How To Destroy Everything - Episode 15: How to Destroy Richard Jacobs

Episode Date: March 11, 2025

Wherein Danny and Darren finally track down their white whale: a member of the support group founded to bring together people who had been sued and harrassed by Richard Jacobs. But as Danny and Darren get into the details of said group, so much more is revealed than they ever imagined possible -- about the group, yes, but also about Danny and where he goes from here... Listen to HTDE on Apple, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. If you would like to support this podcast, please consider becoming a patron at www.patreon.com/HowToDestroyEverything. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Okay, I'll go first to get us started. Hello, my name is Gary. Hi, Gary. I used to be a homeowner, then I met Richard Jacobs. Yeah, yeah, I mean, it started pretty small, you know, a tree branch from my yard fell in his car. He said he'd handle it amicably. Two days later, I had a court summons. He sued me for emotional distress because the branch made a sound that he said reminded him of his ex-wife's laugh.

I'm Nancy. Hi. My husband and I started a dry cleaning business back in 42. It was very successful. We survived war. We survived cancer. Sorry. You name it, we survived it, you know? But not Richard. We didn't survive Richard. He sued us over a lost pocket watch.

Richard got me fired because I refused to sell him a customized kids meal. For himself! But, you see, that was just the start of it. You know, the phone calls came at all hours. I mean, first it was his real voice, then the fake ones. Sometimes, he was Detective Ross from the city fraud division. Other times, he was Liam, an old friend from high school. I didn't go to high school with any Liam.

It was always him, always. He lost the case, but kept filing new suits every month, property damage, defamation, unauthorized leaf displacement. I mean, I spent my kid's college fund on legal fees. Well, we had to shutter. Now I rent a studio apartment with a kitchenette in the bathroom.

Thing is, he still sends invoices claiming I owe him for business-related stress. I'm 6'4". I don't even know what that means. 250. I played linebacker at Mizzou. But now? Now I'm scared of the dang telephone.

The first modern support group, at least as we think of them today, was probably Alcoholics Anonymous founded in 1935 in Akron, Ohio. Half a century later, in St. Louis, Missouri, my dad was such a menace that he, too, would inspire people to come together in support of one another. Now, perversely, I always got a kick out of telling people that particular detail, maybe because it helped convey the gravity of the destruction my dad left in his wake.

Think I'm exaggerating when I say the man was a scourge? Well, literally dozens of people considered him the human equivalent of alcoholism. How about them apples? For years, though, this support group existed only in the abstract, this kind of fuzzy memory my mom would share about people who, according to her, worked to get my dad permanently disbarred somehow. And after months of searching, it seemed that every confirmed member of that group had died. So I had to come to terms with the fact that I would never learn the truth about what actually

happened. But then we received an email, and all it said was, I wrote the master's report that was used to finish Richard's license. Let me know if you need the 411. My name is Danny Jacobs and this is How to Destroy Everything, a podcast about how one narcissist, my dad, destroyed his family, his neighborhood, and his community. This is episode 15, how to destroy Richard Jacobs. And now, I'd like to introduce the fellow

who's been like a one-man support group for me since I was six years old, Mr. Darren Bratsky. Yes. All righty then. Let me give this a shot. Hi there, everybody. My name is Darren. Hi, Darren. And I guess I'm a Danny Aholic considering how I've been roped into this podcast on top of everything else over the past what I don't know almost four

decades. You're never gonna be able to quit me. Oh god don't tempt me especially with that weird accent. Anyway let's get let's get into it shall we? So first off I think it's worth noting here that when we sat down to chat with our mysterious emailer, we were in the midst of interviewing like a ton of people. Oh yeah. You know, and most of them had one encounter with your dad, a lot of them were intriguing, a lot of them were similar. They were kind of blending together and feeling a little bit familiar. Right, but from the start of this conversation, it was pretty clear things were going to be

a little bit different. Yes, my name is Tom Ranolo. I lived in St. Louis. Your dad represented my mom in a divorce case. And I used to tell my girlfriend about this crazy lawyer guy. Well, she has a boyfriend that's a lawyer. So we would trade lawyer stories. And I said, listen, I've got aces in the hole.

I can top any lawyer story that you have. And she thought that half the stuff I was making up. And I mean, it came up one day. And she said, hey, that guy, Jacobs, I think his son has a podcast. And I said, I should probably contact him because all information, you know, maybe it's good. I don't know. But I said, maybe I can contribute to this information set.

Am I correct in remembering? Were you a dentist? No I'm not. I'm... Okay. I work for... I do healthcare now. I did...

I was a writer for three years. I did edit and write APA format papers for college students and I did... Oh! So one of the things that I wrote, and this is how it came up, I actually wrote the master's report that the Supreme Court used in determining whether your dad should be a lawyer or not.

