one of his middlemen to find a winner who could be trusted,
00:18:29.320 and the piece would get, get passed.
00:18:32.400 We were actually able to surveil, based on what we had learned on the wiretap, surveil Jacobson,
00:18:38.520 meet with Dwight Baker, who's, who's, who's named in this thing, in the parking lot.
00:18:42.940 And our pilot saw him pass the envelope in the parking lot.
00:18:47.700 And then ultimately we know Baker passed it on to another guy who passed it on to the winner.
00:18:52.280 So big success, a lot of fun.
00:18:56.340 You know, cases don't always, we had a lot of laughs with this case.
00:19:00.560 And you can, because nobody's dying and, and, and we had some fun with it.
00:19:05.020 You know, we had, we had, we ran an undercover operation as part of it,
00:19:08.200 which we call the, the reunion of past winners.
00:19:11.220 So we want to get winners from, Hey Pat, you know, you won, you won back in 1999.
00:19:16.960 And, you know, we want to get you to tell your story again, because, and because it's such a great story.
00:19:24.080 And we're going to host a reunion of winners in Vegas.
00:19:27.840 It's all going to be paid for.
00:19:29.280 We're going to have you in a big conference room.
00:19:31.340 Brilliant.
00:19:31.800 You're going to tell your story, but in order to do that, we're going to record you right now.
00:19:36.340 It's going to go on a big screen and tell us again, how you, how you won.
00:19:41.400 So we did a lot of that, got a lot of these people locked into lies about how they won.
00:19:47.240 We created a production company.
00:19:48.800 It was called Shamrock Productions.
00:19:50.720 And the byline was, cause you're just lucky, which if you, it's a little bit of, a little bit of tongue in cheek humor there.
00:19:59.100 But, but that was the kind of, you know, that was the kind of thing.
00:20:01.300 And then what happened?
00:20:02.420 So big takedown, national takedown, John Ashcroft presented in front of national media.
00:20:09.900 It was the story all over the weekend.
00:20:13.900 Actually it was, you know, August, I think 21st, 2001.
00:20:18.560 It was still kind of a story.
00:20:20.060 They were rolling up indictments and ultimately, you know, ultimately a lot more indictments.
00:20:24.760 But we all know what happened on September 11th and that, you know, that freaking change, that changed everything.
00:20:31.220 And the, the, the, the dozens of agents who were working this went down to the two guys who had to carry it through in the prosecutor.
00:20:39.840 And no one, no one heard the story until two, three years ago, I got contacted by James Hernandez, who was one of the executive producers of McMillions.
00:20:49.560 And he had, he had kind of stumbled on the story and started doing some research and felt it was a great, great story.
00:20:56.900 I thought personally, I was glad to talk about it because it was always, you know, it was always one of these stories you would tell at a cocktail hour or something.
00:21:03.960 You know, somebody's usually FBI.
00:21:05.960 They're like, Hey, tell me a great FBI story.
00:21:07.760 And you need something to kind of prompt, prompt it.
00:21:11.280 And I, I would always go to McDonald's.
00:21:13.080 I would say, you know, well, you know, have you ate at McDonald's lately?
00:21:16.000 Yeah, of course.
00:21:16.740 All right.
00:21:16.980 Let me tell you about that.
00:21:17.980 So I was always telling the story, but no one believed it.
00:21:20.560 They would, Oh, come on.
00:21:21.760 That's bullshit.
00:21:22.420 You're, you know, you're exaggerating, Chris.
00:21:25.560 To have James and those guys dig into it was, you know, was really fortuitous.
00:21:30.620 I thought, you know, I thought they'll get an hour long documentary, true crime thing on it.
00:21:36.300 They, they did a phenomenal job digging in, finding a lot more information, victims, personal stories, other subjects that we, you know,
00:21:47.680 we just, it wasn't really.
00:21:48.580 What was the craziest part they found that you didn't know about?
00:21:51.200 You're like, Holy shit.
00:21:52.180 What was this all about?
00:21:53.000 What was the craziest thing that you found out through them?
00:21:55.980 Not you.
00:21:57.100 Oh yeah.
00:21:57.960 That's that.
00:21:58.600 Boy, that's a great, that's a great question.
00:22:00.920 There, there's about four or five things.
00:22:02.480 Um, they, you know, if you watch it, there was, so, so there was, there was, there was a lot of Jerry's running around.
00:22:11.480 So we had two uncle, we, they kept talking about uncle Jerry and there was a guy named Jerry Colombo, you know, big, heavy Italian guy who was married to Robin Colombo.
00:22:19.520 And if you watch the, if you watch McMillions, she is, she's a character.
00:22:23.180 I mean, she's, you know, you just got to see, I can't even describe her.
00:22:26.180 Um, she was married to him.
00:22:29.080 He claimed to be a big OC guy, claimed he was connected with some families and everybody assumed, well, that's uncle Jerry.
00:22:35.800 That's uncle Jerry.
00:22:36.680 Well, we, we eventually figured out that there was Jerry Colombo and then it was Jerry Jacobson and they met through what we believe, you know, some, some organized crime connection.
00:22:47.920 Jerry Colombo died, um, and, and a car crash and there's some suspicious circumstances about that.
00:22:54.500 But they, they, they, and when I say they, I mean, James and Brian are producers and their, their research team, they got in and they, they dug up archive video about how Jerry Colombo was running a strip joint up in South Carolina, that he was all over the news that it had been, it was, they're going to close it down.
00:23:16.200 He was, he was going around and around with city council and he kind of, he renamed it as a church.
00:23:20.640 So it was the church of the, the fuzzy bunny or something like that.
00:23:24.260 And he was able to stay open.
00:23:25.620 That was, that was just these like little things that, you know, you know what, frankly, Pat, I'm glad we didn't stumble on that stuff during the case because it would have diverted us.
00:23:38.100 We would have, we would have been spending too much time.
00:23:40.060 Well, someone's got to go, Hey, somebody's got to drive up to South Carolina and check out this fuzzy bunny thing.
00:23:44.820 And we'd have never got to the finish line.
00:23:46.980 Yeah.
00:23:47.140 You wouldn't have, it would have been a distraction.
00:23:49.160 Yeah.
00:23:50.220 Depending on the quality, the bunnies they had, but going back to it.
00:23:53.380 So, so you're, so you're seeing these stories and is it, is it true that Jerry, the main guy ended up being in the McDonald commercial?
00:24:01.820 Was he in the commercial himself?
00:24:03.560 I saw something with one of the Jerry's being in a commercial, in a video.
00:24:08.040 It was, it was the big Jerry.
00:24:09.300 It was Colombo.
00:24:10.400 He was, I forget where it was.
