The Price Was Wrong

For months Gerard Mignone, 38, an unemployed Brooklyn milkman, had been salivating at the very sight of NBC's gaudy giveaway, The Price Is Right. The show promises a wondrous pack of prizes to any shrewd appraiser in the home audience who submits (via postcard) their correct prices. Mignone sent in hundreds of cards, became obsessed with the show. To check on prices, he organized an intricate filing system, hounded the Department of Commerce and called manufacturers all over the country. Said he: "I got a phone bill I'm afraid to show my wife. I spent $200 tracing these things."

But his bids always seemed to be a few cents off. Finally, when a giveaway house was at stake, Mignone decided that the only way to beat the game was to break the rules. He waited for the correct bid to be announced over the air, then faked a couple of postcards and tried to bribe two 16-year-old mail sorters (with $3,000 each) to slip the doctored cards into the show's regular mail. The kids told the story to the cops, and when two detectives came for the Machiavellian milkman, he tried to take it on the lam. A warning shot fired over his head ricocheted off a building, hit him in the cheek and landed him in the hospital. Said his wife: "I tried to get him to quit, but all he cared about was that show."

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