Okay, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Now let's just stop here for a second back in the studio, because this was literally the start of our interview. And I was already feeling like whiplash in terms of Tom's various many different connections to your dad. Yeah, me too. Because, I mean, look.

So first, he said my dad represented his mother in a divorce case. And then he's apparently got all these lawyer stories about my dad. And then he also wrote something called a master's report to the Supreme Court. Whatever that even means. Thankfully, you got us on track

towards starting to unpack a lot of it. I have a question. I have so many questions, actually. So let me just take a step back. Just one, just so I'm trying to wrap my mind around your connection here, is the fact that Richard represented your mother in her divorce case, and then also that you wrote this master's report.

These are just coincidences. Like you just... No, no. What happened? No, we decided that we were going to give as much information about this guy that we could because here's why. My mom had all these support checks, okay, and he was saving them. So every week, my dad was writing support checks and she's like telling us, hey, we're not getting the support. And I'm like, well, he's writing the checks. So one day he called my mom and said, hey, and I know this for a fact because I listened in on the other phone.

I happened to be at the house, the phone rang, I picked it up. I didn't know who it was. And he goes, hey, this is Richard Jacobs, I'm here. I've got all these checks and I need you to sign them because I can give you the cash. And she's like, okay. Jacobs. I'm here. I've got all these checks and I need you to sign them because I can give you the cash. And she's like, okay. And so I heard that.

And then he came over. He went upstairs. He, she signed all the checks. This was like a year, almost a year's worth of support. So whatever that was, and I don't know how much it was. And then he left and I went upstairs and I said, did you sign these checks? And she's like, yeah. I said, we'll probably not see that money. He went and cashed all the checks and kept her

maintenance support there. Yeah. For about a year. You mean, in maintenance support, you mean like a, in her divorce settlement? Right. There's like a judgment. You get $842 every two weeks, whatever it is. And I don't know how much of what. It was quite a bit though, because it was almost a year's. And that was one of the complaints. So we got the checks back and he had signed them,

but he had never given her the money. He cashed the checks and kept them. Wow. And by the way, when was the divorce? And like, when was this divorce? This was early 80s and late 70s, 1978 to 83, I believe. Okay, so let's pipe in here again from the studio to say that this divorce and my dad's apparent theft of Tom's mother's support checks marked the beginning of Tom's connection to my dad.

Right, so your dad apparently represented Tom's mother, Virginia Ranallo, back in the late 70s. But my dad wouldn't be permanently disbarred until the early 90s. Yes, which means there's a long and winding saga in there somewhere. Oh yeah, and so we're gonna try to piece it together for you chronologically as best we can.

Starting back in the late 70s, when Richard had not yet won his Supreme Court case and was just a lawyer practicing his trade in St. Louis. So what happened was she finally figured out this lawyer wasn't good for her. We kept telling her, hey, this dude is a little kooky, you know, he's doing this, this and this. You didn't get your support. And so she finally, I got her a lawyer that I knew to represent her and finish this.

And then, oh, the other thing he did, it's kind of, and I've heard this from so many people, it's the oldest lawyer trick in the book. You have to say, sign these. And I'll get this done too sweet, Mrs. Ranallo. Okay, and what am I signing exactly? Oh, it's just standard legal forms, declaration of disclosure, schedule of assets and debts,

income and expense declaration, blah, blah, blah. I see, I see. You know, I could walk you through all of them if you got a few hours. It's what I like to call the fun part. No, no, that's all right. I've got lots of things to do. I trust you though, Richard.

I trust you. Oh, okay. Well, at the very bottom of the stack of the papers, there's a deed of trust, a quick claim deed. And you sign it, and you don't realize that you're signing your house over to the lawyer. Wow. This is what happened. This is what happened. Your mother signed her house over to Richard.

Right. We didn't know that part we knew I knew about the I just happened to be home and I picked up the phone I was over there that day. I picked up the phone I heard but this part we didn't know till later It's that it's part of their judgment. They were gonna sell their house, right? So, you know you go through the judgment you go you sell the house just put the assets Well, they got the household and they're like, well, who's this Richard Jacobs? And we're like, we don't know what that's this lawyer. They go. Well, he owns her half of the house. So, oh my god Gets better it gets better

And I do use the word, you know better as you know, hmm depending on what side yeah so the house is what did him in because we hired a lawyer and that were better as, you know, depending on which side of the fence you're sitting in. So the house is what did him in because we hired a lawyer and what happened, it took forever. Like this went into the 90s and it took almost 10 years. So what he did was his argument for not, and again, I don't know, I'm not a legal beagle, but to let you know just what happened. His argument was that since it took more than 10 years, there's a thing called estoppel. And I, again, listen, I'm not trying to play the lawyer here, but I'm just letting you

know what happened play by play. So he had a pretty good argument, but his greed is what got him because he was in such a hurry to have that house signed over. He didn't realize that when there's a divorce, there's a six month cooling off period and at that point, both people own the house. So it's joint tenancy. Okay. There's two of them. There's joint entirety and joint and tenancy.

