By Ray Birch
NEW BRITAIN, Conn.—Matthew Yussman thought his ordeal was over. That he was safe. That the trauma was behind him. He was wrong.
Yussman, the CFO at Achieve Federal Credit Union, had spent much of the morning of Feb, 22, 2015, with what he had been told was a bomb taped to his chest by two criminals who were just beginning a multi-state crime spree in which they would kidnap and abduct employees at financial institutions in attempts to force them to get money from their organizations.
When the bomb squad pulled off of his chest what would be determined to be a fake bomb and left him standing there in five-degree weather in the credit union’s parking lot, Yussman was cold and shaken, but also relieved that the worst of it was now over. Yussman was free of the bomb and free from the two criminals who had menaced him and his mother since midnight. (See related story.)
Not Free From Suspicion
But it would turn out he wasn’t free at all. Not free from the press coverage and especially not free from suspicion by police and the FBI that he was somehow involved, that it was an elaborate inside job. Yussman would find that he was not seen as a victim, but instead as a suspect, and would be for the remainder of the year.
“The event itself lasted about 12 hours. But the scariest part of my life was the nine months of hell I endured afterward,” said Yussman, who learned in December the FBI finally cleared him of suspicion after two men—Brian Witham, 45, of Waterville, Maine, and Michael Benanti, 43, of Lake Harmony, Penn.—were arrested in North Carolina, as CUToday.info reported here.
The aftermath of the kidnapping/robbery attempt, Yussman told CUToday.info, was one of the most shocking things that occurred to him as the result of the ordeal—he never thought he would be considered part of the failed scheme to empty the cash vaults at Achieve.
Yet that is the scenario that began to emerge almost as soon as Yussman was freed from the bomb that the two robbers had said would detonate and kill him 11 in the morning if he didn’t get them the money they had demanded. Still traumatized, he walked over to a police officer to pat him on the back for helping him, only to be told by police that he should walk toward a cruiser. That’s where the police slapped handcuffs on Yussman.
“The police at first told me the handcuffs were for my own protection,” said Yussman, who asked an officer if he was under arrest.
Lie Detector Test
Yussman said that while at the New Britain police station, where he was driven back to, he was “dumb enough” to agree to a polygraph test—after he had been awake for nearly 40 hours and had been through an ordeal that involved being kidnapped in his own home, having his mother’s life threatened, and having that bomb attached to him.
Yussman took the polygraph test and, according to police, while he had not failed the test, the results “showed deception.” That analysis was released by police and widely reported by the media, including CUToday.info. Polygraph tests can be enormously unreliable, and police will sometimes release a statement questioning results as a means of pressuring suspects.
Yussman said police told him to “‘be a man and confess, it will be easier on you. But I refused to confess to something I did not do.”
Investigators did not give up. Yussman said that after an ongoing “badgering” from police, whom he described as “not kind,” to confess to the crime, he told authorities that he wanted an attorney.
“That’s when they let me go,” he said.
Yussman said he felt a great deal of personal pain from how he was treated by police and for how the local and national news coverage that would follow focused on the police statement about the lie detector test results and the suggestion of his possible guilt.
“It was really difficult for me,” he said. “Looking back, I never had the chance to comprehend what happened to me as a victim because I went straight into the role of being a main suspect in the case. I said to myself, not shortly after police handcuffed me, ‘My God, they are really trying to pin this crime on me.’”
Yussman: Poor Police Logic
Yussman said he argued with authorities about how ridiculous that idea was.
Brian Witham and Michael Benanti have been arrested for their roles in several FI employee kidnappings, including Achieve
“I said I am the CFO. I have access every day to millions of dollars—at my fingertips. Why would I go after the place where we have the least amount of money, which is our vaults. But the police told me that was the ‘beauty of my plan.’”
Yussman said he waited three weeks to get a lawyer because he could not come to terms with the fact he was considered a prime suspect.
“I kept thinking, ‘This is stupid. They know I did not do this. They are just trying to rule me out as a suspect.’ But the pressure from police did not stop, so I eventually got an attorney. And I got a good one, Richard Brown. Thank God I did that because he did a lot for me.”
Nine months after the ordeal, in November, 2015, Yussman was called in front of a grand Jury. His mother had already testified in front of the same grand jury on two previous occasions.
“They also brought in my friends, all the time telling me I was a material witness,” said Yussman. “But all of the questions directed to me asked why I would commit the crime. So you could see the grand jury was trying to build a case against me.”