00:24:12.720 That was, you know, that was another thing that they, that they dug up.
00:24:15.760 Now, Jacobson, Jacobson, the main guy kept a low profile.
00:24:18.900 And if you, if you, you know, if you watch it or I'm sure the listeners watched it, remember he, Jacobson was a former cop from South Florida and, you know, went out on some, on some quote unquote disability, moved up to Atlanta.
00:24:36.400 But he kept, he kept a pretty low profile up there.
00:24:39.000 Like, um, the other one, the Jerry Colombo was all over, you know, he was all over the media.
00:24:45.520 Now, where is the connection with a Mormon?
00:24:47.440 I saw, I heard something about the Mormon connection to this.
00:24:49.880 What does that have to do with McDonald's?
00:24:51.260 So, so Dwight Baker, who was one of Jacobson's main, we call them middlemen or recruiters.
00:24:58.980 So when you put this thing and we would put it on a chart and in the middle, you've got Jacobson and you have lines going out to the, the recruiters and the middlemen.
00:25:08.200 And because Jacobson never, he never dealt directly with the winners.
00:25:12.180 Obviously that's, you know, if you're a drug dealer, you're the main kingpin.
00:25:15.700 You don't want to deal with a guy on the street.
00:25:17.440 You want people in the middle to distance yourself.
00:25:19.460 So Baker was one of the, one of the, the most, the most recent, let's say at the time, recruiters, middlemen happened to live very close to, you know, to, to, uh, Jacobson in South Carolina.
00:25:34.880 Uh, they were, you know, of all places, fair play.
00:25:37.800 That was the name of the, that was the name of the town they lived in.
00:25:40.240 I mean, you couldn't make this shit up.
00:25:41.680 I mean, we just kept stumbling on how, how, how in the world, what's the chances of the, the main subjects of this scam that's all about honesty and integrity living in a town called fair play, South Carolina.
00:25:55.920 But, um, but I digress, but yeah, but he was, he was, uh, an elder in the Mormon church and, uh, I think was, you know, ended up, I'm not sure, you know, you would get excommunicated or, or something.
00:26:08.660 He's in, you know, he's in the, um, you know, he's in the McMillions film, you know, I, Hey, I will say, you know, this is, I, I, I said, when I got on this, I said, I'm going to, you know, I'm going to be as candid and give my opinions, uh, freely.
00:26:21.760 Um, there was a couple of guys in that Dwight Baker's one and the other one, George Chandler, who was his, I think his adopted son.
00:26:29.960 He was a winner.
00:26:30.980 George Chandler was a winner and Dwight Baker gave him the million dollar piece.
00:26:35.760 Neither of these guys needed the money.
00:26:38.040 First of all, if you listen to them, they, they are in this and it's, they really are working hard to make themselves seem, um, you know, sympathetic, honorable, um, not quite innocent, but pretty damn close to it.
00:26:55.720 Uh, especially, especially Chandler.
00:26:57.960 I, I, you know, I got no room for that.
00:27:00.880 Um, you know, these guys knew what they were doing.
00:27:03.600 If nothing else, they might not have known.
00:27:06.600 And this goes, this goes true for any of the winners.
00:27:08.880 They might not have known that there was a Jerry Jacobson up there who was stealing the pieces and this is who he works and blah, blah, blah.
00:27:15.740 Most of them got stories that, Hey, I got a friend who got this piece and he's going through a bad divorce and the wife can't know about it.
00:27:22.700 So you take it, you claim it and, you know, you get to, you get a hundred thousand and, you know, give us the rest of my, well, this, okay.
00:27:30.400 That's, you know, you're screwing somebody in that deal.
00:27:33.740 You're screwing the ex wife or somebody.
00:27:35.620 So, so this bit about, you know, all this was all, you know, this was all on the up and up.
00:27:41.020 I'm not buying it.
00:27:42.720 The, there was a woman and she's in the, um, she's in the series, Gloria Brown, uh, African-American lady in Jacksonville was friends of Robin Colombo.
00:27:50.820 So she was a million dollar winner.
00:27:52.940 She never got, she got a fraction of the money.
00:27:55.640 They, they, they made her, made her pay a bunch up front, blah, blah, blah.
00:27:59.840 She got charged.
00:28:01.060 Well, she didn't have the funds to hire a big high price lawyer.
00:28:05.600 She got the public defender.
00:28:07.240 They pled her, they pled her out, pled her like 50, we had 52 some odd people in, in the, in the ultimate indictment.
00:28:13.820 Most of them pled guilty all but about six.
00:28:15.800 Um, George Chandler did not and went to trial with an expensive attorney because he could afford it.
00:28:23.000 I just, to me, there's some inequity there.
00:28:25.520 And, you know, I, I think, you know, if people are watching it, it, it, it goes to your point.
00:28:31.480 You know, you can't, you can't paint everybody with the same brush.
00:28:34.560 There were different, you know, if anybody was close to innocent in this, it was people, you know, the Gloria Browns of the, of the world.
00:28:41.300 So anyway, that's my, you guys can, do you think they're ever going to bring that game back?
00:28:46.060 Because I can tell you for me as a marketing campaign, it was genius.
00:28:49.480 Cause I remember as a kid, you know, I worked at Burger King.
00:28:53.780 So it was kind of like, well, you know, I'm about to go to McDonald's because I'm going to get these pieces.
00:28:57.640 And they were sitting on our desk and we're collecting them.
00:29:00.260 It's like, what do you have?
00:29:01.100 What do you have?
00:29:01.560 And it was always funny because you would bring your pieces to school.
00:29:04.400 And there was always one piece.
00:29:06.640 Everybody was missing.
00:29:07.800 There was always one piece.
00:29:08.860 Everybody was boardwalk or park place.
00:29:10.780 One of them was always, no one could get it.
00:29:12.900 Yeah.
00:29:13.160 Yeah.
00:29:13.440 We were missing those two.
00:29:14.680 And like, Hey, what if we team up together?
00:29:16.080 And what if we come together?
00:29:17.620 Now we realize all those young 12, 13, 14 year old kids dreams were crushed by this Jerry guy that we couldn't find those pieces.
00:29:27.140 But give us one last crazy story until we get to the next one.
00:29:31.340 What's another crazy findings you saw that happened with this that will shock the hell out of the rest of us?
00:29:37.600 Yeah, I think, you know, they found, they found, I don't know if it shocks the hell out of us.
00:29:42.760 Well, no, I'll give you two of them.
00:29:44.560 So if you watch it, so Doug Matthews, who everybody loves, he was the agent who worked on it.
00:29:49.540 And he, he's still on the job.
