Infamous America - [ENCORE] NORTH HOLLYWOOD ROBBERY Ep. 2 | “Two-Eleven In Progress”

Episode Date: January 14, 2026

After two armored car robberies, Larry Phillips and Emil Matasareanu graduate to bank robberies. They have an arsenal of high-powered weapons at their disposal, and they show no fear of confrontation with police. They execute two successful robberies . . . and then enter a Bank of America location in North Hollywood on February, 28, 1997, and everything goes wrong. Thanks to our sponsor, Quince! Use this link for Free Shipping and 365-day returns: Quince.com/infamousamerica Thanks to our sponsor, Rocket Money! Use this link to start saving today: RocketMoney.com/InfamousA Join Black Barrel+ for ad-free episodes and bingeable seasons: blackbarrel.supportingcast.fm/join   Apple users join Black Barrel+ for ad-free episodes, bingeable seasons and bonus episodes. Click the Black Barrel+ banner on Apple to get started with a 3-day free trial.   On YouTube, subscribe to INFAMOUS+ for ad-free episodes and bingeable seasons: hit “Join” on the Legends YouTube homepage.   For more details, please visit www.blackbarrelmedia.com. Our social media pages are: @blackbarrelmedia on Facebook and Instagram, and @bbarrelmedia on Twitter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In March of 1996, the Los Angeles Police Department was busy investigating a failed armored car robbery in the San Fernando Valley. The job bore a striking resemblance to an armored car robbery a year earlier that had left a man dead. Two masked men with assault rifles, thought to be AK-47s, fired at the truck with rounds that had pierced the reinforced sides of the armored vehicle. Shell casings found at both crime scenes matched, but other than that, The LAPD had very few leads. Eyewitness accounts contradicted each other, and the assailants had abandoned and burned their escape vehicle. The LAPD didn't know that the two suspects had been arrested on weapons charges

less than three years earlier in Glendale, just 25 miles from the failed robbery attempt. Glendale was its own city, with a police force that was separate from the LAPD. Information didn't move from one department to another, like it does today, so the LAPD knew nothing about Emil Matasarano and Larry Phillips. The robbers had mixed results with the two armored car robberies in the spring of 1996, so in the summer of 1996, they decided to change their tactics. Instead of going after the armored cars that delivered money to the banks, they would go after the banks themselves.

The two loud, terrifying, and successful bank robberies they pulled off in 1996, earned them the nickname, the High Incident Bandits. But those robberies were only warm-ups for the all-out battle that was coming in February of 1997. If communication technology had been a little more advanced, if the various police departments that were involved in the four previous robberies had been able to coordinate and put all the pieces together, the North Hollywood robbery might not have happened. But after Phillips and Montessarano got a taste of the excitement and the action of bank robberies, and after those robberies netted them more than a million dollars, there was no turning back. They felt unstoppable, and for about 40 minutes on February 28, 1997, they looked

unstoppable as well. From Black Barrel Media, this is infamous America. I'm your host, Chris Wimmer, and this season we're telling the story of the North Hollywood robbery and the unprecedented battle between two gunmen and the Los Angeles Police Department. This is episode two, 2-Eleven in progress. The two men who entered the Van Nuys branch of Bank of America on the morning of May 2, 1996, showed absolutely no hesitation. One customer said she heard someone behind her yell at the customers to get down on the ground or they'd be killed. Before she could turn around to see what was happening, the shooting began. One of the masked gunmen, a massive man with a giant black duffel bag strapped across his back and a machine gun in, in his arms, fired 21 rounds into the door that separated the lobby from the teller stations.

The lumbering man easily shattered the door with one kick of a foot that wore a black Reebok shoe. Emile Matasarano was on his way to the vault and the second gunman, Larry Phillips, was on crowd control. Phillips constantly yelled at the people in the bank to keep their heads down and their eyes closed. The customers, deafened and terrified by the thunder of machine gun fire obeyed. Madaseranu ushered several employees, anyone who had keys, back toward the vault. He shouted orders, give me all the large bills. I know Brinks just came.

Don't give me junk money. He loaded stacks of cash into the duffel bag. In the lobby, Phillips watched the time. He yelled at his partner that it was time to go. Security camera footage showed the men leaving. Phillips in front and Mada Seraan. lugging the duffel bag across the lobby floor. They were in and out in six minutes.