What was more damaging to Yussman was how the media covered the crime and quickly posed whether Yussman was in league with the crooks.
“All the articles talked about was how I failed the lie detector test and that I could be guilty,” said Yussman. “That bothered me a lot.”
Banking Department Influenced By Media?
It bothered Yussman even more when he learned that the State of Connecticut’s Department of Banking had barred him from working at the credit union, a mandate that was in place for the three months after the crime.
“And I learned that one of the main reasons I was prevented from working at the credit union was that the state was influenced by all the negative media coverage about me, about how I might be guilty,” explained Yussman.
As Yussman’s attorney told the media on several occasions, Yussman reminded CUToday.info that lie detector tests are often inaccurate.
“I read about these devices and learned about how many innocent people fail the tests and how many guilty people pass them,” said Yussman. “There is a reason the tests are not admissible as evidence in a case—they are not accurate.”
Yussman was not officially cleared of suspicion in the crime until Whitham and Bananti were arrested and Witham pleaded guilty to not just the kidnapping/robbery attempts in Tennessee, but to being one of the two men involved in Yussman’s abduction, as well, as CUToday.info reported here. Benanti remains in prison in Knoxville, Tenn. and is slated for trial.
The arrests and guilty plea were a “wave of relief” for Yussman.
'Stunned Silence'
Yussman recalled how last December he thought the FBI—who had informed him they would be stopping by the credit union—was coming to arrest him, and instead told Yussman they caught two men in North Carolina they believed were linked to the Achieve case.
“I sat in stunned silence when they told me that,” said Yussman. “Then they told me they would not bother me anymore. That was the first time I broke down in tears from all this. I could not believe it. I had been under so much stress.”
Yussman described the FBI, who took over the case from local police once a similar abduction at Y-12 Credit Union in Tennessee occurred, as being far “scarier” than the local authorities. He said the FBI was regularly in contact with him and asking questions all the way up to the point where Whitham and Benanti were arrested.
“The FBI would constantly call my lawyer and friends. They tore apart my life going back 20 years. They got all my financial records. . .”
Before Yussman was cleared, he said he kept telling the FBI that the incidents in the south were connected to his case. “But they kept telling me they were separate and that my case was not related.”
Never Considered A Victim
Yussman compared how he was treated to treatment of victims in some of the other credit union and bank employee abductions.
“The victim at Y-12 was treated like a hero and the press was kind to him,” said Yussman.
That case involved Mark Ziegler, the CEO of Y-12 Credit Union, who along with his wife and family were confronted by three suspects at their home in West Knoxville, Tenn. Ziegler shared his story with CUToday.info here. A third suspect in that case has not been identified or arrested.
But what was most important to Yussman was how his credit union treated him over the time he remained a suspect in the crime.
“They have been fantastic,” explained Yussman. “My staff, board and CEO have been behind me all the way. They did everything possible to get me back working—paid for two audits and a background check on me. They did everything they could to prove that I had nothing to do with the crime and to get me my job back.”
Standing Ovation
Yussman said the three months he spent at home, away from his job which he considered his “life,” were “not fun.”
“I had been at the credit union 15 years,” said Yussman. “This is more to me than just a place I work. I needed to come back.”
When Yussman returned to work in May of 2015, he was immediately taken to the CU’s conference room, which was filled with 40 employees, nearly the entire CU’s workforce.
“They gave me a standing ovation, which I will never forget,” said Yussman, who had been in regular contact with CEO Andrew Klimkoski and many other employees during the time he was away. “That brought me to tears.
Yussman said his 71-year-old mother, Valerie Yussman, is doing well after being tied to her bed during the crime and told a bomb was under her bed.
“She is a strong woman. She is doing well,” said Yussman. “She is a little jumpy still and does not like being alone. But she has suffered no real traumatic effects from the event.”
As for Yussman, he still wrestles with the fact he was never “allowed to be the victim” in the crime, with police almost immediately trying to “pin” the crime on him.
After three months of professional counseling, Yussman said he is finally able to say to himself that he did nothing wrong, now realizing he did everything he was “trained to do.”
“I had some initial guilt from all this,” he said. “Could I have done more, done something different? But I have finally gotten to the point where I can say my mother is OK, my staff are OK, and I am OK, and the crooks got no money. I guess I can live with all of that.”