So he had her sign this house over to him because he was in such a big hurry. Technically for that deed, a quick claim deed to be good, my dad would have had to sign it. Because it was within the six months? Yes, sir. Oh. Yes, sir. And now, a word from our sponsor. Darren, you know that phrase, money can't buy you happiness?

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Investing involves risk, Acorns advisors, LLC, and SEC registered investment advisor. View important disclosures at acorns.com slash destroy. And that case, by the way, it changed Missouri law. Ranallo versus Ranallo is the case that's used to force a cooling off period for all divorces in the state of Missouri. Really?

Yeah, because it was gone through the Supreme Court and it became like what they call some kind of controlling case or something like that. So if he had waited the six months, then it would have been joint by entirety, I believe. And again, don't quote me on this, but I'm trying to go by my memory from almost 30 years ago. But put it this way, within the six month period,

the paper was worthless. So their month period, the paper was worthless. So their argument was that the paper was worthless because he hadn't waited the six month period. And so therefore my dad would have had to sign that quit claim in order to be of legal standing or something or whatever, legal proof or something. And that's why he lost the house back to us. What was going on with the house during those 10 years?

They just kept it and maintained it. That's all. So did your mom live in it? Yeah, she did. And did Richard ever try to come over to the house or do anything? He tried to tell her that she owed her rent. I'm not kidding. I'm not making...

Listen, listen. I don't know about you. Nobody can make this stuff up, I'm telling you. I do write, but I'm not embellishing here. I am telling you, and that was. So what does that look like? Does he call her up and tell her what rent is gonna be? He called her and said that, and then she mentioned it to us, and that was it.

He didn't push it or anything. Right, I see. Yeah. Okay. So this is just a bonkers story. Yes. I mean, I don't want to glide past this, right? Your dad tried to steal their house. Yeah. Okay. In an earlier episode, you might remember Barbara, who had that incident with my dad in the St. Louis Airport.

Well, one of the things she said that we couldn't confirm at the time was that she'd heard he would try to get people to sign documents giving him their homes. And I guess this seems to corroborate that accusation. Man, the range of things that your dad did is pretty remarkable, right? Some days he's trying to save like 50 cents at a salad bar.

Other days he's trying to swipe his own client's house and charge them rent. Yeah, listen, Darren, a guy's got to make a living, huh? True. That's true. That's true. But, listen, Darren, a guy's got to make a living, huh? True, that's true, that's true. But on a serious note, I'm thinking back to where we left things in our last episode with your brother and how your brother was able to kind of access a bit of your dad's humanity or at least his perspective.

Yeah, how are you feeling about that now? Not good, Danny, not good. I think this conversation has really jolted me right out of Richard's perspective and back into seeing his destructive impact. Yeah, I gotta say, this Richard Jacobs, the one Tom is describing, this feels like more of the father I remember. Anyway, it was around this point in the interview

that we made the big discovery of just who Tom was, and, well, we wanna just play it for you guys so you can hear how it happened in real time. You heard Tom, did anybody ever mention to you or did you hear about like a support group in St. Louis? Yes, I was part of that. I was part of that support group. You were?

You were? Yeah. Tom, Tom. Tom, we've been looking for you. Tom, we have been looking for someone who is in that support group for months. Well, there was a Marilyn, I won't use her last name. I know who she is.

Yeah. Yeah. But she died. I was going to say, she's probably in her 90s. She'd have to be 100 years old. Yeah, she died. And she was a scrappy gal. Boy, I'll tell you.

Because I mean, we would- So wait, can we just take a step back? First of all, I am very excited about this. Because this is like, we have tried to track down so many people from the support group. They're all kind of, they've all passed away as far as we could tell. My mom only had like a few names of a few people. And- Your mom was there.

Yeah. Can you, can you just tell me, can you tell me how you met Marilyn, how you got involved in the support group? Like, because when we, here's how, here's how we met when we went to the meeting that the state put together as witnesses, we were all sitting out in that room. And I said, Hey, why don't we just exchange names and war stories. Another guy was a mover. He was a mover. And it was merely myself, moving your mom and there was another person. And then your

dad sent a, he found out about it and he sent somebody to one of our meetings and we kind of figured out really quick. He wasn't he went he said he said like a spy yeah yeah oh god that's amazing I'm not kidding now I can tell you I can tell you why I knew he was a spy because it came up during no I'm not kidding and how I remember. No, this is incredible. I am overjoyed by what's going on. So this so-called spy approached me with like, well, I guess you can't have any kind of forgiveness

in your heart. And I already knew it. Listen, I already knew what to say. I already knew what to say. I said, brother, I forgive everyone. But here's why it'll probably never happen with Mr. Jacobs. And he goes, why?