00:29:53.840 He's, he's on film and he's quite the character.
00:29:56.960 Um, gets away with some F-bombs and, and all kinds of other stuff.
00:30:01.720 And, uh, I knew he was, you know, I knew he was a character.
00:30:05.240 I didn't know he was quite the, uh, the, the on-screen ham as, as he's turned out to be.
00:30:10.960 So again, uh, that, that was kind of cool, but no.
00:30:14.120 And then, you know, they, they, they, the producers found, uh, Jacobson's son who was estranged, interviewed him.
00:30:19.980 He had nothing good to say about him.
00:30:22.340 Um, things like that.
00:30:23.820 They, you know, they, they, they, they took a case and made a story out of it.
00:30:28.460 And that, that was cool.
00:30:29.980 That was cool.
00:30:30.700 And there's a corporate side to it too.
00:30:32.440 You know, so you've got, you know, I've seen some interviews with the producers.
00:30:36.740 Uh, I don't think, I think McDonald's had another hard decision about whether to participate in the filming and production of McMillions.
00:30:44.460 Again, here's this, here's this nightmare of theirs from 20 years ago.
00:30:48.120 So hopefully it's all been forgotten.
00:30:49.980 And now it's come back and holy shit, HBO is going to do a story on it.
00:30:54.740 Wow.
00:30:55.320 That's so.
00:30:56.920 But the biggest part for me to forgive them, which with my mind, I was kind of like, well, what is wrong with McDonald's?
00:31:02.940 And then it was, it wasn't us.
00:31:04.220 We hired a marketing agency.
00:31:05.440 We have no clue what's going on over there.
00:31:07.020 Then as a consumer, I'm like, you know what?
00:31:08.820 You can't, because as somebody that runs a company, I've hired marketing agencies.
00:31:12.800 And one time I hired this one marketing agency for Instagram, made all these promises six years ago.
00:31:20.520 And I'll never forget.
00:31:21.660 It was myself and a local pastor in LA.
00:31:25.040 We were pretty much using the same guy.
00:31:27.140 And they had this machine that they were doing that was liking pictures.
00:31:30.840 And all of a sudden the hashtags they had that was liking pictures, here's a pastor getting a criticism for liking pictures of nude women and men and weird, random things.
00:31:42.300 We're like, wait a minute.
00:31:42.920 We have no idea what's going on.
00:31:44.360 We hired a marketing agency.
00:31:45.960 So it was a very funny yet weird situation because you still have to explain yourself.
00:31:51.140 So for me on the McDonald's side, I'm like, listen, if you hired a marketing agency, I can see how something like this could happen.
00:31:56.840 It was a brilliant marketing campaign.
00:31:58.680 That's for sure.
00:31:59.320 Oh, yeah.
00:32:00.060 Their revenue would skyrocket when they ran these games.
00:32:04.620 They're up front about that.
00:32:06.080 It was a game changer, quote, unquote, a game changer on the revenue side.
00:32:10.820 Chris, what's the craziest thing you've done in your life?
00:32:13.640 A lot of different things.
00:32:14.500 If you were to say, you know, I mean, interviewing dozens of detained Al-Qaeda and Taliban leaders, what was that like?
00:32:21.980 You know, and I won't get into, you know, names and where, but here's what I would say.
00:32:29.520 And I thought about this.
00:32:30.620 Are they names that we should know?
00:32:32.380 Yes.
00:32:33.280 Yeah.
00:32:33.560 Really?
00:32:34.120 Okay.
00:32:34.300 Yeah, in place, in places you'd know, too.
00:32:37.140 Okay.
00:32:37.340 But one of the things, and I thought about this listening to Gravano, and I thought about this, too, in terms of interviewing some, you know, some like Al-Qaeda leader types.
00:32:47.680 And that is, had these guys wound up working for, you know, Lake Mason or a big firm or a company, you know, AT&T, they would have rose to the top in those organizations as leaders because they're, that's how they are.
00:33:05.180 They're brilliant, engaging, smart people who just have a natural tendency to lead, whether it's, you know, whether you're in Al-Qaeda or you're in La Costa Nostra or, you know, on the good side of the law, the CEO of a company.
00:33:23.180 That was always, you know, I came away a few times from interviews like that thinking, you know, wow, that guy, you know, it's a damn shame.
00:33:31.960 It's a damn shame he wound up, you know, wound up where he's at now because, you know, a couple of good breaks, he very easily would have, you know, could have led, you know, Saudi Aramco or something.
00:33:43.740 Interesting.
00:33:44.880 Yeah.
00:33:45.300 What do you mean by that?
00:33:46.320 Can you give me, give me, give me a, okay, go to the person that you think about without giving a name and what was impressive about him when he sat down with them?
00:33:53.180 I think just, not, not just, not just his history, but the fortitude in terms of overcoming hardships, like bad, bad hardships, bad treatment, keeping, you know, maybe, maybe keeping some degree of sanity, engaging, very, you know, very astute to
00:34:19.380 Where we were coming from, questions, funny, sense of humor at times, which, you know, counts for a lot.
00:34:30.200 Um, yeah, no, I, I just, you could just tell, and I think, I think you notice this with like a Gravano or these guys, guys who, who, who rose to the top of an organization that a lot of people get killed along the way, rising to the top.
00:34:45.920 If you're stupid, bad things happen to you or you, or you get, you get ostracized, same thing.
00:34:51.600 Um, so when you interview these guys, were you on their turf or were they on our turf?
00:34:56.480 They're on our turf.
00:34:57.540 They're on our turf when you interviewed them.
00:34:59.380 Yeah.
00:34:59.640 And is this after they got caught or is this nothing's happened yet?
00:35:02.860 And they were willing to sit down with you.
00:35:04.480 You know, I've, I've, I've done both.
00:35:06.820 Okay.
00:35:07.100 I've, I've had the, I've had the, you know, the, the pleasure to do, or pleasure, the, the, whatever you want to call it, the, the opportunity to do a little, little of both, little of both.
00:35:18.300 Um, you know, and, and yeah, no shit.
00:35:20.520 There's, there's others out there who are, you know, maniacal savages and, you know, and they're, you know, they're where they are.
00:35:27.920 But, um, yeah.
00:35:30.960 Interesting.
00:35:31.500 Very interesting.
00:35:32.520 Being, being where you are right now watching, do you still follow the news of what's going on or no?
00:35:36.260 Are you following everything or not really, not at the pace you did before?
00:35:40.160 I probably follow it.
00:35:41.760 I'm selective about it.
00:35:43.420 So like what, you know, what kind of, you know, I'm, I'm conscious and cautious enough about what I watch to know that, you know, certain things are stressful to watch and taxing and don't, don't add to learning.
