Jerome P Jacobson (58), ex-director of security at promotional management firm Simon Marketing, pleaded guilty on Friday to charges of a $24 million (€27.36m; £16.75m) conspiracy and mail fraud relating to winning tickets in the Monopoly and Who Wants to be a Millionaire? promo games the company ran for fastfood chain McDonald’s.
The hapless Jacobson, said the be the ringleader in a ‘gang’ that included fifty indicted accomplices, systematically defrauded McDonald’s over a period of a dozen years.
Including Jacobson, twenty-nine of the defendants have pleaded guilty to date, although none have yet been sentenced. Jacobson could be jailed for up to fifteen years.
Backlash from the affair has driven Simon Worldwide, the holding company for Simon Marketing, to the verge of bankruptcy [WAMN: 02-Apr-02].
Data sourced from: BrandWeek.com; additional content by WARC staff
