He helped take over a dead man's Sherman Oaks home. Now he'll spend more than 16 years in prison
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A man who burglarized a Sherman Oaks home as the owner’s body lay decomposing inside was sentenced Thursday to more than 16 years in prison for his role in a sprawling fraud scheme.Matthew Jason Kroth, 52, told the judge he was “ashamed and embarrassed,” by his actions, which included helping sell another man’s Encino home out from under him, resulting in his suicide.Kroth pleaded guilty in October 2023 to conspiracy to commit wire fraud and possession with intent to distribute methamphetamine.He is the second person to be sentenced as part of a criminal scheme that targeted the homes of Charles Wilding and Robert Tascon.Caroline Herrling, 46, of West Hills, who led the conspiracy after Kroth brought her into it, is serving a 20-year federal prison sentence after pleading guilty in March 2023 to conspiracy to commit wire fraud.
Prosecutors said Herrling dismembered and disposed of Wilding’s body to prevent the discovery of his death.California Charles Wilding went missing from his Sherman Oaks neighborhood in fall 2020.
Investigators trying to find him uncovered an elaborate fraud.During Kroth’s sentencing hearing, U.S.District Judge Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong ordered him to pay nearly $2 million in restitution to the estates of Wilding and Tascon.Frimpong, who referred to the frauds as “particularly cruel and calculating,” acknowledged Herrling’s role in the scheme, but said Kroth “kicked the whole thing off.”“This particular crime was not a crime of opportunity,” Frimpong said.
“Mr.Kroth was looking for people to steal from.”The scheme began in the summer of 2020, when Kroth admitted to breaking into Wilding’s Sherman Oaks home to burglarize it.
Wilding, a shy man who lived alone, was known to his neighbors as a “recluse” and a “hermit.”According to Kroth’s plea agreement, Wilding was alive the first time Kroth broke in and claimed ...