00:36:02.720 What do you not watch?
00:36:03.880 You know, I, I, I mean, I, I think, so I work in corporate security now for a, for a mall company.
00:36:12.940 So, so, so some of the, some of the footage of, of the rioting and looting hits close to home.
00:36:19.160 It really does.
00:36:20.140 And, you know, we've, we've lived that and, and continue to live it.
00:36:24.440 So, and, and, and by watch, you know, I'm talking about not just TV, but social media.
00:36:30.420 So, you know, I think some of, you know, some, some video footage where you're getting part of the story or it's being spun a certain way.
00:36:38.560 Um, I, I, I'm cautious about, about that.
00:36:42.580 And, and, and, you know, I, I think you brought it up on, on one of your earlier talks.
00:36:47.220 You got to consider who's, you know, the motives of people behind this.
00:36:51.240 So I think you, you said, you know, is, isn't, doesn't it make sense that China benefits or Russia benefits or the Middle East benefits from the, the, the scenes of chaos in the street?
00:37:04.580 I, you know, Hey, it's going on and that's unfortunate, but riling, riling people up in an emotional state by watching it on a, on a, on a screen hundreds of miles away doesn't really, doesn't really help the problem.
00:37:19.480 And it's certain, and I'm, I, Hey, I'm selfish.
00:37:20.960 I'm always looking out for, you know, my wellbeing and it doesn't do me any good to, to walk out of the room with high blood pressure costs is something I, you know, something I saw.
00:37:30.300 So, um, makes sense as an FBI agent yourself, what are your thoughts about the sole defunding police situation where, you know, you're, you're getting commissioners that are resigning and you're getting Patrick J.
00:37:41.580 Lynch, president of the New York union is coming out and saying for the first time ever, we're coming out publicly and saying we're supporting Trump.
00:37:47.820 And it's, it's a very weird dynamic where, you know, some are being criticized.
00:37:52.040 Some, you know, Seattle is just deciding to fully defund and go a complete different direction.
00:37:56.380 What do you think about what's going on there?
00:37:57.940 Yeah, no, I, it's, it's, it's.
00:38:00.720 Incredibly complicated.
00:38:01.760 Obviously, obviously blanket calls to defund the police are, you know, a reactionary.
00:38:07.400 I mean, do we want, do we want New York to return to the way it was in 1974?
00:38:13.500 No, I don't, I, you know, I don't think anybody, anybody would agree with that.
00:38:16.920 Um, you know, I think changes have, changes probably need to be made.
00:38:25.340 Um, here, here's where I'll go with this.
00:38:28.080 And, and I made some notes to talk about it.
00:38:32.580 One of the things, let me, let me kind of go back and I'll tell you, I'll tell you kind of the, where I'm going with this.
00:38:37.520 Um, so 2015, we had the tragic shooting in San Bernardino, uh, at the, uh, it was like a community center.
00:38:46.020 Guy was, you know, guy was a terrorist and, you know, we, we, you know, they had been, him and his wife had been back and forth to Pakistan a few times.
00:38:52.140 Terrible shooting, right?
00:38:54.180 You know, 14, 15 people killed, the worst of the worst.
00:38:58.820 I'm watching it on the news.
00:39:00.520 It's, it's over, right?
00:39:01.920 They, they, they caught the guy.
00:39:03.300 He's down on the highway somewhere.
00:39:05.020 The guys who, or the police officers who, who stopped him were, you know, patrol guys, highway patrol guys.
00:39:12.640 They end up in a shootout with him.
00:39:14.180 The footage on TV is dozens, if not hundreds of fully armed SWAT guys walking up and down the streets of San Bernardino.
00:39:25.840 You know, with long guns, with all the equipment, with all the fancy gear, with the armored trucks, all that shit.
00:39:33.400 So keep that in mind.
00:39:35.580 I ran, I ran a, I ran a, a JTTF, a joint terrorism task force, uh, for, you know, last, last 50, whatever, 10, 12 years of my career.
00:39:45.180 And the thing that's missing in, in, in that image of the San Bernardino is you've got all these guys and millions of dollars of equipment thrown at something that having them all out there after the fact isn't, doesn't prevent it.
00:40:03.640 What would, what would have prevented it?
00:40:05.260 You got to ask yourself, how would, where could we have spent those resources to potentially prevent that?
00:40:12.500 And it's not, you know, it's not, and I was a SWAT guy.
00:40:15.620 I love this shit.
00:40:16.400 I mean, I, you know, I lived it.
00:40:17.580 I, when I was into the scene, you know, the, Hey man, run, shoot, jump, work out, but get paid for it.
00:40:23.200 Man, that's, that's a great deal.
00:40:25.600 Get fancy equipment.
00:40:26.760 You know, it's almost like in, in, in the FBI, it's like in high school, right?
00:40:29.800 There's, you know, extracurricular activities and then there's the guys on the football team and they're the SWAT guys.
00:40:35.040 Right.
00:40:35.300 So, you know, you got a little bit of that.
00:40:36.920 So I, I was there, I get it.
00:40:38.340 And I understand, I understand the need, but, but looking at it from.
00:40:42.500 A law enforcement executive or a manager, all those millions of dollars for sexy and fancy equipment, wouldn't it have been better to go into the salaries and, and, and of analysts and software and, you know, the intelligence work, paying informants, all that stuff that is not sexy.
00:41:05.760 It's boring as hell.
00:41:07.640 Many times it doesn't pan out to anything.
00:41:10.860 You may prevent things.
00:41:12.180 You don't even know you've prevented them.
00:41:13.720 And I know, I, I, I know we've done that just, just by having a presence, interviewing somebody through some intelligence.
00:41:21.240 So this goes to my point, the broader point, which we see today, and that's this, you hear this concept, it's, it's kind of coming to vogue lately.
00:41:31.080 Um, and I, I'd like to think I, you know, I was one of the pioneers of thinking about it.
00:41:36.460 Not that I, not that I raised my voice about it, but this, this militarization of police and, you know, and, and you see it now where you've got, um, it drives a wedge in, in a community where you have what looks to be an occupying military force.
00:41:53.680 Now, no doubt about it, you need to have, you need to have SWAT teams here and there in big cities, deal with an active shooter, et cetera.
00:42:02.680 But, and, and, and, and so the question is, how did we get here?
00:42:06.440 How did, how did, how did we get to where every small town police department has an armored vehicle and a team with long guns and maybe a helicopter and all kinds of other, again, you know, fancy tactical stuff.
00:42:20.880 And, and, and, and I can't take credit for this is coming from a guy named Radley Balco who wrote a book.
00:42:27.260 It's called, you know, the rise of the warrior cop.
