Key Takeaways
- Dane Cook fronts new documentary Funny Money: The Dane Cook Story, detailing how his half-brother and business manager Darryl McCauley secretly siphoned at least $12 million from him between 2004 and 2008.
- McCauley allegedly forged bank statements, wrote himself massive checks, and hid bundles of stolen cash in a home safe and even inside pasta sauce jars filled with sauce before his 2008 arrest.
- After pleading guilty to larceny, forgery, and embezzlement, McCauley served six years in prison and was ordered to pay $12 million in restitution, but Cook believes even more money is still unaccounted for and says his brother has since disappeared.
Dane Cook’s half-brother didn't just steal more than $12 million from the comedian — he hid the cash in filled pasta sauce jars.
The shocking revelation sits at the center of Funny Money: The Dane Cook Story, a documentary directed by Brett Harvey set for release on September 29.
The Good Luck Chuck actor narrates throughout the doc, and a snippet of the fraudulent scheme is revisited in a trailer for Funny Money, which can be seen below.
Darryl McCauley, Cook's half-brother and former business manager, oversaw the entertainer's finances through a company called Great Dane Enterprises.
According to Variety, McCauley pulled funds in increments of $20,000, $50,000, and as much as $100,000 at a time from Cook's accounts without his knowledge. McCauley was seemingly successful at the theft, which he continued from 2004 through 2008 and sent his half-sibling forged bank statements for years.
"I was starting to feel something that I couldn’t really identify," Cook explains in the trailer. "Was he hiding it in different places, stockpiling this money?" It's then revealed that McCauley, in addition to stashing the money in a home safe, was hiding some of it in pasta sauce jars — filled with actual pasta sauce.
McCauley was arrested in 2008 and charged with the theft of $12 million from Cook. He pleaded guilty two years later to larceny, three counts of forgery, and embezzlement, per People.
McCauley was sentenced to six years in prison with 16 years of probation and ordered to pay $12 million in restitution. His wife, Erika McCauley, received a two and a half years charges including larceny in connection with her husband. Before joining Cook's operation, McCauley had worked as a corrections officer.
Cook believes the true total stolen exceeds what the courts established. "I do believe that there's money out there," he says in the film. "I believe there's people that know more."
After McCauley's release from prison, he "disappeared," as explained by Cook in the documentary trailer. McCauley's current whereabouts remain unknown.
