GERALD, Missouri, May 24, 2009
How A Phony Fed Fooled A Small Town
Fraudulent Law Enforcer Tells Katie Couric Illegal Arrests He Made Gave Him Adrenaline Rush, Sense Of Purpose
-
Play CBS Video Video Sergeant Bill Waving a badge he bought online and claiming to belong to the "Multi-jurisdictional Narcotics Task Force," Bill Jakob fooled a small town's officials into granting him the authority of a law enforcement officer. Katie Couric reports.
-
Video 10/14/02: Con Man French con artist Christopher Raconcourt fleeced millions of dollars from wealthy patrons before he defended himself to Steve Kroft, in 2002.
-
Video 09/29/91: 1-800-Con-Man When Danny Faries detailed the credit card fraud he was conducting from his jail cell to Mike Wallace, he became one of 60 Minutes' infamous conmen.
-
Bill Jakob (CBS)
-
State Fast Facts Missouri Learn about the people, economy and geography.
-
Interactive Crime Beat Statistics and specifics on crime in America.
Like many small towns across the country, Gerald, Mo. was struggling with a tiny police force and a big drug problem. Then a man, known as "Sgt. Bill," showed up.
Bill Jakob flashed a badge and announced his credentials: an undercover federal agent sent to clean up the town in a county with one of the highest number of methamphetamine labs in the country.
He quickly helped police round up dozens of suspects and was welcomed like a conquering hero. As Katie Couric first reported last November, it all seemed just a little too good to be true.
"I didn't just wake up one morning and decide I was Batman or Superman. I found myself in Gerald," Jakob says.
Jakob, driving his own undercover police car, arrived early last year in Gerald, a rural town so small there's only one traffic light for its 1,200 residents.
"I woke up everyday with the intention of, 'Hey, I'm really doin' some great things here.' And I fed off of it and I enjoyed it. And you know, I slept good at night. I really did. I thought, man, 'I'm putting drug dealers out of business,'" he tells Couric.
Jakob says making these arrests gave him an adrenaline rush. "But that isn't really the thing that I focused on, the most, was just every bust it was, it was a good bust."
No one shared that sentiment more than Ryan McCrary, the new police chief who was struggling to control a growing drug problem with only four cops. Now he had a big time agent with the "Multi-Jurisdictional Narcotics Task Force," doing surveillance around the town and rounding up suspects.
"Once everything started unfolding, he was the drug expert, pretty much, from the task force," McCrary recalls.
The police chief says it felt "pretty good" to actually have some back up from what appeared to be the federal government.
In two months, Jakob and Gerald police arrested about 20 people and, more often than not, Jakob says he got them to confess.
Mayor Otis Schulte told 60 Minutes the town was grateful. "A lot o' people in town were. They thought that things are getting done. We got some help. I mean, a small town, we have one police officer on at a shift and that's it," the mayor explains.
"So, in a way, for a period of time, Bill Jakob was like a guy on a white horse comin' in to save the day a bit?" Couric asks.
"To help out, yes," Schulte says.
"I was very effective," Jakob says. "I think part of it was the fact that they were out of their comfort zone. If you're used to dealing with a three-man or four-man police department out in the middle of nowhere in Gerald, Missouri, and all of a sudden you find yourself across the desk from a federal officer, that's intimidating."
But Jakob wasn't a fed, had never been a fed, and wasn't even a certified cop.
Bankrupt and unemployed, the closest he'd ever come to the feds was when he had worked as a security guard in the parking lot of the Federal Reserve Bank in St. Louis. But he was creative, and concocted an elaborate scheme to con the entire town of Gerald into believing he was an agent working with a federal task force.
Jakob says he told the police chief he worked for the "Multi-Jurisdictional Narcotics Task Force."
Asked how he came up with that, Jakob told Couric, "You know, actually it sounded good. I've heard that it was used in a movie."
That movie was "Beverly Hills Cop 2."
"I've seen that movie. Maybe I had it subconsciously in the back of my head," Jakob says.
He also got an official looking six-point star badge with the task force name on it from the Internet, as well as business cards with the Justice Department logo on them.