00:42:29.220 And he points to the, the, the funding to, to, to sources, military surplus stuff under a program was like 1033 program where local state, local law enforcements can go to the military and say, Hey, we need an armored vehicle.
00:42:45.020 You got any extra ones?
00:42:46.000 Well, yeah, we just brought a whole bunch of them back from Iraq.
00:42:48.200 So take it, take it wrong with it.
00:42:50.160 So now they've got an armored vehicle, they might get other stuff.
00:42:52.840 And then post 9-11, you know, DHS funding grants to have this kind of preparation.
00:43:00.200 And if you're, you're given the choice, you're running a small police department and you've got, you know, you might be a sheriff or something and you've got voters, you're trying to impress city council.
00:43:11.180 You're going to spend that money on a fancy team that can repel out of helicopters, even though you're never going to use them.
00:43:16.720 Or I'm going to hire, you know, I'm going to hire three kids with PhDs in computer science and analytical intelligence to grind through records.
00:43:29.400 Or I'm going to hire, you know, I'm going to hire investigators or agents who are adept at working informants, who might have the language, who, who can get into these groups.
00:43:40.800 That's where I think we've got to, we've got, we've reached that point.
00:43:44.300 And, you know, and to my broader point, I think that those images of fully armed police departments have, have been, you know, they've been counterproductive.
00:43:55.520 They fuel the, they fuel the narrative of defunding the police.
00:44:00.460 So by the way, I like what you're saying.
00:44:01.620 A lot of people are not going to agree with me, but that's.
00:44:03.500 It's fine.
00:44:03.920 I understand.
00:44:04.820 That's the whole reason why we're having a conversation.
00:44:06.460 I'm reading a book right now called The Man Who Saw the Market, How Jim Simmons Launched the Quant Revolution.
00:44:11.820 The guy's worth about $24 billion.
00:44:14.100 And when he came out, he started a company and hired, I think he was working for some university.
00:44:20.460 And he ended up hiring the best mathematicians in America and eventually in the world.
00:44:25.760 And he brought them together.
00:44:26.860 And eventually he started a firm.
00:44:28.480 And he brought all these mathematicians to study the market, to see what happens with the trends.
00:44:34.080 Then he figured out a formula.
00:44:35.480 I think he ended up averaging 65% return over a 20-year period, which is insane to be thinking about that kind of a money.
00:44:41.900 And no wonder he's worth $24 billion today.
00:44:44.700 But he hired mathematicians.
00:44:46.720 A lot of that today is predictive analytics.
00:44:48.500 So what you're saying today makes a lot of sense on making those investments to see if that can be prevented.
00:44:53.840 Here's a follow-up question to you.
00:44:55.540 Could George Floyd's event have been prevented?
00:44:58.640 Could that have been prevented?
00:45:03.160 Yeah.
00:45:04.240 I mean, I think the obvious, you know, and I'm just kind of parroting, you know, things I've heard and read.
00:45:12.160 Throw maybe a little common sense on it.
00:45:14.400 You know, you've got an officer who has a history of discipline problems.
00:45:20.080 I've heard people say, and even good friends of mine who, you know, we've talked and they're on the other side of this issue.
00:45:26.240 And they say, there's a thin blue line.
00:45:28.520 There's a blue line of silence.
00:45:30.800 So you see maybe a little bit of that with these other officers putting up with George, what's his, not Floyd.
00:45:39.440 What's the officer's name?
00:45:40.800 I forget.
00:45:41.980 Derek?
00:45:42.540 Are you talking about Derek?
00:45:43.380 Yeah, Derek.
00:45:43.740 So they put up with him.
00:45:45.200 They know he's a hothead.
00:45:47.400 They know he's a problem.
00:45:49.160 And they, you know, they choose, hey, we got to go, we got to get along.
00:45:52.260 We're all part of the same team here.
00:45:53.700 And we're not going to say or do anything because that's just not what we do.
00:45:59.340 That, you know, how do you break that?
00:46:01.920 Well, and I'm not, I'm not holding the FBI up as an example, but within the FBI, if you are aware
00:46:09.860 of misconduct by somebody or, you know, they violated some policy procedure, you know, they're, they're, they're violated computer thing or they're, or they're acting out.
00:46:22.380 There's something, there's something wrong.
00:46:24.040 And it, it blows up into an issue, a disciplinary issue or something like that.
00:46:30.060 And, and, and they, they, the investigation, the internal determines that, hey, Chris Graham, you know, you knew, you know, you knew that Pat had a habit of, of, of really yelling at people.
00:46:45.060 And, and, and he hit this person once on the back of the head during an interview.
00:46:49.080 You were there, you know, that's against policy.
00:46:51.940 You saw it.
00:46:52.780 You didn't do anything.
00:46:53.720 Guess what?
00:46:54.920 You're in just as much, you're not, maybe not as much trouble, but now your career is on the line.
00:46:59.360 And I think some police departments have variations of that, but, but you've got to make it so, and you, you take the personality out of it.
00:47:06.840 So if, if, you know, I could say to, you know, to you, all right, hey, hey, Pat, you know, I had to tell them what I saw.
00:47:16.560 It's not, it's not personal.
00:47:18.200 I don't have, you know, but I got to look out for my career.
00:47:21.540 I can't, you know, I got a family to feed.
00:47:25.040 But then you're a snitch if you do that, right?
00:47:27.040 Well, I know, but you got to take it out of that.
00:47:29.480 You've got to make it, hey, I didn't want to be a, I didn't want to, you call me a snitch.
00:47:32.860 I didn't, the agency, the same agency we both work for, the same agency that pays our salary, put these requirements on me just like they put them on you.
00:47:43.500 If you saw something, I expect you to say about me.
00:47:47.380 Yeah, how much sensitivity is it?
00:47:48.560 You know how you see these movies and in the movies they show a bad cop, two bad cops and a good cop.
00:47:54.980 The two bad cops go and rob a guy of cocaine and $200,000 of cash and they decide to split it.
00:48:01.160 And the third guy doesn't want to take it.
00:48:02.980 He's like, dude, I don't want to have anything to do with this.
00:48:05.460 You almost see the other two guys doing whatever they can to put this guy out.
00:48:10.060 And they're worried about him being a snitch and his career is pretty much done.
00:48:13.080 So there's the pressure of almost not accepting, now this is Hollywood, so I'm not in the world to know what happens.
00:48:19.420 It almost seems like there's pressure for the good cop to also participate in the bad behavior.
00:48:25.480 Because if you don't, they can end up, you know, turning on you and you got a reputation coming back.
00:48:31.940 So I guess what I'm trying to ask here is, so we have Derek Chauvin, right?