Less than a minute later, the first police cars arrived. But none of the witnesses outside the bank could provide any information that could help with a pursuit. The robbers had disappeared, and they had disappeared with more than $755,000. The LAPD and the FBI were perplexed. Takeover robberies had escalated, but as they watched the security, camera footage of the robbery, they realized they were dealing with something much different. The men had far more firepower than law enforcement had seen before, and far more than was needed. The robber's assault rifles, which looked like AK-47s, had drum magazines instead of the

classic banana clip. The circular drums held more than 70 rounds, and it wasn't just the fire power that caught the attention of investigators. The bulk of the robber's baggy clothes, led law enforcement to believe that the gunmen were equipped with body armor. It made investigators wonder, what kind of resistance were these guys expecting inside the bank? The robbers were armed and protected as though they were going to battle a company of soldiers instead of take over a bank that was filled with civilians. Whether the bandits had done their research or just liked heavy weapons,

the strategy worked. The door that Montessarano had shot was designed to be, bullet resistant to small arms fire. But the 762 by 39 millimeter rounds fired at close range from an AK-47-style rifle tore it to shreds. Those rounds fired from that gun could rip apart concrete walls, cars, and even the standard bulletproof vests worn by law enforcement. In some ways, it did seem like the robbers were well prepared. They knew that a Brinks truck had delivered money that day, and they had a route planned for their escape. But FBI experts were confused as to why they spent so much time in the bank. The FBI knew that the most successful bank robberies

were about two minutes in duration. Anything more than that, and a robber could be sure that silent alarms had alerted the police. But Phillips and Matasarano had lingered for three times longer than the typical robbery. Terrified customers stated that the men were loud, and threatening, but not anxious and not rushed. Law enforcement began to worry that maybe these men weren't concerned with facing off with the authorities. These men weren't just ready for a gunfight. They might welcome it.

A few weeks later, Phillips and Matasarano returned to the Bank of America location where they had murdered a Brinks employee named Herman Cook a year earlier. The robbers used the same strategy, and again, they walked away with more than 700,000 $50,000. After that robbery in the summer of 1996, the police started calling the robbers the high-incident bandits. While bank robberies continued throughout Los Angeles, the LAPD and the FBI paid special attention to the high-incident bandits. Authorities were concerned that Phillips and Mada Seranu might inspire copycats. The nightmare scenario was that heavily armed gunmen might start showing up at banks all over the city. So, the high-incident bandits became the top priority.

LAPD investigators, federal agents, and members of Metro Division SWAT formed a task force to catch the bandits. Since there were no good leads on the identity of the bandits, the best option was to stakeout banks in the area. The stakeout operation focused on larger banks that would have larger quantities of cash on hand. But two months of surveillance, thousands of man-hours, and a valley-wide dragnet accomplished nothing. By the fall of 1996, Phillips and Matasarano were ghosts. The task force disbanded. Maybe the robbers were already in jail for other crimes. Maybe they were content with the $1.5 million they'd stolen earlier in the year. There was no way to tell. The cops held out hope that one of the bandits would make a ridiculous purchase that raised suspicion, but that didn't happen

either. Phillips and Matasarano spent their riches modestly. They rented homes for their wives and children. Monteserano in Roland Heights and Phillips farther south in Anaheim. Phillips did buy a sports car, a jaguar, but that wasn't enough to tip off investigators. The only high-priced item that Matasarano spent money on was a medical bill. That fall, after the successful robberies in the spring and early summer, Matasurano began suffering headaches and dizzy spells. One night, he collapsed in a Denny's restaurant and was rushed to the hospital. A hematoma on his brain that could have become life-threatening required expensive surgery. The total cost was $45,000, but he only ended up paying the $15,000 down payment.

Regardless of price, the surgery was a big reason why the bandits were out of sight for several months. While recovering, Matasaranu struggled. Depression set in, and his refusal to take his medication led to mood swings and violent outbursts. It's believed at this time his wife took their children and moved out. Matasarano's mother said later that, following his surgery, he told her he didn't want to go on living. While Matasarano recuperated, Larry Phillips made a trip to Denver for the Thanksgiving holiday to visit his father. Larry Sr. told an investigative journalist years later

that his son's spirits were high and that he seemed to be in a good place financially, which was rare. But Larry Sr. also confessed that his son had said that he had, quote, something to take care of. Larry Jr. insinuated that whatever he had planned, he might not walk away from it. Larry Sr. had heard his son say before that he wouldn't let anyone put him in prison ever. According to the father, that was the last time he talked to his son.