Jakob says it isn't hard to make a business card. "I had to have these things. I mean, I was becoming this person."
And soon he'd convinced the police chief to formally request his help from the Department of Justice: Jakob gave him a phony fax number and arranged for a female friend to answer the phone.
Why did he do it, considering he wasn't getting paid?
"I wanted to fit what they wanted me to be. They wanted my help and I wanted to help them. And so I thought, you know, 'Hey, if I can become this other person, and I can help these people, who am I hurting?'" Jakob asks.
"Even if it was against the law?" Couric asks.
"I was more concerned with the fact that it's against the law to be a drug dealer than it was to be against the law to pretend to be a cop," Jakob says.
"Everything just fell together perfectly for his little scheme to work," says Police Chief Ryan McCrary, who says he trusted Jakob.
Produced by Kyra Darnton
© MMIX, CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Recent Segments
Scroll Left Scroll Right
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- next
See all 85 CommentsFor a person who READS a teleprompter, she did a wonderful job in the Palin interview, and people have really placed a lot of expectations on her shoulders given that. At this time however, I am really surprised that she is on 60 Minutes. I did not know that she was promoted to such a show. I work from 2:30 to 11PM CST and really don't watch much TV any more...I watch like 30 minutes a day totally. I gave up when all the shows promoted Obama and did no investigative reporting on Obama and did not push the socialist on his positions. The major networks GAVE Obama the presidency. I will never watch TV that much again in my life and I am 49 years old. I will never again be that manipulated by any media.
In any case 60 Minutes used to carry quite a bit of weight. 60 Minutes is supposed to be about hard hitting investigative reporting and interviewing.
How does meek, liberal, Katie Couric fit into that program? Well, she is a liberal, produced the resuts that NOBODY else could and earned her stripes that is how.
Now kids. If you want to get ahead, then is just one way. You have to stay true to your ideology and work hard. Curic did just that. If there is one other thing you can learn from all of this is that liberals OWN and OPERATE many different TV stations, and programs, including 60 Minutes. I never knew this very fact before today because 60 Minutes was not based on politics. But the evidence is there now given Katie Curic's promotion to the show....and NO I am, not an investigative reporter, but it sure looks like I could do a better job than Katie or those who remain at 60 Minutes.
RT
www.useurl.us/126
Yeeeaaaahhhh...
However, in this interview with Mr. Jakob, I am finding it hard to understand what Ms. Couric said or did that was so off-putting. Obviously the issue is a relevant one---despite some comments that declare that the issue is nonsense since the fraudulent cop "cleaned up the town", Gerald MO now faces 17 lawsuits for false arrest and violations of civil rights and could be bankrupted. And Ms. Couric's questions to Mr. Jakob were nowhere near as confrontational as the "What do you read" question she posed to the Vice Presidental candidate. In fact, Ms. Couric was about as deferential to Mr. Jakob as you can get, merely pointing out that seeing someone with drug paraphernalia may not be enough for a warrantless search, or that Mr. Jakob's self-pity was misplaced as he was going to jail for more than what he claimed was merely locking up drug dealers.
How can people say that Bill Jakob is a hero for "getting drug dealers off the streets?" Does no one appreciate the concept of individual rights anymore? Have we abandoned the mottos, "Live free or die" and "Give me liberty or give me death" and replaced them with "do whatever you want as long as you claim it's keeping me safe?" Even accused drug dealers have rights. And Bill Jakob violated those rights---he admitted that he refused people the right to have a lawyer (not merely during questioning). We cannot be a nation of laws, not of men, and allow people like Bill Jakob to run loose, regardless of their claims that they are helping us get bad people off the streets (not that I believe that that was his true motive, rather than feeling important and being able to bully people around).
And please, commenters, stop with the unclever declarations that Bill Jakob is as much of a fraudulent policeman as Katie Couric is a fraudulent reporter---that's irrelevant.
I thought the Sgt Bill segment deserved a big WHOGAS
Who gives a ____
charliecarole
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- next
See all 85 Comments