00:48:35.580 The guy who put the knee on George's neck for eight minutes and 46 seconds.
00:48:40.500 What do you do to see these trends and say, listen, because I'm telling you, when I'm telling you, this friend of mine was the calmest guy.
00:48:49.960 We'd go to nightclubs.
00:48:51.340 He would talk to girls like this.
00:48:52.900 Hey, what's your name?
00:48:54.720 So this.
00:48:55.280 And he was so smooth.
00:48:56.240 He was so chill.
00:48:56.780 He was the calmest guy I knew.
00:48:58.260 When I became a cop, then all of a sudden he went more like this and like this.
00:49:01.620 And one day we went out, started telling people off.
00:49:04.660 Hey, bitch.
00:49:05.340 I'm like, I've never seen you talk like this before.
00:49:08.040 What happened to you?
00:49:08.860 And I said, I sat him down one day.
00:49:10.740 I said, I'm going to tell you something.
00:49:11.960 I'm a little concerned about you.
00:49:12.960 He said, what's, why is that?
00:49:14.440 I said, I don't know what the hell is going on with you, but you're acting like the world owes you something.
00:49:19.160 And he got emotional.
00:49:20.700 He said, Pat, I'm telling you this badge and this gun is doing something.
00:49:24.900 Now, this is coming from a guy that was in the military for three years, 101st Airborne Division, had a saw weapon, had an M-16.
00:49:30.740 I mean, I'm telling you from a guy who was in the military.
00:49:33.260 But I saw it did something to some people.
00:49:36.720 How do you control and be able to read somebody about to go the direction of being a bad cop, bad agent?
00:49:42.620 How do you catch that?
00:49:43.500 What are some signs to look for?
00:49:44.820 Well, I got to ask you, you know, you've known this guy.
00:49:47.100 You said you knew him before he was a cop.
00:49:49.040 Oh, yeah.
00:49:49.620 Nicest guy in the world.
00:49:50.360 There was nothing.
00:49:51.140 There was nothing in his personality.
00:49:53.120 Nothing.
00:49:54.160 Nothing.
00:49:55.300 He was a sweetheart from a loving family.
00:49:58.520 Mom and dad never got a divorce.
00:50:00.080 My parents got a divorce, so you could have seen my temper and said, well, it comes from his this, this.
00:50:05.120 But nothing was raised in America, went to a nice school, had a brother.
00:50:08.960 They got along.
00:50:10.080 He was with the same girl since he was 16 years old.
00:50:12.960 Nothing happened with them.
00:50:14.120 He loved her.
00:50:14.680 She loved him.
00:50:15.240 They eventually – what the streak of how in five years, boom, like this.
00:50:19.380 I couldn't understand it.
00:50:20.880 I'd like to.
00:50:21.780 I'd hopefully like to think he's just the anomaly and that, you know, I mean –
00:50:26.520 So, what you're saying – so, based on what you're saying, you're making me think that a lot of the part of having a Derek Chauvin is in the hiring process and in the background shape.
00:50:38.300 Is that where you're going?
00:50:38.880 It's both.
00:50:39.360 It's both, right?
00:50:40.260 So, you weed them out in the hiring process.
00:50:43.260 You know, a lot of these – they do psych tests, things like that.
00:50:47.040 I think some of these background – you know, the background stuff is usually pretty cursory, right?
00:50:51.540 I mean, they're not getting into, hey, Pat, you know, you knew this guy.
00:50:55.180 You knew this guy in middle school.
00:50:58.320 You know, did he ever get in a fight?
00:51:01.140 You know, did – what do you remember about that?
00:51:03.200 That kind of background.
00:51:04.900 Fair enough.
00:51:05.460 So, what questions give you a red flag?
00:51:07.220 So, ask me the questions.
00:51:08.700 What are some of the questions that would give you a good scoring on your end to say predictive analytics?
00:51:13.500 Why this is – this guy, we can't hire this guy.
00:51:15.220 This guy's a little bit of a loose cannon.
00:51:17.280 You know, I've watched some of your interviews, and you probably should have been an FBI agent because you do a great job of two things, right?
00:51:24.880 You have your facts, but you listen.
00:51:28.520 And often it's an open-ended question.
00:51:31.300 So, I mean, I can't off the top of my head come up with, like, specific background questions.
00:51:35.900 But if I'm – you know, I'm doing a background on Derek Chauvin.
00:51:40.500 He's ready to get into the police department, and you're his best friend.
00:51:45.200 You've known him for forever.
00:51:47.400 You went to high school to get – I'm just – you know, I'm using this hypothetically.
00:51:51.060 I'm going to ask you, just talk about him.
00:51:53.400 Tell me about him.
00:51:55.140 And, you know, oh, oh, he played – you know, he played linebacker.
00:52:00.780 You know, tell me about how he played.
00:52:02.280 And just try to work off of that and get, you know, get bits and pieces into a personality.
00:52:07.780 And hopefully, you know, hopefully something comes out.
00:52:11.380 Not always it does.
00:52:12.460 I mean, your friend's a classic example.
00:52:14.760 I mean, something must have happened on the job or there was something latent in there.
00:52:18.920 I think many of these – you know, many of these guys, there was always clues.
00:52:23.360 It's just like, you know, it's like when somebody turns out to be a pedophile or, you know, or something, you know, somebody shoots something up.
00:52:30.640 People come out, oh, well, yeah, there was always something a little – you know, if you really press it, there was something about that guy.
00:52:37.000 I think with a lot of these cops who really go bad, there – it was always something there.
00:52:42.880 Now, that said, I've had a couple – I've had friends, and the job changes them.
00:52:46.900 There's no doubt about that, that, you know, you work in a – you know, you work in a difficult environment where the community does not like you, and you are a sign of bad things.
00:52:58.500 I mean, when – you know, shit, I get nervous now.
00:53:01.600 I get nervous when I get pulled over, and I got no reason to.
00:53:04.600 You know, it's not – you know.
00:53:06.040 So, you're – people involved in that environment, it takes a toll on people, and the – it's how they deal with it.
00:53:17.540 Chris, is there tenure in PD and FBI and all of that, all those different organizations?
00:53:21.840 Is there such a thing as a tenure or no?
00:53:24.080 You know, most police departments, I – they have some, but not – you know, I think it varies.
00:53:29.300 It varies from department to department.
00:53:31.560 I mean, I – you know, I know guys who are still police officers into their, you know, late 50s and 60s.
00:53:37.860 FBI, you're out the door.
00:53:39.560 You know, you're out the door at 57, and you're –
00:53:42.200 No, no.
00:53:42.740 What I'm asking is – what I'm asking is –
00:53:44.300 No, I'm sorry.