No one knows for sure if Phillips and Mada Seranu had their next heist planned when Larry talked to his father, but is believed that they continued to stockpile weapons and ammunition during the fall of 1996 and that they might have been modifying some of the weapons to make them fully automatic. And on top of the growing arsenal, those statements by family members paint a picture of Phillips as a person who vowed to never be taken alive, and Matasarano as a person who was in a dark place and harboring thoughts of death. It was a dangerous combination. And as 1996 turned to 1997, the pair were almost certainly planning their next job. By the end of February 1997, they were ready. The high-incident bandits were going back to work.

and their target was Bank of America branch 384 in North Hollywood. They brought their arsenal, they brought their body armor, and they brought their aggressive, nothing to lose mentality. The problem was, Bank of America finally found a couple simple security measures that would cause major problems for the most dangerous bank robbers in Los Angeles. The North Hollywood branch of Bank of America took up the entire 6,600 block of Laurel Canyon Boulevard. It was a big building with two entrances and two parking lots. Across Laurel Canyon Boulevard from the bank was the Valley Plaza Mall.

It was what lots of people in America call a strip mall. It was a two-story building with businesses that mostly faced the parking lot right out front. It wasn't one of the big indoor malls with a hundred shops where people wander around for hours. In the Valley Plaza Mall at the time, there was a small family market, a hardware store, dentist's office, among other things. In the middle of the parking lot, there was a kiosk that made keys. If you needed a copy of the key to your house, you could quickly drive up and take it to the guy in the booth. The kiosk was about the size of a couple old-fashioned telephone booths. And, to no one's surprise, it was not built to withstand bullets from fully automatic assault rifles.

Laurel Canyon Boulevard is a major street in Los Angeles, both in the Valley and in West Hollywood. It's lined with businesses, but in the Valley, in North Hollywood specifically, all the neighborhoods around the street are residential. Bank of America and the Valley Plaza Mall were surrounded by small family homes. On the morning of February 28, 1997, Larry Phillips and Emil Matasarano sat in a 1985, Chevy celebrity in the north parking lot of the bank. They stepped out of the car a little after 9 a.m. They planned to leave the car running when they went into the bank. They wanted to be inside for no more than eight minutes,

and they wore watches so they could easily track the time. As with the previous robberies, they planned to go in loud and aggressive. Mada Serranu would get access to the vault. Phillips would remain in the lobby and keep the customers and employees on the ground and quiet with their eyes shut. This game plan had already netted them more than $1.5 million,

and they hoped they would get about another $750,000 that morning. Both men were decked out in body armor. Phillips wore more than 40 pounds of armor, including a bulletproof vest. He'd crafted coverings for his arms and legs that were made from patches of Kevlar. Other than his head, very little of his body was unprotected. The much larger Matasaranu wore only a vest that he had reinforced with bullet-resistant steel plates. From his waist down, he was vulnerable. Both men wore tactical vests that were loaded with hundreds of rounds of extra ammo,

and they both wore black ski masks. And if the general sight of two guys wearing dark clothing, black ski masks, bulky body armor, and vests jammed with clips of ammo for machine guns wasn't scary enough, The assault rifles themselves would have pushed the average civilian over the top. Phillips and Matasarano carried Norinco Type 56 rifles. They're made in China, but they're identical to the Russian-made AK-47s, which was why everyone at the time, and in the immediate aftermath, and even some still today, said the robbers carried AK-47s.

The guns are the same, but the robbers used the Chinese model that had the less familiar name. And there were two more differences that were far more important than the name. The robbers had illegally modified the rifles from semi-automatic to fully automatic. A semi-auto rifle would only fire one bullet each time the trigger was squeezed. With a full-auto rifle, the shooter could hold the trigger and spray a non-stop torrent of bullets in any direction. The second difference was that the robbers replaced the familiar curved ammunition magazines, sometimes called banana clips, with circular drum magazines

that can hold 75 to 100 rounds. It was the modern equivalent of the old Tommy gun from the gangster era of the 1930s. And those weapons were just the beginning. Phillips also carried a Beretta 9mm sidearm. In the trunk of the car, they had a heckler and Coke 91A3 rifle with 40 round magazines,

a Bushmaster XM15 dissipator and a third automatic Noreenko rifle. And if you can't picture the HK or the Bushmaster, look them up. You might recognize them. They looked like they walked off the set of an action movie from the 80s or 90s. In fact, the Noreenko Type 56 and a close cousin of the HK were used in the 1995 bank robbery movie Heat that starred Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, and Val Kilmer. In all, Phillips and Montessarano loaded up five high-powered rifles and more than 3,000 rounds of ammunition to rob a bank in a residential neighborhood on a Friday morning. At some point before exiting the vehicle, Phillips and Monteseranu took significant doses of phenobarbital, a drug that they could have had access to because it was one of the drugs Monteserano could have had after surgery.

