Twisted Genius: Confessions of a $10 Million Scam Man

While Jacob characterizes others with the phrase degenerate gambler, common in racetrack argot, he never applies it to himself, but it describes him as well. Beginning during his New Jersey adolescence, he racked up gambling debts and paid them by cheating the friends with whom he played cards. He graduated to passing stolen and forged checks and using counterfeit credit cards, moving all over the nation but concentrating on the East Coast and Las Vegas. Now 42, Jacob sums up his life this way: ``I don't feel compelled to... do acts of contrition... I made a ton of money and had me an adventure. It's not a bad parlay.'' His memoirs, written with Berger (Punch Lines), include a lengthy addendum, ``The Jacob Papers,'' composed of a 1981 presentencing report by a probation officer, a 1988 statement by his common-law wife, a 1994 violation-of-probation report made to the Eastern District of New York and a whiny letter written to a friend in 1995. Jacob is now serving a seven-and-a-half-year prison term, which he is appealing. Photos not seen by PW. (Sept.)