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Biggest Shootout In California History
On the morning of February
28, 1997, the same two men, Emil Matasareanu and Larry Phillips,
dressed in full body armor, threw a cache of automatic assault weapons
in the trunk of their car, and went to rob a bank.
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The Shooting Begins As
They Walk Out
As they entered the Bank of America in North Hollywood they ordered everyone to
drop to the floor. They hit one man in the head with a rifle butt because he
couldn't keep his baby quiet. The robbers didn't order the Plexiglas doors
behind the counter to be opened; they simply obliterated them with automatic
weapons fire. They left the bank with $300,000 in cash.
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44 Minute
Gun Battle
Police officers responded immediately. And then came a shoot-out that made the
OK Corral look like a Teddy Bear Tea Party. Matasareanu and Phillips shot 3 police
officers in the first five minutes, and kept shooting for 35 more minutes,
firing more than 1,100 armor piercing bullets from AK-47 and SKS assault rifles.
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Twelve
Cops Shot
At first the police did not even shoot back, as they were afraid of drawing fire
to civilians that were busy diving for cover.
During the shootout, a total of twelve officers, eight civilians, were
wounded , and the two gunmen were killed
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SWAT Ends
Gun Battle
One of the robbers, Phillips, was shot 11 times before he turned his weapon on
himself and committed suicide. The other robber, Matasareanu, had been shot 29
times by the time he was handcuffed and taken into custody. He was wearing full
body armor, so not all of those bullets injured him.
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The
Disappearing Background
In 1997 the 'Rolling Stone'
magazine did a detailed background histories of both men, with
interviews with family members and spouses left behind. Oddly it is
nowhere to be found. 3
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David Ira Warfel
David Ira Warfel[812Hollywood_shootout_supplement.htm - MISSING] alias Dennis Franks,
Genis Franks, Larry Phillips, was the son of a con-man named
L
Abraham Senior.
The father was arrested for embezzling and counterfeiting in Colorado,
after which the son David, moves to LA. with his Momma.
The 21 yr-old David starts
out selling real estate, but the 'Art of the Con' was genetically in
his blood, and his real estate license gets revoked. Following in his
Poppa's footsteps, he sets up a shell company called Capital West
Investments, and using forged documents, he sells phony discounted
second mortgages without the property owners ' knowledge. He was
busted in Orange County for a similar scam.
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Phillips narrowly managed
to avoid criminal prosecution, but he did wind up with a $140,000
civil judgment against him-that was never paid. His next scam is
in Colorado where he rents vacant houses, pocketing the deposit
and first month's rent he collected from the unsuspecting renters
before disappearing. In 1995 he hooks with a fellow Zionist,
Emil Matasareanu. They pull a series of robberies culminating in the
North Hollywood shootout.
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Emil Dechebal Matasareanu
Emil Matasareanu, 30, was born
in Romania and grew up partly in Altadena, Cal. He was a computer
hacker like Abbie Mitnick. He pretended to working as a computer
technician and software designer, and then hack business systems.
Matasareanu, and his mother
Nicolescu[812Hollywood_shootout_supplement.htm - MISSING],
ran a Medicare scam, a care center for the mentally disabled.
They were caught inflating invoices, and were shut down. He met Warfel/Larry
Phillips in 1995
Matasareanu was Jewish[812Hollywood_shootout_supplement.htm - MISSING].
.
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Steven Yagman Sues LA
Attorney Stephen
Yagman,
who is representing
Matasareanu's
two young sons, charged in the
lawsuit
that the police let
Matasareanu
bleed to death.
The first trial resulted in a hung jury, and the lawsuit was later
dropped.
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