The North Hollywood Shootout

A War Zone

The Gunman Had Thousands Of Rounds

SWAT Finally Stops The Gunman

Seven Cops Shot

The Names Larry Phillips And Emil  Matasareanu Were Aliases

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

David Ira Warfel

David Ira Warfel 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.

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, 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.

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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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Judicial Index