I said, he would have to admit that he did something wrong. And since he would never do that, I will never worry about having to forgive him. So. That's amazing. And at that point. You hit the nail on the head. You hit the nail on the head.

The guy quit showing up. So we knew. I mean, we knew. He sent a spy, Darren! I mean, as Tom said, you really cannot make this stuff up. So just to take a step back here, what apparently happened to get this whole support group going in the first place is the St. Louis County Courthouse called together a bunch of people who had been sued by my dad. Yeah, apparently the court was doing some kind of investigation into the many,

many complaints against Richard, and all these people remarkably wound up in the same room. And then Tom decides to go up to everybody. So, uh, you're here about this Richard Jacobs fella, huh? Yep. Yeah. You too? Yeah. Anyone interested in talking about it? Um, what do you mean?

What do you mean? Like, where? Now? Here? Whenever. Look, I'm going after the guy no matter what. But I figure if we pursue our complaints to the bar together, it could be better.

Oh. The bar might really listen. I see, all right. You think they'd actually do something about it? I mean, it couldn't hurt, right? It's pretty clear there's a bunch of us. Yeah, but what are we trying to do exactly? Yeah, I don't know if I understand.

Brother, I'll tell you what I want. I want this man just barred for life. Wow. Amen. Amen. Let's do it. Can we do that? Oh yeah. Great. Amen. I'm in. I'm in. Let's take this guy down. Oh yeah. Great. Where do I sign? I don't have anything to sign. Oh, okay.

Okay, how about the fact that we didn't just stumble upon a member of the support group? Tom is the friggin' founder. He's the powderfamilias. This is the support group origin story. Okay, now once we knew about Tom and the group we had lots of questions. Yeah I mean we heard stories and we wanted to vet them. Now I should warn you our excitement level in this interview does not dissipate for a while.

I'm still excited. I don't know how many times we have to say it though we're not professional journalists here so of course we're excited. Can you imagine us trying to like keep a straight face in a gotcha moment of like a serious news interview? Oh God, there would be so much gloating and giggling. It would be nuts. So unprofessional. Anyway, back to the interview. So I had heard about a couple

and maybe this was your parents, but there's a couple of details that are different. I had heard about a couple that was in this group that was getting divorced. My dad got the house and that they decided to live together in that house for a while, even though they were divorced so that he wouldn't get it. Was that, was that?

My dad, that's what, they lived there, yes. They did live there. So that's them? They did live there, yeah. They did live there. Oh my God. Unbelievable, we did it, Tanny. Oh my God. We did it.

Oh my God. This is, I mean, Tom, you have no idea. We have been searching for you for so long. I'm jumping up and down with joy. I know. I know. So, wait a second. So your parents, even though they were divorced, but if you said... They got along anyway. They got along. Right. But they wouldn't have stayed in that house if it wasn't the shenanigans going on with...

Yeah, they were just waiting for the lawsuit because they were pretty sure they were gonna win it. So they were just waiting for that lawsuit. So they lived together even though they were divorced and it was all because of my dad trying to take it. Right, right. Unbelievable. And so these support group meetings,

they were at like Maryland, They were at somebody's house. Yeah, Maryland's house. And would there be would there be? I'm sorry to get so specific, but like, would there be like, you know, appetizers with people? I mean, what? She just it was kind of like they just got together and decided what they were going to do.

I only went to about four or five of them because I mean, after I told them what was going on, there wasn't much more to pursue. How to destroy everything is brought to you by OneSkin. Danny, it's almost springtime. Boo. Boo. I love winter, man. Oh, you do love winter.

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with code DESTROY. After you purchase, they'll ask you what you heard about them. Please support our show and tell them we sent you. Invest in the health and longevity of your skin with Oneskin. Your future self will thank you. So that was it for Tom Ranolo's involvement in the health and longevity of your skin with one skin. Your future self will thank you. So that was it for Tom Ranolo's involvement in the support group. He didn't stick around long enough to tell us about the newsletter or the snacks. What snacks did they have? Wow, wow, like father like son. We were, though, able to ask Tom about some of the other members of the group, at least in its early days.

Yeah, so there was one woman who my dad apparently had hired right out of law school at Washington University. Hi everyone, my name is Felicia. Hi Felicia. Let's see, um... So at the beginning I was really excited. He had his own firm in Claytonton and I had just passed the bar. I mean it was this huge opportunity to be an associate really early in my career. Like kind of unheard of.