00:53:44.540 Can your model of – you know how teachers after 10 years, you know, they can't get fired, and, you know, you have to, like, really – a 42-year-old teacher has to, you know, make a pass at a 16-year-old boy or girl to get fired.
00:53:56.740 Is there tenures in PD and FBI?
00:54:00.140 Well, a lot of the PDs, remember, are union.
00:54:02.620 So, the rank and file patrol officers are – have union protections.
00:54:07.460 So, that's effectively, you know, the same as tenure.
00:54:12.360 So, that – first of all, this then – this brings up the negative power of union and negative effects of union because, for me, like, I look at some teachers.
00:54:24.440 Okay, you see these videos of some teachers that have a terrible attitude towards kids, but there's nothing you can do about them.
00:54:30.080 You can't fire them because they have tenure.
00:54:32.140 I think one of the best things that there is in business is there is no tenure.
00:54:37.320 If you're in a company, you screw up in your 12th year, you can get fired, you know.
00:54:41.120 I'm a CEO of a good-sized company.
00:54:43.060 If I mess up, I'm fired.
00:54:44.580 It doesn't matter what I do.
00:54:45.820 I can be fired as a CEO, and I think that element of not having to fear, cops, teachers, fire – you know, FBI agents, not having that fear of, dude, if I screw up, I could get fired.
00:54:59.300 Oh, I'm locked in.
00:55:00.180 We're good.
00:55:00.660 I can go around and push people around.
00:55:03.560 The way it's also set up and the comp structure and the way it's set up with the protection for them, I also think – there's an element of it where, for me, it's kind of like nowadays.
00:55:14.420 You know, cops are going around working with criminals, and they're doing their job.
00:55:20.160 Some cases, they're doing their job, and they're the ones constantly being held accountable rather than the other way around.
00:55:25.880 So there's a fear of, dude, I don't even want to do anything because they're going to say racism, and I'm going to get arrested.
00:55:30.640 But I think there's also the other part where the way the format is set up with accountability, a lot of these guys, cops, are, you know, not worried about somebody holding them accountable.
00:55:40.100 Yeah.
00:55:40.560 I don't disagree.
00:55:41.580 I mean, I think that's one of a number of factors.
00:55:45.160 Leadership, you know, the culture and leadership within a department makes a big difference.
00:55:51.820 Back to the – you know, back to the Derek Coven and Floyd.
00:55:55.680 One of the things that – and I just happen to remember this.
00:55:58.500 I want to bring it up.
00:55:59.420 You know, they worked at a nightclub together, right?
00:56:01.800 I don't – I haven't really scrubbed into that.
00:56:04.380 But, you know, Floyd was doing security there.
00:56:09.060 Derek was doing off-duty police work.
00:56:13.860 Guys I know who are, you know, a good friend of mine, NYPD detectives, Washington, D.C.
00:56:19.260 They will tell you that is a venue for trouble for a law enforcement officer is those kind of nightclubs because, you know, first of all, you're getting paid.
00:56:31.220 You're usually getting paid pretty good to sit outside in your patrol car or stand at the door.
00:56:35.840 There's – you know, you find me a club like that where there's not some illegal activity going on, where there's not some drug dealing and some prostitution going on.
00:56:44.180 You got to look the other way, and it is an environment that, you know, that sucks people in, you know, if it's an adult entertainment, you know, if it's a strip joint, there's, you know, there's young strippers around, guys get tangled up in there.
00:57:01.160 So I just think – and, you know, maybe I'm wrong – I just wonder, you know, what kind of history did those two have back, you know, from back at that club?
00:57:10.100 Was there a beef over, you know, over a drug deal?
00:57:14.640 Was there a beef over, you know, some girl somebody was screwing?
00:57:19.700 I don't know, but I just know from watching it firsthand and plenty of friends who are cops, nightclubs, strip clubs, those kind of places put a cop in a bad position.
00:57:32.760 Yeah, that makes sense.
00:57:34.260 Final question, and before we wrap up, Chris, what's your biggest concern right now with the current climate we have in America?
00:57:38.880 You know, here – I've used this before, and people ask me, hey, what do you think of – you know, what do you think of what's going on?
00:57:54.540 And I say, if somebody asked you – and this is extreme, I get it, but if somebody asked you 20 years – now, if somebody asked you 10 years ago, what does revolution look like?
00:58:06.420 What would revolution today look like to you?
00:58:09.600 Name five things that would entail revolution.
00:58:13.560 I mean, it's not like – you know, it's not like the Revolutionary War where they got the red coats and we're, you know, we're fighting it out over, you know, Bunker Hill or anything like that.
00:58:21.300 But name five things.
00:58:22.680 You would have, you know, deep, deep racial divisions, rioting, looting protests, false information, narratives, media split down the middle, groups occupying zones and an unwillingness of authorities to either deal with them or an inability to deal with them.
00:58:42.320 And my guess is, had somebody asked that – if I had asked somebody that question, you know, 10 years ago, they probably would have named a few of those things and maybe something else.
00:58:52.780 And I'd say, well, now, what do we have?
00:58:56.160 We have those – we have some or all of those things going on.
00:58:59.880 It's pretty damn scary because, you know, revolution is a strong word.
00:59:10.340 So I'm – there's part of me that's optimistic.
00:59:15.200 I mean, you know, there's always the things are – things always seem to work out.
00:59:19.560 But this just seems – this seems tough.
00:59:23.020 You know, I think I've even had – personally, I've even had conversations with people who – and I'm not politically leaning big time one way or the other.
00:59:36.580 I think I'm probably part of the big bell curve in the middle.
00:59:39.260 But I am former law enforcement, and I, you know, I lean that way, where I've had conversations that have – my intent was to let's find a middle ground here.
00:59:51.120 Let's – you know, we're friends.
00:59:53.560 We can talk through this that have – I've walked away feeling pretty shitty about it because they went – they went – they didn't go well.
01:00:02.500 That to me is – that's really concerning that, you know, that people who – family members even – that have, you know, bound by blood or been friends forever, that these conversations that they can't – you know, that people have conversations and people leave upset.
01:00:21.740 That's – that's the – you – I just – I kind of worked my way into your answer there, the answer.
01:00:27.700 Well, that's what concerns me.
01:00:29.300 That makes sense.
01:00:30.320 I mean, it is weird times.
01:00:32.840 It's divisive.
01:00:33.920 It seems like there's two gangs.
01:00:35.880 But if you look at the numbers, 42% of Republicans are not going to move.
01:00:40.500 They're going to vote right.
01:00:41.560 44% of Democrats are not going to move.
01:00:43.980 They're going to vote left.
