Dane Cook's Brother Stole Millions and Hid It in Pasta Sauce — A New Documentary Tells the Story

A new documentary reveals that comedian Dane Cook's half-brother and business manager, Darryl McCauley, stole at least $12 million from him — and hid bricks of cash inside pasta sauce containers, wrapping the bills in plastic before stashing them in jars.

Funny Money: The Dane Cook Story, directed by Brett Harvey, premieres on 29 September and will be available to stream on demand. It is also scheduled to screen as part of the New York Comedy Festival lineup (Variety).

Cook became one of the most commercially successful stand-up comedians of the 2000s. Before that, both he and McCauley had wanted to be comedians. McCauley instead became a corrections officer — and, eventually, Cook's business manager.

According to the documentary, McCauley withdrew sums of $20,000, $50,000 and $100,000 from Cook's accounts without Cook noticing. He and his wife, Erika, used the money to travel, invest, and buy real estate and jewellery (Courthouse News). Between 2004 and 2008, the couple — both of Wilmington — stole more than $12 million (Lowell Sun).

McCauley was charged with embezzlement in 2008. He pleaded guilty to 27 counts of larceny over $250, three counts of forgery and embezzlement, among other charges, and was ordered to pay back the $12 million alongside his wife (NBC Philadelphia). He served a six-year prison sentence. Then he disappeared.

In the documentary, Cook describes McCauley as "a person who spent so much time pretending to be something he wasn't." He also says he believes the stolen total could be higher than $12 million, stating in the film's trailer that "there's money out there" and "there's people that know more."

The documentary features Cook alongside Al Del Bene, Robert Irwin and Courtney Cook (IMDb). It explores what Variety describes as the dark side of Cook's rise to fame, with the pasta sauce containers serving as one of the more striking details: cash, wrapped in plastic, hidden inside jars of sauce and in a safe at McCauley's home.

For a comedian whose career was built on commanding arena-sized crowds, the story underneath is about trust placed in family — and what happened when that trust was spent.