A new documentary reveals how comedian Dane Cook's half-brother and business manager looted at least $12 million from his accounts, and stashed bricks of cash inside containers of pasta sauce before vanishing after prison.
Darryl McCauley grew up alongside Cook. Both wanted to be stand-up comedians. Cook made it, becoming one of the most commercially successful comics of the 2000s. McCauley became a corrections officer. Then Cook handed him the keys to his finances, and McCauley helped himself to a fortune.
The full scope of the theft is the subject of "Funny Money: The Dane Cook Story," a documentary set to premiere on September 29 and available to stream on demand. Variety first reported on the film and its details, including McCauley's method of concealing the stolen funds.
McCauley served as Cook's business manager, a position of total financial trust. He used that access to withdraw sums of $20,000, $50,000, and $100,000 from Cook's accounts without the comedian noticing. The withdrawals went on for an unspecified period before investigators caught up with him in 2008.
The money didn't just sit in a bank. McCauley stashed cash in a safe and, in a detail that sounds like it belongs in a low-budget crime film, wrapped bricks of currency in plastic and hid them inside containers of pasta sauce.
Cook, narrating the documentary's trailer, described the slow realization that something was wrong:
"I was starting to feel something that I couldn't really identify. Was he hiding it in different places, stockpiling this money?"
That instinct proved correct, and then some.
Authorities charged McCauley in 2008 with embezzling at least $12 million from Cook. McCauley pleaded guilty to larceny, embezzlement, and other charges. His wife, Erika McCauley, also pleaded guilty, though the specific charges she faced are not detailed in available reporting.
A court ordered McCauley to repay the full $12 million. He served a six-year prison sentence. And then, by all accounts, he disappeared entirely.
That vanishing act is part of what drives the documentary. Cook poses the questions plainly in the trailer:
"Where is he? What has he done? How does this end?"
Cook does not appear to believe the matter is settled. He told filmmakers he suspects the real total exceeds the $12 million figure and that other people may have been involved.
"I do believe that there's money out there. I believe there's people that know more."
The betrayal was not just financial. Cook and McCauley are half-brothers who grew up together. Cook entrusted his career earnings to a family member, the kind of arrangement that works only when trust is absolute. McCauley exploited that trust for years.
Cook described his half-brother in the documentary as "a person who spent so much time pretending to be something he wasn't." That line carries weight beyond the embezzlement itself. McCauley wanted to be a comedian and never made it. He became a corrections officer instead. When Cook's career took off, McCauley stepped into the role of manager, and apparently decided to take what he felt the world owed him.
Several questions remain unanswered. No reporting identifies the court or jurisdiction that handled the case. Whether McCauley ever repaid any portion of the $12 million is unclear. His current whereabouts are unknown. And the documentary's streaming platform has not been publicly identified.
What is clear is the scale of the damage. Twelve million dollars, at minimum, stolen by the one person a man trusted most. A guilty plea. A short sentence. And then silence.
When the person managing your money is also the person hiding it in jars of Ragú, accountability shouldn't end at six years and a vanishing act.