So I jumped at the chance and little did I know, he only hired me to use my bar registration number to submit cases. Yeah, yeah, I guess his had been suspended ever since he had that issue with the stolen televisions or something. So all along, he was submitting cases with my number and his initials. What happened is one of the judges pulled me aside

and told me about it. And thank God they did, because if the bar ever finds out, I will lose my license. I have to leave St. Louis now. This has been my home for my entire life. My whole family is here. I just have to start over, I guess. I don't even know where I would go or what I would do.

Now, now you know the other person, you know the story about the Wall Street Journal that he used to use when he went to the courthouse? No, no. Tell us that story. Okay. What happened was my dad went over there one day and he wanted to get a copy of his, this whole thing, you know, as part of this deal. Went over to the, sorry, went over to the courthouse.

To the St. Louis County Courthouse Records. And he was advised to get his, I advised him, to go get a copy of all your records as part of this deal. We're gonna do this research on this guy, right? There were 80 pages of his file missing. So when he asked them about it, they said, somebody took out the file and they haven't returned it yet. And so what it was, Richard Jacobs had pulled this out.

He was somewhere in the building. Now, what he would do, and he was doing this with a lot of lawsuits, he'd take the records, put them in a Wall Street Journal and take them home. Then he would change something. He'd match the PICA or whatever, 12 pitch or whatever. He would change something in those records and then go back and put them back.

Then he would appeal the case and say, hey, this file says that they didn't file that till June 10th. They only had 10 days It should have been filed by May 27th Wow appeal it and he would try to win cases on it, but they caught him Okay, the reason why they caught him is that he didn't realize they microfiche everything Okay, so they microfiche everything someone complained and we figured it out that he's doing something with these records So we tipped off the clerk and said this guy pulls something out. We gave him his name, description, make sure you check it. Well, she caught him. He was putting the records in this Wall Street Journal and walking out with them. No, I'm not kidding. I'm not kidding.

And then, so he sued her over this. And that went on for a while. I think he, I don't know what his argument was, but he ended up suing her, they ended up suing him. And there should be a record, but that should be public record, it's a lawsuit. I believe we knew that he had been arrested or at least sued for stealing documents from the courthouse, but I don't know all of these details.

That was it. He would use the Wall Street Journal and hide them in there and then walk out. But the guy caught him, because we tipped her off. Now he probably would have got caught eventually, because he was doing too much of it. He was just excessive in his endeavors. Yeah, I would say so.

It's amazing that he was good enough with the typeface and the font and everything to, you know, to alter these records and make it so the people who were looking at them didn't notice it immediately. You could do that in the 80s. You wouldn't be able to do that now. But back then, you could do that, you know. Okay, so I'm just trying to track who's in the support group

that we know. So you've got this clerk he was talking about. We've got that young lawyer, your dad plucked out of Wash U. Right, we've got Tom, Marilyn Corley, you got some mover guy. Right. And by the way, all those people are just

from the early meetings when Tom was still going. And also right off the top of his head. Exactly, so next up in the conversation, you set out to really get to the heart of things. One question I have, are there aspects to Richard's story that I've never quite understood all the timeline of it all? So what we've always known is that with regard to that TV thing that you mentioned,

we did know about that and the shenanigans involving that. That led to him agreeing to having a suspended law license. And this was sometime in the 80s, but it was suspended, not fully disbarred. And what we had heard was that this support group worked in some capacity to get him permanently disbarred. Yes, that would be me. That's you.

That is you with this master's report. That's you. Right, that would be me. I wrote it. Okay. So now let's take you through the story of how exactly Tom Ranallo is responsible for permanently ending my dad's law career. Yeah. And the first thing we asked him was to explain to us, dumb-dumbs, what in the hell a master's report even is. Okay. So I reported what I knew to the Supreme Court.

What the Supreme Court does, they can order a special master's to investigate a lawyer. So they chose to do that based on the information I gave. I don't know if you know all this stuff. We could probably make three- Tell me everything. Oh my God. Yeah, we have a lot of questions. And by the way, just to clarify, this is the Missouri Supreme Court we're talking about.

Yes sir, this is Missouri Supreme Court. Judge Limbaugh to be exact. And yes, he's related to that crazy Rush Limbaugh guy. And he's a nephew. Anyway, so strange world. So Tom put together this document that detailed all of your dad's many, many wrongdoings, which included some of the stuff he'd learned from members of the support group.

Yeah, like the young woman my dad hired whose registration number he was illegally using or the clerk who caught him stealing documents hidden under a Wall Street Journal. But that's not all, Danny. Oh, no, no, that is not all. It's never all. Tom and his family were messing with Richard's mojo

in all kinds of delicious ways. Then another thing he would do is, if he got a judgment for legal fees, he would go to like the payroll person and get the judgment. But then he would go to, like my dad worked for the federal government, so he got judgment for some legal fees. Well, he went to the federal government and got like 2,500 bucks. Then he went to where they released the payroll and got 2,500 bucks.

