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Just goes to show people still cache cash.........................
By Eric Litke
Gannett Wisconsin Newspapers
SHEBOYGAN — For a few fleeting months, Matt Harju was living a dream.
He had spent almost 11 years in prison between 1986 to 2000 — primarily for stealing food and electronics from several churches, a golf course and a senior center — but soon after his release in May 2000, the small-time crook struck it big.
Police say Harju was one of several burglars who made off with between $1 million and $4 million in cash and government bonds after repeatedly raiding the north-side office of longtime Sheboygan landlord Dina Matlin over a period of at least five years.
"It was like their bank — they would just go in there and get money," said Sheboygan County District Attorney Joe DeCecco. "We're talking about hundreds of thousands taken at one swoop several times, so God knows how much money was taken."
The money, primarily rent receipts dating back as far as 50 years, was stored in the drop ceiling of Matlin's nondescript office at 1804 N. Eighth St., police say.
The meandering tale of the heist includes the Outlaw Motorcycle Club, a burglar too generous for his own good and a spending spree that ranged from classic cars to a never-ending supply of new underwear — along with the obligatory guns, drugs and jailhouse secrets.
"It certainly has got some wild twists to it," said Detective Joel Clark of the Sheboygan Police Department, who worked on the case for the better part of three years. "A burglary of this type of value, people will go to some extreme extents to either get involved or get out of it."
At the center of the story is Harju, 43, who last month was sentenced to four years in prison for breaking into Matlin's office in February. Investigators say Harju, most recently of W4254 Clearview Road in Waldo, raided the property a dozen or more times stretching back as far as 2000, but it was not until this year that police caught him in the act.
Since tackling the case in earnest in mid-2004, police have interviewed suspects, received numerous tips and served several search warrants, but many basic elements of the thefts remain a mystery, including when they started, who was involved and exactly how much was taken.
What police do know is that whatever money was hidden away is gone now, and that the amount of money taken is unparalleled in Sheboygan history.
What follows is the tale of the Matlin heist, as related by investigators and court documents tied to Harju's prosecution.
How the story begins
The story begins with Matlin, who gained notoriety for accumulating $1.2 million in fines for city building code violations on her more than 50 properties.
By the time Matlin, now 80, made good with the city — paying $893,000 under an agreement reached in June 2005 — she was financially ruined to the point of being forced to sell 20 properties to raise the cash.
Matlin and her husband, now deceased, have owned rental properties in the city since for at least 40 years, officials said.
"He put me out of business," Matlin said when asked about Harju in a brief interview earlier this month. "I worked my whole life. My husband worked his whole life."
She paused.
"I don't want to discuss it."
Clark said police repeatedly told Matlin to put any money in the bank, but she wouldn't listen.
"There's no … suspicious reason, I think that's just the way she did it," Clark said. "We told her it'd be better off in a bank, it's safer in a bank, but by that point, obviously, it was gone."
Police say the cash appeared to be rent payments that had been bundled with cash register receipts and separated into envelopes packed into cardboard boxes. Matlin said the stash included both currency and government bonds, "not necessarily" all related to her rental properties.
She would not say how much money she believed was lost, and Clark said she might not know. Matlin gave no hint of the stash in reporting numerous burglaries of the office, either reporting small sums of cash missing, revealing no amount or giving general descriptions, like in a December 2002 report when she said burglars took a year's worth of rental cash.
Others' estimates of the take vary greatly.
Harju once told police he and an accomplice made off with $3 million to $4 million, while one police informant reported seeing 13 to 15 boxes containing $150,000 to $200,000 each, which would add up to about $2 million. Another tipster put the total at $1 million.
"Nobody's been able to put a real number on it," Clark said.
About the heists
Investigators aren't sure when the cash started disappearing, but it was likely between May 2000 — when Harju was released from prison on a burglary conviction — and February 2001. That's when a former handyman of Matlin's was arrested at the Fountain Park Motel with $26,000 in currency dating to the 1950s.
Police believe the handyman worked with Harju and may have even initiated the heist, but investigators couldn't tie the recovered cash to Matlin and have never gathered sufficient evidence to issue charges. Because of that, the handyman is not named in this story.
Clark believes Harju raided Matlin's office at least a dozen times. Matlin reported a total of about 25 burglaries at her office between 2000 and Harju's arrest in February, but there may have been other entries that went unnoticed or unreported, and the thieves weren't necessarily successful each time.
