There is no question that 2008 will be a year that many in Gerald will

remember for a very long time thanks to Bill A. Jakob and his partners

in crime.

The fake federal agent scam will continue to dominate the news from Gerald as more indictments are expected on the criminal side and two federal civil lawsuits are pending. While Jakob has been charged and sentenced in federal court for crimes alleged in a 23-count federal grand jury indictment, there are still many questions begging for answers.

Jakob has consistently refused to speak to the local press, but his reticence does not extend to the national media. His comments during interviews with Katie Couric with the CBS television news magazine 60 Minutes, and later with Malcolm Gay of St. Louis Magazine, reveal no remorse for what he has done — except remorse that he is going to prison.

Gay reports that Jakob tells of stopping in Gerald and becoming buddies with then-Police Chief Ryan McCrary. He claims to have told McCrary that he was a federal security agent — that McCrary then shortened that label to “fed.”

According to the story, published earlier this month, Jakob was asked to assist the department  by acting as an informant. This would include hanging out at the local tavern and eavesdropping on conversations there. He later tried to befriend arrestees in the police station by posing as one of them.

“I became what McCrary wanted me to be,” Jakob is quoted as saying. “He wanted me to help him. He wanted a federal narcotics agent and I became a federal narcotics agent.”

A good deal of arrogance would be required to pull off all the schemes that are now attributed to Jakob.

Jakob tells of suddenly being called into higher service at the end of April when a man was detained on drug charges. Jakob was allowed to interrogate the suspect and describes his fear of screwing it up. But once he began, he felt he had a natural flair for interrogation.

“I don’t want to sound arrogant, but I’m good. I’m very good. It’s a gift,” he continued.

Some plaintiffs — in the two federal lawsuits filed last May against the city of Gerald, it’s mayor and aldermen and the even Jakob himself — remember those confessions differently. They allege that some of those confessions came only after guns were leveled at them. Is that the interrogation technique that Jakob was so good at?

Information from the questioning resulted in Jakob and the GPD racing from home to home, kicking in doors, brandishing guns and seizing “evidence.” Much of this evidence, including cash, guns and other personal property has not been seen since. Investigators declined to reveal what they recovered in their search of the Gerald police station.

Still Jakob feels that these actions were honorable and justified.

“I was a rock star. I was kicking ass and taking names, and those people who didn’t want to be me at least wanted to be very close to me, ” he confided to Gay.

Jakob denies that he ever gave McCrary false credentials concerning his association with a Multi-Jurisdictional Narcotics Task Force. He also claims that he never directed the GPD to call a phone number to check his credentials. He claims McCrary called his regular cell phone and got his voice mail message saying “you have reached the Multi-Jurisdictional Narcotics Task Force.”

Gerald City Clerk Sarah Wheeler told The Republican that McCrary instructed her to swear Jakob in “sometime in March.”

Since May, fingers have been  pointing all around town. Many townspeople blame the elected officials, who in turn blame the police department. The dismissed police officers blamed Jakob. And Jakob blames — well, no one it seems. To him it is just all one big joke that went a little astray.

He tells Gay, “I describe it as a surfer getting up on a wave. For a while you’re riding that wave, but after a while it’s just pushing you wherever the hell it wants you to go. I think after a while it was out of control, and no body was in charge of anything.”

Who was suppose to be in charge? McCrary had only been appointed Police Chief for a few weeks. Two of the city’s four aldermen are appointed to oversee the police department. The mayor met with the police chief several times a week. The Board of Alderman hired Jakob as a reserve officer on May 8, just one day before investigators showed up and took his sergeant’s badge.

Bob Herman is chief counsel in one of the federal lawsuits that the city faces. 

Herman told St. Louis Magazine: “It’s collective madness that fell on this town. By swearing in Jakob they ratified what he did. They knew what he’d been doing and they went back and ratified it.”

Once the story broke, Mayor Otis Schulte spent much of his time protesting his innocence and defending the fired officers.

He confided to the Post-Dispatch that things were going really, really good.” He admitted that he did not want to fire the police officers. He felt they were “just hitting their stride.”

Schulte told The Missourian “We finally in 25 years had a good police department.”

A front page article in the New York Times written by Monica Davey says Schulte considers the Gerald area “a meth capital of the United States.”

Franklin County Sheriff Gary Toelke told The Republican that Gerald’s drug problem is no better or worse than most small towns.

While the spectacle may be an embarrassment for many in town, the mayor seems to enjoy the publicity. During one regular Board of Aldermen meeting, he bragged openly to a former mayor, “At least I’ve been in The New York Times, The National Inquirer and The Post-Dispatch.”

Jakob has been sentenced to 60 months in federal prison. The judge has recommended, at Jakob’s request,  that he serve his time at the facility in Texarkana, Texas.

Other criminal charges are expected to be filed soon.