And then he'd go to like two or three different places. So my dad made a trip to Washington and ended all that because we submitted all this information to him. So after that, they wouldn't talk to him. And he was talking to my dad, he goes, he went to Washington. My dad goes, I sure did. That ended it. That ended part of it.

What do you mean? I'm a little confused. I sure did. You know, that ended it. That ended part of it. You know? Wait, what do you mean? I'm a little confused. Well, if you get judgment, okay, so if I'm a lawyer, I guess this is how it works. Say I get judgment for legal fees against you. I can go to your bank and get the money. So he did that, but the bank doesn't talk to where I get my payroll from. So then he'd go to the payroll place and say, hey.

Oh, he double dipped, you're saying. He did, he like, yeah, he tried to like get two or three different places. And then he was going to go to, my dad beat him to Washington though. So, cause he worked for the federal government, he was going to go three times right there. And this was for one particular judgment

that your dad went to Washington and exposed it. Yeah, for legal fees. Yeah, for legal fees. Yeah, for legal fees for my mom. So Tom included this detail in his report. And he also went to the library and dug through microfiches to learn about my dad's TV scheme. I mean, microfiches? I know, we're in all the president's men now. Yes, exactly.

Fraud with intent to deceive. Oh wait, what's this one? Stealing by deceit. Jesus Christ, this guy. So he researched basically every single thing your dad had done wrong over the years and put together a file that was damning to say the least. Oh my God. Jacobs, what did you get up to?

But then he did something else rather remarkable. See, I just figured time will tell. And I mean, I forgive this guy. Personally, I think he was a tortured individual. Wow. How many lawsuits can one person rack up? He wanted to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that my dad was still practicing law,

even though his license had been suspended. He couldn't have been a happy person at all all because how could you be at peace with all that stuff you're doing? You can't, I mean you'd always be looking over your shoulder and you know that setup and that building there, do you realize how he was set up? So he tracked down your dad's office, brought a camera, got off the elevator, and headed down to the lone office at the end of a long hallway where he could see it, imprinted on the door clear as day. Richard Jacobs, attorney at law. And he snapped a picture. There was about a 50-foot hallway and his office was right at the end of it so

he could see anybody coming towards him. You mean so he could sort of like leave the building if it was somebody? Yeah and he could lock the door. If there's a door there he could just lock it. Is that how you're saying that that's like an unusual setup that the way that it was just no but I think it was done so that he could have an escape route I guess. I don't know. It was crazy. BedMGM, authorized gaming partner of the NBA, has your back all season long.

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I saw him. I'm like, okay, I get it. Because I was there to take that picture. I was there to take that picture. So I said, I see, I see a setup here. He was still trying to pursue lawsuits because I had a friend call and say she was interested. And he said, oh, yeah, I'll take your case and da da da da da da. I said, what did he say? She goes, he said he'd take my case.

I have to come in and I go, okay. And I just laughed. I said, yep, he's still trying to do it. Oh, you were confirming that he's still trying to practice law. Yeah, yeah. And then with all this information gathered, it was finally time for Tom to submit his report.

I went and got a law book on rules four and five, which are the rules that set the standards and conduct for lawyers in the state of Missouri. And I went through everything that was public that had already been verified or been verified by case law and matched them to the specific title and capital whatever, you know, violations like, you know, RSM 0852, whatever, you know, number. And then I put them all together and I mentioned all the other people's

name and then I made a conclusion. And then my conclusion was that he shouldn't be suspended, but it's permanently disbarred. I included the picture of him continuing to practice law. And then they took that. I drove him, me and my dad drove in the car to Jeff City and we filed a complaint with the Supreme Court in Missouri and then that's when they ordered the master's report for Judge Limbaugh to read it and he basically took my information and wrote a master's report and they were almost word for word and permanently disbarred him but the thing was that I called him and told him what I was gonna do. I told him you will be disparate, he'll take his time. You called my dad? Yeah.

Phone Ringing Richard. Richard, I know you're there. You really want to play this game? Fine. I'm calling to let you know that I've finished writing a report which details all the ways and all the people that- Hello? Who is this? Ah, you know it's me, Richard. Tom. Tom Ranolo.