It could lower anxiety, even make a person lethargic. It could also make people confused, limit their muscle mobility, and affect their sense of time. Maybe the robbers wanted it to calm their nerves. Maybe they'd taken it before, or something like it. Maybe that was why they had lingered for such a confusingly long time inside the bank in Van Nuys in the spring of 1996. Whatever the reason, they stepped out of the car at 9.17 a.m. with assault rifles in hand. They put on their ski masks and walked into the north entrance of the bank. It was the beginning of an unbelievable and terrifying 44 minutes.

As the two men entered the bank, a customer was walking out, but he didn't make it past the doorway. Larry Phillips grabbed the customer and shoved him back into the bank. Matasarano was right behind Phillips. He immediately fired a volley into the ceiling and shouted, Everybody down, get down, or I'll kill your ass. Another customer, 79-year-old Mildred Nolte, didn't move fast enough. Madaseranu struck her across the face and knocked her to the floor. By that point, everyone was on the ground.

Phillips watched them down the barrel of his rifle, and Mada Sirano got to work. He walked up to the plexiglass door that separated the customers from the bank employees. He raised his rifle and blasted the area around the door's lock. He didn't know it, but the high-passed. powered rifle fire could be heard outside, across the street, in the parking lot of the Valley Plaza Mall. The plexiglass door couldn't withstand the gunfire. Matasarano pushed it open and entered the restricted area where the bank tellers worked. He yelled for the managers to meet him. He wanted access to the vault, and 26-year-old bank manager John Villagrana slowly stood up and said two keys were needed.

He had one, but someone else had the other. Matasarano cracked him on the head with the rifle stock and told him to get it. Villagrana, with his head bleeding, retrieved the second key from a co-worker and led Madasurano back to the vault. Inside, the cash was kept in lockers. Viagrana began opening them, and Matasurano saw that the first locker contained small bills, ones and fives. Without warning, he fired into the locker. Shredded money floated around the vaults. like confetti. Matasuranu hit Viagrana again and demanded the big bills.

Viagrana reached into the second locker and started shoveling wrapped packs of 20s, 50s, and one-hundreds into Matasarano's duffel bag. As Villagrana worked, Matasarano demanded to inspect the bills. He didn't want old, torn-up bills like the ones they'd stolen in their first armored car robbery. He wanted the new pristine bills and And he knew enough to check for the security die packs that could explode and render the money worthless. Carefully, but quickly, Villagrana displayed each bundle of bills before he tossed it in the bag. There were no die packs, but Matasarano was late in making his demand. By the time he started forcing Viagrana to show him the money,

Viagrana had already thrown a bundle into the duffel bag that was loaded with a die pack. Then Matasaranu stormed around the inside of the vault, seemingly confused. Where's the rest? He yelled in Viagrana's face. But Viagrana had loaded all the available cash in the vault. There was no more. Matasarano hustled Viagrana out of the vault and back into the lobby to a locked door. Behind the door was a room that was not much bigger than a closet. That room had access to the backs of the ATMs. Each cash machine, or bank machine as they're sometimes called in other parts of the world,

could hold up to $100,000. This Bank of America had seven cash machines, so there could have been as much as $700,000 in that little room, in addition to the money from the vault. But that was the point when the robbers learned that they had two big problems. Other security measures, like Plexiglass Bandit Barriers, and multiple silent alarms and new surveillance can, had done nothing to dissuade men like Phillips and Matasarano.

So Bank of America made other simpler changes. Armored cars now delivered twice a day instead of once. So there was half as much cash on hand at any given time. That was why Matasaranu was furious when he saw the amount of money in the vault. The second change was that the ATMs were no longer restocked by bank employees. The money was removed in the middle of the night by Brinks Armored General of the Night by Brinks Armored car personnel. Employees at Bank of America had no access to the money in the cash machines, a fact that was about to make Phillips and Matasarano crazy. Matasarano was enraged, and he called for

Phillips to join him in the ATM room. In the confined space, the robbers opened fire on the backs of the cash machines. They assumed they could just blast the machines open, or it was a sign of growing frustration. The machines remained secure, but shrapnel and brachshunders, and bullets ricocheted around the room. In the bank lobby, the terrified customers heard the roar of gunfire. They feared that assistant manager John Villagrana was dead. He was still in the room with the robbers, and he was obviously not protected by body armor. Debris from the machines hit him, and he started bleeding, but his injuries weren't severe. Phillips and Matasarano had no access to the cash in the machines. They had less than half of what they'd hoped for in their duffel bag.

and the clock was ticking. They'd been in the bank for nearly seven minutes, and it was time to go. But that wasn't going to happen. The robbers didn't know it, but they had been spotted entering the bank. For the entire time they were in the building, police all over the city had been hearing the dispatch for a 2-11, a bank robbery in progress in North Hollywood. Police cars were racing toward the location with full lights and sirens.

