Canzano: A tale closer to prison than an NFL stadium
Con man pretended to be former NFL player, among other things.
I received another Larry Laverne “Jake” Jacobsen letter. There have been too many to count over the years. The ex-convict is apparently at it again, this time deep in Texas, where a man named Robert nearly got sucked into a business scheme that would have likely ended badly.
“Just wanted to let you know he is still out there trying to prey on people,” Robert wrote.
Larry Jacobsen — note the spelling using an “e” in the last name — isn’t to be confused with Larry Jacobson. They’re two different people. But when I met the first guy a couple of decades ago he frequently pretended to be the second guy.
Larry Jacobson — with an “o” — was the 1971 Outland Trophy winner who played college football and won two national titles at Nebraska. He played defensive tackle in the NFL for the New York Giants but lost everything in a house fire. That fact was very convenient for the “other” Larry who often told people that HE was the former star football player.
I wrote a column about a line of people that Jacobsen, the fraud, suckered in Oregon, Idaho, and Arizona while trading on the notion that he was an ex-NFL player. He’d tell people he played for the New York Giants, Patriots, and Seahawks. He also claimed he once owned an airplane used in Alaska as a flying brothel.
He insisted he’d founded the Bobby McGee’s restaurant chain, “owning 24 of ‘em.” He even once mentored a high school quarterback, giving the poor kid a list of detailed instructions about how to get to college, and eventually, the NFL.
Jacobson — the actual former Huskers offensive lineman — lives in South Dakota. He’s 74 now. I spoke with him on the phone years ago. The “real” Larry was beside himself and so happy I called. Because whenever things went sideways with the con man pretending to be him, he’d get served legal notices and get angry phone calls.
I met with the “fake” Larry nearly 20 years ago and wrote a column about it.
The FBI summoned me to a conference room in downtown Portland, where they asked for a peek at my files. The victims were eager to talk. They’d lost money and their dignity. But they also portrayed the “fake” Larry as charismatic, God-fearing, intelligent, and confident. I always wondered if he’d simply put his skills and brains to work constructively if he’d have been wildly successful.
Instead, in 2014, I got an email from a man recently released from prison in Texas with the subject line: “Was I a sucker too?”
Daniel Goodwin, an inmate at the Federal Correctional Institution in La Tuna, Texas wanted to know. Goodwin did time there in 2001 on a marijuana charge where he met a fellow inmate named Larry Laverne Jacobsen who claimed he was a former NFL player and military veteran who flew helicopters in Vietnam. Jacobsen told Goodwin he was once incarcerated for assaulting an IRS agent. Also, he claimed to have built the Arizona Center in downtown Phoenix.
None of it was true, of course.
Jacobsen was in prison after being arrested by the U.S. Secret Service and charged with felonies ranging from fraudulent use or possession of identifying information to plain theft. There was also a gun charge.
The guy known as “Jake” didn’t steal money from Goodwin and other inmates while incarcerated. He just told fibs, conning the cons. I suppose if you can’t win an Outland Trophy, fashioning yourself as the smartest felon in the yard would feel like some kind of consolation.
I asked Goodwin why he didn’t ask questions and poke holes in Jacobsen’s story. In prison, there was plenty of idle time. A skeptical mind would have lifted the fog covering Jacobsen’s story. Goodwin told me: “I lost the drive to get to the bottom of his lie.”
I heard that several times over the years. It takes effort to peel back the layers. For example, after I outed Jacobsen as not having played at Nebraska, he shifted his story slightly. He started telling potential investors he’d played at Boise State, then went to the NFL. He claimed to be golf buddies with John Elway and some others.
I called Boise State. It had no record of him ever playing. Neither did the NFL. But the league’s security team reached back out to me with questions. The league took his act seriously. Jacobsen isn’t the only person running around, trading on a phantom NFL past, it explained.
Jacobsen told people he had cancer — and beat it. He told them he flew military helicopters in Vietnam (again, no record). He told them he was a devout Christian. Who knows? Sometimes, they agreed to invest in his entrepreneurial ideas. Sometimes, they saw through his self-aggrandizing act. Once, Jacobsen told a potential investor that he suited up for the Los Angeles Rams in the 1960s and 1970s.
That investor, a man named Scott, was fortunate that he grew up a die-hard football fan. As Scott told me: “My tip-off was when he didn’t even recognize the nickname ‘Fearsome Foursome.’”
Sports imposter stories come up, now and again. Years ago I was working on a column about a sketchy businessman who used a pretend professional baseball career as credibility. He didn’t pick someone easily identifiable with a baseball trading card. He instead pretended to be a career minor leaguer, the brother of former Boston Red Sox outfielder Dwight Evans.
The guy signed autographs while on a plane traveling from LAX to PDX, where he was seeking investments in a quick-change oil business venture. The flight attendants were so convinced the passenger was a famous athlete they told the pilots, who left the cockpit during the flight to shake his hand.
A few days later, I tracked the wanna-be ballplayer down. We met at a coffee shop. He insisted his story was true. He even brought a baseball glove. I thought that was odd. When I told him I didn’t believe his story, he begged me to call comedian Bernie Mac and verify the details. The guy claimed that he helped organize a benefit for Mac’s cancer-stricken niece just weeks before.
I tracked down Mac, who told me he’d never heard of the man. His niece was fine. No cancer. Before hanging up, Mac asked me, “What kind of sicko is this guy!?!?”
The comedian, who died in 2008, thanked me for checking with him and told me to get the word out. He didn’t want anyone to get misled. I appreciated his concern for others. The imposter eventually agreed to stop telling the story and I never heard from him again.
That concern for each other has become a redeeming theme, particularly with our old pal, Larry Laverne Jacobsen. He’s apparently in Texas now, selling big dreams and promises into his 70s. As Robert wrote to me: “I recently had Mr. Jacobsen try and scam a business associate and myself. He did a Google search on him last night and we were not surprised with what we found.”
Not an Outland Trophy winner.
Not a former NFL player.
Not an ex-military helicopter pilot or successful restaurant-chain owner.
Just an ex-con looking for his next sucker.
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That was a suprise topic John. You never cease to amaze....
Seems like this could have been a piece on Commissioners Kliavkoff and Scott. They both pulled the same sort of scam on the Conference but were successful in that they got away with it!