Hi, Richard. How's your mother? This is a courtesy call to let you know that you're going to be disbarred. It may take some time, but it's inevitable now. And there isn't anything you can do about it, brother. That must have felt so good. Well, you know, again, everybody was upset at the time, but the more I think about it, the more I think he's the kind of person

that needs prayer more than anybody. Because he's so tortured. He's gotta be tortured. That guy had to be, it had to be horrible to live that way. I mean, you can't rest. You can't be a rest, you know? Yeah. So. Can I, can I, had you done anything like this before, Tom? Like this research, this law research and the master stuff? In college I did a lot of, as a freshman I was offered to be published because I used to write from an anthropological viewpoint about a Native Americana. And I had professors offer me to publish my papers, and I never did, even as a freshman, and I probably should have. I'm really good at research. If you give me a topic to research,

it might take me a year, but I'll figure out almost any possible thing about that person or event or anything, you know. Well, here's what's sort of stunning me in this moment, which is you were kind of the perfect foil for my dad. So my dad was incredibly intelligent using the system and like detail oriented. And then he came across you and you're sort of the same way,

but sort of fighting for good, right? Like you have a certain obsessive quality as well that you can use to do what you did. Well, the way I explain it is, you know, if you ever walk through the woods in Missouri, there's a plant that if you brush against it, it'll make you itch like crazy. But there's a plant that grows right next to it and the shape of it and the leaves is the opposite of the plant that makes you itch. If you take that plant and you rub it on you, the itching will go away immediately, I'm not kidding.

So maybe I don't know if I'm the plant that made him itch or if I'm the plant that provided the not itching. But yeah, I kind of saw some similarities. I saw similarities myself and I just figured, you know, you're not gonna get mad at this guy. You just have to beat him at his game. And see, here's what always does these guys in, their greed, because if he had waited 60 days,

I knew that he made some mistakes somewhere. I just had to find him. If he waited the 60 days, he would probably own that house. But he couldn't wait. See, that's that greed. It drives him. And the greed is what does him in. Who is that physicist, that famous guy that had a movie?

Stephen Hawking. Yeah. He realized at the end of his life, he gave up on physics. He said, don't worry about these comets and these earthquakes and climate change and all that. He said, what's gonna do mankind in in one simple one word is greed. And you can look it up.

I mean, and I think that's, your dad isn't any different really than what's kind of going on. If you look at our society, oh my God, the difference between 10 years ago. I mean, you see it everywhere and there's corruption and it's just, I mean, it's kind of taken over. So I guess you fight against it. I don't know.

I don't know what the answer is. Yeah. Well, that's, that's what you did. Yeah, absolutely. What was the catalyst for you to do this? Like, was this, like you're describing, it was a multiple years process while he was holding the house in limbo?

Or was there like a particular moment when you were like, I must do this? Well, and he cashed all of her checks, and I just happened to pick up the phone and hear it. And he didn't come back with her support money for a year. So that kind of made us decide that, we're gonna at least fight. We're gonna at least fight.

He can't at least fight. What I love is that you were just like a son trying to help his mom. Like it's such a, it's such a selfless act on your, on your end. As opposed to my dad's efforts, which were so selfish. And Danny, I feel sorry for you. If you had to live through that, man, that must've been tough to be a kid and see all that. Brother, I gotta, I gotta, I gotta pray for you, brother. I gotta pray for you.

Wow. That's very kind of you. Thank you. I mean, it's why we're making this podcast because it was so traumatic for Danny and many others. I'm glad I could help. And I'm glad I could help. Tom, I mean, you've obviously come

to a kind of a place of acceptance and it feels like whatever anger that you might have had at some point you've sort of let go of. What about, how did your parents, what about their emotional kind of, how did they feel about my dad and did they get to that same place at some point or not? I'll tell you, my dad spent four and a half years in a Japanese prisoner of war camp. And he survived that. So this was just to him, another bump in the road, you know, and my mom wouldn't let loose of him. We kept saying, Hey, this guy's like, like she thought it was a good deal.

No, no, he's going to, he's going to get my house for me. I go, no, he has your house. I would explain to her. No, he had me sign these papers so he can get the house for me. No, mom, he owns your house. She finally figured it out. She finally figured it out.

And that's when I got a lawyer that I knew to go ahead and go forward with the the sale of the house, you know, with getting the title cleaned. Yeah. Okay, Darren, do you have anything else? I feel like I just want to keep Tom on this line forever. Forever. No, I know.

I'm just like I do think Tom that like the place that you've gotten to, you know, where you see Richard now as this tortured individual, which I think you're right actually, it almost sounds like you have some empathy for him and how he was suffering. Is that accurate? I do, because if I don't, here's how this works. You will be trapped forever if you do not forgive people.

And I don't know how that works. It's the opposite of logic. Logically, you would hate someone and all this and work. And you know, at the beginning, I was, yeah, I was pissed. But then we decided, look, this is a chameleon. And the only way to beat this chameleon is to beat him in his own game. And it might take us some time, but we're gonna do it.

But then, the more I thought about it, I said, you have to forgive him, because if you don't, it's like hitting yourself in the head and expecting your enemy to have a headache. You're gonna be down in that sand trap with him, and you'll never get out and that's what forgiveness will do. It'll get you out of there, you know. Otherwise you'll be stuck there forever. I'm not kidding. You know I feel like you

might be, I don't know if you mean to be doing this, but you might be talking directly to Danny when you say that. Well, Mr. Jacobs, yes I am. I'll admit it. Wow. I don't mean to be rude, but I don't know what you're going through, brother, but I'm hoping emotional right now. That's positive energy. Yeah. You're feeling positive energy. That's better. Yeah, thank you.