More than 30 officers were hearing the words, shots fired as they hurried to 6,600 Laurel Canyon Boulevard. Unfortunately, the first officers on the scene only knew the generic description, a bank robbery in progress, shots fired. They had no idea the shots were fired from fully automatic assault rifles by guys wearing body armor or bulletproof vests. Then another call went out from a patrol car with a designation 15A43. Officer Lauren Farrell said, 15A43 requesting assistance. We have a possible 2-11 in progress

at the Bank of America Laurel Canyon north of Kittridge. Farrell and his partner officer Martin Porello just happened to drive by the bank as Phillips and Matasaranu walked into the building and began the robbery. The two officers pulled their car over to the side of Laurel Canyon Boulevard and listened to their radio

as officers in the area began to respond. bond. Officer James Zaboravan, a rookie who was exactly two months and eight days out of the police academy and his training officer, Stuart Guy, were two of the first to arrive. They pulled into the parking lot of the Valley Plaza Mall directly across the street from the bank. Zaboravan grabbed their standard shotgun from the floorboards in the front seat of the car. This was his first robbery, but he was confident it would play out like most of the others, a hasty surrender by the robbers or a prolonged hostage negotiation with the SWAT team and hopefully no injuries. Zaborvan and Guy exited their car and approached two detectives who had also arrived on the scene,

Tracy Angelus and John Krulak. The detectives were wearing typical plain clothes that certainly did not include protective vests or body armor. All four took a position behind the kiosk that made keys in the middle of the parking lot. From that vantage point, they could see both entrances to the bank. Nearby, Officer Martin Whitfield was parked near a middle school to stop people from speeding through the school zone. His radio barked calls about the robbery in progress, and he realized it was right around the corner. He hit his lights and sirens and made the short trip to the intersection of Laurel Canyon Boulevard and Archwood Street, north of the bank. The intersection was less than 300 feet from the entrance of the bank,

and it's not an exaggeration that it was just moments away from turning into a war zone. Whitfield was a father whose girlfriend Kim worked at the office at the LAPD, but she was studying to become a dispatcher. As fate would have it, Whitfield gave her a police radio before he left home that morning so she could listen in and learn the codes and the jargon that she needed for the job. She was about to listen in helpless horror as the next hour of her boyfriend's life played out in real time over the police radio. Officer Whitfield parked his car in the middle of the street near the car of another officer, Sergeant Dean Haynes, who had used his vehicle to block traffic headed south on Laurel Canyon.

Haynes, a husband and father of two boys, was approached by a few civilians. They told him they thought they had seen two or maybe three, did men enter the bank carrying AK-47s. Haynes relayed the information to dispatch, and dispatch spread the word that the robbers were armed with AK-47 assault rifles. By 924 a.m., seven minutes after the robbery began, more than 30 officers had taken up positions in the streets and parking lots around the bank. Sirens could be heard in the distance, but with Laurel Canyon Boulevard blocked off north and south of the bank, the immediate area was bizarrely quiet. Then Sergeant Dean Haynes saw a masked man emerge from the bank.

Haynes was about 200 feet away, and he could confirm that the man had what looked like in AK-47. Haynes watched the man survey the scene. There were officers south of the bank. There were officers in the parking lot of the Valley Plaza Mall across the street from the bank, and there were Haynes and Whitfield, which were officers in the parking lot of the valley plaza mall across the street from the bank, and there were Haynes and Whitfield with three civilians in the intersection north of the bank.

Then the masked man raised his rifle and pointed it directly at Haynes, Whitfield, and the civilians, and opened fire. Next time on Infamous America, the battle for North Hollywood begins. The responding officers are outgunned and suffer casualties at a pace that no one is prepared for as Laurel Canyon Boulevard turns into utter chaos.

That's next week on Infamous America. Members of our Black Barrel Plus program don't have to wait week to week for new episodes. They receive the entire season to binge all at once with no commercials, and they also receive exclusive bonus episodes. Sign up now through the link in the show notes or on our website, blackbarrelmedia.com. Memberships begin at just $5 per month. This season was researched and written by Jamie Lyko. Original music by Rob Valier.

Copy editing by me, Chris Wimmer, and I'm your host and producer. Find us at our website, blackbarrelmedia.com, or on our social media channels. We're Black Barrel Media on Facebook and Instagram and B-Barrel Media on Twitter. And you can stream all our episodes on YouTube. Just search for Infamous America Podcast. This show is part of the Airwave Media Podcast Network. Please visit airwavemedia.com to check out other great podcasts like Ben Franklin's World, History of the Great War, and many more.

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