A KNIGHT IN SHINING ARMOR

Here is a story from CBS 60 Minutes that is too good to be true. Gerald is a small hick town in Missouri with only one police officer on each shift. The town of 1,200 residents had a drug problem its tiny police force had troouble handling. Unexpectedly, one day a knight in shining armor rode into town claiming to be a federal narcotics officer. Bill Jakob offered his assistance and it was eagerly accepted.

During the two months Jakob worked in Gerald, his investigations led him to bust around 20 people for illegal drug activities. Then it was discovered that he was a phony with a history of prior con-jobs. He was arrested by the FBI and subsequently pled guilty to impersonating a federal officer and guilty to 22 additional charges. Jakob will be sentenced next month and faces 5-6 years in the slammer.

The knight had turned into a nightmare. 60 Minutes reported that "Now the town of Gerald is paying the price. The police chief and two other offficers were fired. And because of Jakob's involvemennt, no one he arrested has been charged. Instead, many of them are suing the town for tens of millions of dollars for violating their civil rights."

Sorry, but I laughed throughout the whole 60 Minutes segment on Jakob. Those country bumpkins bought the Brooklyn Bridge. I've reproduced that part of the transcript which shows how this con-artist fooled Gerald's mayor and police chief. Like I said, it's too good to be true. You can find the complete transcript on the 60 Minute website. Here is the partial transcript:

CBS 60 MINUTES - November 2, 2008

HOW A PHONY FED FOOLED A SMALL TOWN

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 reports, 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 earlier this 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," 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 he 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.