How A Phony Fed Fooled A Small Town

This story was first published on Nov. 2, 2008. It was updated on May 21, 2009.

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.

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.

McCrary doesn't buy Jakob's explanation that he was just trying to help. He thinks he wanted to feel important and powerful. Soon, witnesses say, "Sgt. Bill" was kicking in doors, brandishing a shotgun and making arrests.

"He had information on things and people that we didn't have," McCrary says.

Asked how he thinks Jakob got this information McCrary tells Couric, "To this day, I have no idea. I mean, he was on the phone constantly. We don't know who he was talking to."

McCrary now believes Jakob actually made up evidence, like wiretaps and federal informants, something Jakob now denies. But police say those claims bolstered their case against one suspect: Tyson Williams.

"Threw me down on the ground. They had their assault rifles, and their pistols to my head. They told me that if I moved, they'd blow my brains out. That they had a lot of evidence against me," Williams remembers.

Williams was taken to the tiny police station. With no jail cell, it was soon overrun with suspects, some handcuffed to a bench. Jakob, who told 60 Minutes he did everything by the book, conducted his interrogations in the mayor's office.

Williams says neither Jakob, nor anyone else, read him his rights.

He also says he asked "numerous times" to call his lawyer, but that they wouldn't let him; he also says they refused his request to call his father.

"What if the suspect said, 'I'd like to have a lawyer present?'" Couric asks Jakob.

"Fine. I'm done talking to you," Jakob says.

He says he didn't allow a lawyer to be called. Asked why, Jakob says, "You have the right to an attorney present while I'm questioning you. I'm done questioning you."

Jakob also admits he didn't always have a search warrant when he went into somebody's home. Why not?

"One was, we walked up to a guy's house, pulled it the driveway, he runs out the front door carrying a bucket full of marijuana and pipes, yells, 'Cops,' turns around and runs back into the house. I don't think you have to have a warrant to go back in the house after him," Jakob says.

"I think you do," Couric remarks.

"Well, maybe you do. I'm not a cop," Jakob replies.

Asked if he ever saw Jakob do something that was against police procedure, McCrary tells Couric, "Well, I can't say that for sure. Because their procedure and our procedure would be two different things."

"But some of this stuff, it seems to me, is pretty basic. I mean, you're saying he got search warrants, read people their rights, did everything by the book?" Couric points out.

"The search warrants he said he got. You know, he was doing all that over the phone," McCrary says.

"In retrospect, do you feel as if you might have abdicated a little too much responsibility and power to him?" Couric asks.

"Probably so," McCrary admits.

Eventually, Jakob, perhaps fearing that he'd be found out, decided to take matters into his own hands. He told police he was taking Tyson Williams to a federal holding cell for further questioning.

Williams says Jakob put him in his car and told him, "That he's gonna take me to a federal holdover. And, as the conversation went on, he turned around and took me to my girlfriend's house. Told me to call him twice a week. And not to go outside, not even to check the mail."

A few weeks later, the story of Bill Jakob, federal agent, began to unravel. An enterprising reporter with the local paper, the Gasconade County Republican, named Linda Trest did something no one else had done: a background check.

Two months after he joined forces with the Gerald Police, the real FBI arrested Jakob and his cover was blown. It turns out he had a long history of being a conman.

"This isn't the first time that you've lied about something. You've pretended to be an Army veteran injured in Iraq. Do you have a problem with telling the truth?" Couric asks.

Jakob says he is an Army veteran, but that he lied when he told people he had been in Iraq. "I lied on a resume," he says.

Asked why, Jakob says, "Same reason anybody lies on a resume. I wanted a job."

"So this isn't the first time you've pretended to be or do something you aren't or haven't done?" Couric asks,

"It's not like I can't tell the truth. It's not like I've lied to everybody I've met. I told a few lies in my life. And I told one big one," Jakob says.

Now, the town of Gerald is paying the price. The police chief and two other officers were fired. And because of Jakob's involvement, 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.

One of them is Michael Holland, who Jakob told us he got to confess.

According to the police report, a pound of marijuana was seized from his car, but Holland says, "There was nothing in my car, nothing."

"But this is a pretty lengthy confession," Couric remarks.

"I don't know. I mean, that's crazy. I don't know how that came about," Holland says.

But he acknowledges it was in his handwriting.

"Some people watching this will see you as someone who was caught dealing drugs, and who is not only getting away with it, but who's trying to benefit from that very crime by suing the city for a lot of money. What would you say to that?" Couric asks.

"I have no idea. I mean, it's not about the money, really. I just want him to get what he deserves," Holland says.

Jakob pled guilty to 23 counts against him, including impersonating a federal officer. He was sentenced in December to five years in prison. And while it may be tempting to believe his version of the story - that he was only trying to do some good in the town of Gerald - remember Jakob is a master of deception.

"For me it wasn't about trying to pull something over on somebody. I'm not stupid, I knew what I was doing, I knew I wasn't a cop. I knew I wasn't a fed. I knew what I was doing wasn't legal. But, you know, it isn't like I was out robbin' people. It wasn't like I was out beatin' people. It isn't like I was arresting drug dealers," he says. "I didn't say it was smart."

Produced by Kyra Darnton