He helped take over a dead man’s home in Sherman Oaks. Now he will spend more than 16 years in prison

A man who broke into a Sherman Oaks home with the owner’s body lying decomposing inside was sentenced Thursday to more than 16 years in prison for his role in an ongoing fraud scheme.

Matthew Jason Kroth, 52, told the judge he was “ashamed and ashamed” of his actions, which included helping sell another man’s Encino home without him, that led to his suicide.

Kroth pleaded guilty in October 2023 to conspiracy to commit fraud and possession of a telephone with intent to distribute methamphetamine. He is the second person to be convicted 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 framed her, is serving a 20-year prison sentence after pleading guilty in March 2023 to conspiracy to defraud. Prosecutors said Herrling dismembered Wilding’s body to avoid discovery of her death.

During Kroth’s hearing, United States District Judge Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong ordered him to pay nearly $2 million in restitution for the Wilding and Tascon properties.

Frimpong, who called the fraud “particularly brutal and calculated,” acknowledged Herrling’s role in the scheme, but said Kroth “kicked the whole thing.”

“This crime was not a crime of opportunity,” said Frimpong. “Mr. Kroth was looking for people to steal from.”

The show began in the summer of 2020, when Kroth agreed to break into Wilding’s Sherman Oaks home for a burglary. Wilding, a shy and reclusive man, was known to his neighbors as “the scholar” and “gentleman.”

According to Kroth’s plea agreement, Wilding was alive the first time Kroth broke in and said he was running a “welfare check.” Kroth said that when he returned months ago, Wilding was dead.

Kroth would later tell investigators he was an “urban detective,” meaning he targeted and burglarized neglected homes in affluent neighborhoods, according to the criminal complaint.

She told investigators she stole jewelry and other valuables from Wilding’s home, according to the complaint. He also said that he and others conspired to defraud the estate and bank accounts held by Wilding. Kroth said he walked away with $140,000.

Kroth provided accomplices, including Herrling, with Wilding’s personal identification information and his email to pose as a victim and steal his assets, including his home and money from his financial accounts, according to the US attorney’s office in LA. The accomplices created a trust document and power of attorney forms.

Daniel V Behesnilian, Kroth’s attorney, told the judge that his client first met Herrling at the Van Nuys courthouse, where he was posing as an attorney. Behesnilian said Herrling saw Wilding’s death as “an opportunity to make more money.”

“You used my client,” he said. “He was a genius.”

Behesnilian said Kroth had a “violent break” with Herrling, because he wanted to notify authorities about Wilding’s body and he refused.

In a sentencing memo filed in Herrling’s case, Assistant US Atty. Andrew Brown chronicled the tragic events that followed Wilding’s death. He wrote that Herrling and his accomplices removed Wilding’s body from his home and attempted to dissolve it in acid and lye on his roof porch. They let it sit for a week, the researchers said, occasionally stirring the liquid with a wooden baseball bat.

When that didn’t work, Herrling and his co-conspirators dismembered the body, put the pieces in vacuum-sealed bags and took them to the Bay Area, according to the Justice Department. Brown wrote that Herrling crushed Wilding’s teeth and bones “to make it difficult to see his remains.”

When searching Herrling’s bank records, Lyndon Versoza, the postal inspector working the case, found a wire transfer in September 2021 for the sale of Tascon’s Encino home. Using forged documents, Herrling had sold the house under him for $1.5 million.

The following year, Tascon committed suicide. He was 53 years old. The police report noted that he had a history of mental illness and was involved in fraud.

Despite the allegations that he broke up with Herrling, Kroth admitted in his plea agreement that he received from a bank affiliated with his ex-partner a large amount of money for the sale of the Tascon house, which he knew was fraudulent and that he did it fraudulently.

During a hearing Thursday morning, Behesnilian cited Kroth’s “horrific childhood,” saying his client was sexually abused, homeless and later addicted to meth. He had asked the judge for a 12-year sentence.

“He is beyond redemption,” Behesnilian said.

When he spoke, Kroth, who was wearing a white prison jumpsuit, apologized for his actions, telling Frimpong, “I’m devastated by all of this and I’m at the lowest point in my life.”

In handing down his sentence, Frimpong noted that the crimes took place “while Mr. Wilding’s body was in his house.” Although he said there was no evidence Kroth was involved in the dissection and disposal of the body, he said he used Wilding as a “cash register.”

“He didn’t call the police, he didn’t give him the dignity of a proper burial, he had the right to be buried as a human being,” said Frimpong.