Thank you, Tom. That's awesome. Oh, Tom. That's all. You're free, brother. You are free now. You are free. Yeah, that's amazing. Wow. Oh, my God. I feel like we've been waiting to talk to you for so many reasons, Tom. Yeah. Remarkable.

It's an archetype for America. If we don't work together, we're done. We are done. As a community. Who are you? Wow. Well, this was unexpected and cathartic in a way. Yeah. Incredible.

Yeah. This has been... It's just you've really helped me, Tom, see kind of a path forward. It's really amazing. Thank you. I'm hoping to do my best. After you spent 10 minutes looking for keys, you were holding the entire time. And before you went in for a hug while the other person went for a handshake,

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Wow, I mean, you know, an interview like this, I think this is why we are doing this show, why we're making this podcast. Yeah, I mean, just like, it was just so unexpected. But Tom was unexpected. What happened at the end of that interview was- Extremely unexpected. Was complete, I just didn't see it coming.

No, I didn't see any of it coming. And what struck me in particular at the end is what you said that Tom helped you see a kind of path forward. What did you mean by that? Yeah, well, I actually thought a lot about that since that moment. In the moment, I think what I meant was I was feeling closer to a place of, I don't know if I'd say empathy, but at least forgiveness, some kind of forgiveness for my dad, right?

Oh, wow. But, but, but, but I have to say, like, forgiveness for my dad, right? Oh, wow. But, but, but, but, I have to say, like, I've reflected on it more since, and I think I've come to a slightly different conclusion. Oh, what conclusion? Well, I mean, look, Tom managed to get exactly what he wanted in this whole thing, right? He went toe-to-toe with my dad, he won, he got him disbarred, he got justice. So like, I don't know, I kind of think it's a lot easier to forgive someone after you've pretty much completely vanquished them.

You know what I mean? No, that's true. I mean, like, yeah, Lincoln and Grant suggesting forgiving terms to the South after they've basically burned the entire South to the ground is a different story. Exactly. I haven't gotten total victory. I haven't gotten my justice. So I guess, while I think Tom is probably right

about what I need to do, I'm finding the how to be a different story. Like, if I'm being honest here, I still have a lot of anger towards my dad. I just do. No, yeah, that makes sense. I mean, for me, and I recognize that I've been a bit all over the place here these past few episodes,

but like the details about the support group have definitely rekindled my anger towards your dad. And because of that, I'm at a little bit of a loss as to where we should go from here. Okay. Well, I've been thinking about that a bunch too, and I have an idea. Oh, well, do tell. All right. Darren, I think it's time to go home. Home? Yeah. Do you mean the Royal Manor? I do. Do you mean that you would go to the Royal Manor? Yeah. Look, the next episode is our season finale and I just I have an instinct that the answer to where we go from here we will find back there. Wow. I like that idea.

You know what? We should bring your mom. Ding ding. Yeah, that's a great idea. I think that by doing this, I don't know. I feel like there could be some kind of resolution. I sort of left. That just sounds exactly like the kind of season finale we do here on our show. I feel like there could be some kind of resolution. Exactly. Wait, sorry, what show are you talking about again?

No, no, no, no. Don't even try me. I know what you're doing. I'm on to your games, Jacobs. Okay, okay, you know what? You know who we should get to say the name of the show? The support group. Oh, genius. So, on our next episode, after our final interregnum, we return to the royal manor.

That's on the season finale of How to Destroy Everything. How to, are you ready? How to Destroy Everything is written, directed, and created by Danny Jacobs and Darren Grotsky, executive produced by Michael Grant Terry, and edited, sound designed, and music supervised by Dashiell Reinhart.

Dashiell? Dashiell, I mean, there was somebody else that was supposed to be in there, right? Oh, here it is. Okay. An edited sound design and music supervised by Dashiell Reinhart and Robert Grigsby Wilson. original music by Jesse Terry starring in alphabetical order Eugene Bird, Mary Birdsong, Sheila Carrasco, Carolyn Jannia, Jonathan C. Kaplan, Mike Terry, Bruce Wexler. If you knew Richard Jacobs and have a story to tell, please reach out to us at Iknowrichardjacobs at gmail.com. Additionally, if you would like to support this podcast,

please consider becoming a patron at www.patreon.com slash how to destroy everything. And of course, you can find us on Instagram and Blue Sky as well. How to Destroy Everything is available on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Special shout out to Spotify Studios for hosting us in this beautiful studio space in downtown Los Angeles.