Despite the regular reports, no bigger picture of the heist emerged, due in part to a lack of cooperation from Matlin and the state of the office itself. The space is overflowing with papers and chest-high piles of trash that completely obscure the floor.
But there were hints from the beginning that something was afoot.
Matlin was told by an anonymous caller in March 2001 that the handyman had a copy of her key and was stealing from her. Matlin said the key had been missing for a time until the handyman returned it to her, claiming he had found it.
Matlin carefully regulated access to the office, but police said the burglars were entering the office through a basement window and using a trap door to climb up to the main floor. There were never signs of forced entry, so police believe those responsible entered the basement through a window initially and later a door, after procuring a key to the downstairs entrance.
At some point, the handyman is believed to have discovered the cash, either stumbling upon it while he worked or seeking it out.
"I think (Matlin) conducts a lot of business hand-to-hand in cash, and I think being around her for years he probably figured that out and said, 'Look, there's got to be some around here somewhere,'" Clark said.
Prison terms interrupt heists
And so the thefts began, likely with both men involved in swiping the cash and moving it to the home they shared at 1322 Geele Ave., a home rented to them by Matlin, official accounts reveal.
Harju, who for a time cooperated with police and shared details of the thefts, claimed the handyman went after the cash alone at first, but the handyman denies all involvement.
Clark believes both were involved from the start.
But while the burglaries were pulled off without incident, both Harju and the handyman ran into other problems by the end of 2001.
The handyman was the first to go, sent to prison for four years for cocaine possession with intent to deliver. He had more than an ounce of the drug in his possession when he was arrested with the old currency.
Harju was sent to prison for 11 months in November 2001 for stealing his mother's car and driving it to Michigan.
While both were in prison in late 2001 or early 2002 — including a stretch from April to July 2002 when both were housed at the Kettle Moraine Correctional Institute — Harju and the handyman learned their Geele Avenue home had been condemned and was in danger of being razed.
That was a problem, since the cash had been hidden there, taped to attic beams and stashed in washers, dryers and couches. They made plans for Harju to salvage the money when he was released, said Harju, who told police this is the first he learned of the money, adding the handyman told him then it was taken from Matlin.
Regardless, Harju had more money than he knew what to do with when he got out of prison in July 2002. And for a time, he took full advantage.
Eric Litke writes for the Sheboygan Press. E-mail him at [email protected]
By Eric Litke
Gannett Wisconsin Newspapers
SHEBOYGAN — For a few fleeting months, Matt Harju was living a dream.
He had spent almost 11 years in prison between 1986 to 2000 — primarily for stealing food and electronics from several churches, a golf course and a senior center — but soon after his release in May 2000, the small-time crook struck it big.
Police say Harju was one of several burglars who made off with between $1 million and $4 million in cash and government bonds after repeatedly raiding the north-side office of longtime Sheboygan landlord Dina Matlin over a period of at least five years.
"It was like their bank — they would just go in there and get money," said Sheboygan County District Attorney Joe DeCecco. "We're talking about hundreds of thousands taken at one swoop several times, so God knows how much money was taken."
The money, primarily rent receipts dating back as far as 50 years, was stored in the drop ceiling of Matlin's nondescript office at 1804 N. Eighth St., police say.
The meandering tale of the heist includes the Outlaw Motorcycle Club, a burglar too generous for his own good and a spending spree that ranged from classic cars to a never-ending supply of new underwear — along with the obligatory guns, drugs and jailhouse secrets.
"It certainly has got some wild twists to it," said Detective Joel Clark of the Sheboygan Police Department, who worked on the case for the better part of three years. "A burglary of this type of value, people will go to some extreme extents to either get involved or get out of it."
At the center of the story is Harju, 43, who last month was sentenced to four years in prison for breaking into Matlin's office in February. Investigators say Harju, most recently of W4254 Clearview Road in Waldo, raided the property a dozen or more times stretching back as far as 2000, but it was not until this year that police caught him in the act.
Since tackling the case in earnest in mid-2004, police have interviewed suspects, received numerous tips and served several search warrants, but many basic elements of the thefts remain a mystery, including when they started, who was involved and exactly how much was taken.
What police do know is that whatever money was hidden away is gone now, and that the amount of money taken is unparalleled in Sheboygan history.
What follows is the tale of the Matlin heist, as related by investigators and court documents tied to Harju's prosecution.
How the story begins
The story begins with Matlin, who gained notoriety for accumulating $1.2 million in fines for city building code violations on her more than 50 properties.