01:00:45.500 4% of the Green and the Libertarians are going to stick to their guns.
01:00:48.900 That's about 90%.
01:00:50.240 It's the 10% that's going to elect the next president.
01:00:53.260 That's simple as that.
01:00:54.200 It's the 10% of America right now that's going to elect either Biden and Kamala or Trump and Pence.
01:01:01.120 And then that – tell me – tell me who you think that 10% is.
01:01:03.800 Who are – you know – because I – I'm probably in there somewhere, I think.
01:01:07.720 I think you're probably in there, based on what – I don't know you well, but based on what you're saying is you're probably a center-right person.
01:01:14.740 You're probably somebody that's center-right.
01:01:17.440 I'm military.
01:01:18.400 I'm also center-right myself.
01:01:19.700 But that 10%, you know, you got the entrepreneurs who may be socially left, but economically they're conservative, okay?
01:01:29.060 So, they're going to be kind of sitting there saying, let's see what's going to be happening over here.
01:01:32.220 You got the, you know, the baby boomers who may be socially conservative, but economically a little bit liberal because they need the Medicare, Medi-Cal.
01:01:44.180 They need the health.
01:01:44.860 They need all that other stuff.
01:01:45.760 So, they may vote for somebody that's going to take care of their health insurance.
01:01:49.060 So, that's a big audience with baby boomers, 76 million of them.
01:01:52.540 You have, you know, the folks who don't follow any politics and could care less, but they're willing to vote, and they're just kind of going to vote, quite frankly, on the simplest thing, like who they like more.
01:02:04.660 And it's not even that complicated.
01:02:06.740 But that 10% is going to determine our next president.
01:02:08.920 And that next president, the next four years, one is planning on taking capital gains to 15%, which is Trump.
01:02:17.000 And the other one is going to plan on taking taxes to a whole different level at a higher level.
01:02:21.900 So, economically, you know who that's going to hurt and who that's going to benefit.
01:02:24.340 And one just said the other day to Cardi B that he wants to make college free for any family making less than $125,000 a year income for their kids, which that's 90% of them.
01:02:36.620 And, I mean, taxes are going to be going up the way we're going.
01:02:40.160 It's such a dramatically – like when Bill Clinton became president, I voted for him.
01:02:46.300 He was the first president I shook hands with.
01:02:48.040 I'm like, dude, okay.
01:02:49.780 I mean, he's a capitalist.
01:02:51.340 This is a – him and Newt made it work similar to what Reagan and Tip O'Neill made it work.
01:02:57.240 Reagan and Tip O'Neill, two Irishmen, would go out and hash it out and come back and come up with something,
01:03:02.080 and they would talk shit to each other privately and publicly.
01:03:04.240 But if things out, you know, things kind of cleared up.
01:03:07.640 Right now, it's very weird.
01:03:09.080 It's very, very weird.
01:03:10.700 Yeah.
01:03:11.040 I don't know where we are today.
01:03:12.480 So, I don't know what's going to happen.
01:03:13.660 We will see.
01:03:14.640 My goal today, my main outcome of this entire interview was one thing.
01:03:18.660 My goal was for you and I to be able to solve every single problem in the world.
01:03:22.240 I think we failed.
01:03:23.060 So, I don't think we solved every problem in the world, but I think we're starting the conversation,
01:03:29.340 and people can start having a conversation with each other, hopefully in a civil manner,
01:03:33.080 so we can get some more clarity.
01:03:35.380 But, Chris, thank you so much for taking the time for being a guest over here with us.
01:03:40.520 How can people find you, by the way?
01:03:42.160 Should we just put the link to drive it to your website,
01:03:45.280 or what would you like people to come and get a hold of you?
01:03:47.140 Yeah.
01:03:47.440 So, you know, I have a sort of a website, and it's more of a hobby, fun.
01:03:53.760 It's called gmanresources.com.
01:03:56.300 You can put it up there.
01:03:57.680 It talks a little bit about me, lean more on the entertainment side,
01:04:02.820 what I'm doing and working on a couple of projects that hopefully will be entertaining,
01:04:11.280 maybe not so much as McMillions, but worth watching.
01:04:14.220 It's got some stuff about my story that I wrote over time and wrote that more to answer,
01:04:21.600 you know, people ask, hey, what about the FBI?
01:04:23.980 What was it like?
01:04:24.680 I'm like, well, just read, you know, read the my story part.
01:04:27.440 I try to make it a little entertaining and fun, but that's, yeah, that's, I'm around.
01:04:31.740 I'm on LinkedIn.
01:04:33.500 We're going to put all those links below.
01:04:35.120 Look, if you're, you know, subtly dropping a marketing campaign or eluding to a new documentary
01:04:43.060 coming up about the Church of the Fuzzy Bunny, I'm sure there's going to be a big audience
01:04:47.180 that's going to want to learn more about the Church of the Fuzzy Bunny.
01:04:50.400 But if it's just other things, we're going to put the link below to your site.
01:04:54.380 We're also going to put the link below to McMillions.
01:04:56.840 So if you haven't seen it, it's on HBO.
01:04:59.000 You can go watch that as well, the sixth series of that documentary with McMillions.
01:05:04.380 And aside from that, Chris, thank you so much for being a guest on Value Taming.
01:05:07.580 I really enjoyed it.
01:05:08.760 Yeah, likewise, Patrick.
01:05:09.820 I enjoyed it.
01:05:10.440 Thanks for having me.
01:05:11.460 Look forward to talking again soon.
01:05:12.860 Anytime.
01:05:13.380 Take care.
01:05:14.680 McMillions.
01:05:15.040 One guy named Jerry takes down $24 million over 12 years with this Monopoly game that
01:05:20.960 McDonald's comes out with.
01:05:21.880 And this 26-year FBI agent, very, very interesting stories to be thinking about.
01:05:25.820 If you enjoyed today's interview with Chris, there's two other interviews I want you to watch.
01:05:29.580 One is with Joe Pistone, a.k.a. Donnie Brasco, if you've seen the movie.
01:05:33.020 If you've never watched his interview, he's the one that took down five families, and he
01:05:36.960 was an insider for Undercover for six years.
01:05:40.640 And the other one is an interview I did with another FBI agent, McGowan, who went up and
01:05:46.400 negotiated with the Sinaloa cartel, and his stories are crazy on a whole different side.
01:05:51.100 If you want to listen to this, click over here.
01:05:52.780 If you want to listen to Joe Pistone, click over here.
01:05:54.840 And if you've not subscribed to the channel, please do so.
01:05:56.900 Thanks for watching, everybody.
01:05:57.740 Take care.
01:05:58.320 Bye-bye.