Matt as a Prosecutor

During the 1990s, Matt Entenza served as a prosecutor with the Minnesota Attorney General's Office and Hennepin County Attorney's Office, seeking justice for Minnesotans who had been victims of fraud and for the state of Minnesota itself. Read on to find out about some of Matt's most significant cases.

• The family of a young Moorhead girl who needed a liver transplant entrusted a Texas charity with managing money raised for her surgery. Following her operation, the bills started stacking up - the two ministers behind the charity were pocketing the money rather than paying the bills. The family went to the Minnesota Attorney General's Office, where Matt was assigned to the case. His investigation turned up hundreds of families all over the United States who were in similar situations, including two families waiting for transplants at the University of Minnesota. The AG's office was able to get back all money for Minnesota families and worked with federal authorities and the Texas Attorney General's Office to put the ministers in jail.

• A self-styled adoption agency in Golden Valley was swindling families desperate for a baby - promising that for "one low upfront fee," they'd take care of adoption services. The owners took the fees and failed to make good on adoption promises. With Matt on the case, the AG's office shut down the operation. The agency owners went to federal prison.

• A Tennessee-based telemarketing outfit claimed to be helping law enforcement agencies raise money to fight drug crime. Unfortunately, almost all of the money was actually staying in the pockets of the Tennessee telemarketer. Matt led the case that involved infiltrating the telemarketing business with an undercover investigator, shutting down the operation and taking the company to trial. The ultimate verdict against the crooked company was for hundreds of thousands of dollars for Minnesotans who had been defrauded.

• A scheme run by a Canadian national was supposedly raising money by phone to buy Bibles for homeless people but was really just pocketing the money. With Matt at the helm of the case, the AG's office sent in undercover investigators as telemarketers and secured the organization's phone scripts. The organization was shut down and the owner was ultimately prosecuted and deported.

• An executive at a major insurance company was stealing from policyholders by manipulating computer records in order to borrow against the cash value of customers' whole life policies. Matt led the case for the Hennepin County Attorney's Office, prosecuting the executive and putting him in jail.

• A construction company was illegally dumping contaminated construction material into protected wetlands, leading to severe degradation of the protected area. Matt was part of a team at the Hennepin County Attorney's Office that criminally prosecuted the owner of the company for this crime. As part of his penalty, the owner was required to pay for the removal of all material from the wetlands, thus restoring them at no cost to taxpayers and sending the polluter to jail.