By the time Matlin, now 80, made good with the city — paying $893,000 under an agreement reached in June 2005 — she was financially ruined to the point of being forced to sell 20 properties to raise the cash.
Matlin and her husband, now deceased, have owned rental properties in the city since for at least 40 years, officials said.
"He put me out of business," Matlin said when asked about Harju in a brief interview earlier this month. "I worked my whole life. My husband worked his whole life."
She paused.
"I don't want to discuss it."
Clark said police repeatedly told Matlin to put any money in the bank, but she wouldn't listen.
"There's no … suspicious reason, I think that's just the way she did it," Clark said. "We told her it'd be better off in a bank, it's safer in a bank, but by that point, obviously, it was gone."
Police say the cash appeared to be rent payments that had been bundled with cash register receipts and separated into envelopes packed into cardboard boxes. Matlin said the stash included both currency and government bonds, "not necessarily" all related to her rental properties.
She would not say how much money she believed was lost, and Clark said she might not know. Matlin gave no hint of the stash in reporting numerous burglaries of the office, either reporting small sums of cash missing, revealing no amount or giving general descriptions, like in a December 2002 report when she said burglars took a year's worth of rental cash.
Others' estimates of the take vary greatly.
Harju once told police he and an accomplice made off with $3 million to $4 million, while one police informant reported seeing 13 to 15 boxes containing $150,000 to $200,000 each, which would add up to about $2 million. Another tipster put the total at $1 million.
"Nobody's been able to put a real number on it," Clark said.
About the heists
Investigators aren't sure when the cash started disappearing, but it was likely between May 2000 — when Harju was released from prison on a burglary conviction — and February 2001. That's when a former handyman of Matlin's was arrested at the Fountain Park Motel with $26,000 in currency dating to the 1950s.
Police believe the handyman worked with Harju and may have even initiated the heist, but investigators couldn't tie the recovered cash to Matlin and have never gathered sufficient evidence to issue charges. Because of that, the handyman is not named in this story.
Clark believes Harju raided Matlin's office at least a dozen times. Matlin reported a total of about 25 burglaries at her office between 2000 and Harju's arrest in February, but there may have been other entries that went unnoticed or unreported, and the thieves weren't necessarily successful each time.
Despite the regular reports, no bigger picture of the heist emerged, due in part to a lack of cooperation from Matlin and the state of the office itself. The space is overflowing with papers and chest-high piles of trash that completely obscure the floor.
But there were hints from the beginning that something was afoot.
Matlin was told by an anonymous caller in March 2001 that the handyman had a copy of her key and was stealing from her. Matlin said the key had been missing for a time until the handyman returned it to her, claiming he had found it.
Matlin carefully regulated access to the office, but police said the burglars were entering the office through a basement window and using a trap door to climb up to the main floor. There were never signs of forced entry, so police believe those responsible entered the basement through a window initially and later a door, after procuring a key to the downstairs entrance.
At some point, the handyman is believed to have discovered the cash, either stumbling upon it while he worked or seeking it out.
"I think (Matlin) conducts a lot of business hand-to-hand in cash, and I think being around her for years he probably figured that out and said, 'Look, there's got to be some around here somewhere,'" Clark said.
Prison terms interrupt heists
And so the thefts began, likely with both men involved in swiping the cash and moving it to the home they shared at 1322 Geele Ave., a home rented to them by Matlin, official accounts reveal.
Harju, who for a time cooperated with police and shared details of the thefts, claimed the handyman went after the cash alone at first, but the handyman denies all involvement.
Clark believes both were involved from the start.
But while the burglaries were pulled off without incident, both Harju and the handyman ran into other problems by the end of 2001.
The handyman was the first to go, sent to prison for four years for cocaine possession with intent to deliver. He had more than an ounce of the drug in his possession when he was arrested with the old currency.
Harju was sent to prison for 11 months in November 2001 for stealing his mother's car and driving it to Michigan.
While both were in prison in late 2001 or early 2002 — including a stretch from April to July 2002 when both were housed at the Kettle Moraine Correctional Institute — Harju and the handyman learned their Geele Avenue home had been condemned and was in danger of being razed.
That was a problem, since the cash had been hidden there, taped to attic beams and stashed in washers, dryers and couches. They made plans for Harju to salvage the money when he was released, said Harju, who told police this is the first he learned of the money, adding the handyman told him then it was taken from Matlin.
Regardless, Harju had more money than he knew what to do with when he got out of prison in July 2002. And for a time, he took full advantage.
Eric Litke writes for the Sheboygan Press. E-mail him at [email protected]
