Interstellar’s gifted movie e director and the brother accused of a murder plot that’s out of this world
He claimed to be from the Oppenheimer gems family
THE star-studded premiere of the sci-fi spectacular Interstellar was a rare step into the Hollywood limelight for Christopher Nolan, the British director of the £105m blockbuster. Master storyteller Nolan wrote the screenplay for the film with his younger brother Jonathan a decade after they first won acclaim for their dark reboot of the Batman franchise. Starring Matthew McConaughey, Anne Hathaway and Michael Caine, Interstellar is released this weekend.
But as the plaudits for their fantasy adventure roll in, the Nolans have another compelling story to hand. It would certainly make a movie, but they are most unlikely to be writing a screenplay any time soon.
For it is the real-life tale of the third Nolan brother, Matthew, and his links to lurid allegations of a contract killing in which an American financier was beaten to death.
Matthew, the eldest of the brothers, faces the persistent allegation that he was a ‘hired killer’, the hitman behind the financier’s death.
He was arrested and imprisoned during extradition proceedings – and prepared a bizarre escape attempt involving tied-together bed sheets.
The extraordinary story centres on the accusation by authorities in Costa Rica, filed in an extradition request to a US court, that Nolan was a ‘hired killer’ contracted to kidnap and torture American accountant Robert Cohen while he was on a trip to the Central American country.
Cohen’s badly beaten body was found near the Caribbean coast of Costa Rica in 2005.
The court heard that ‘there was little doubt that Cohen’s death was caused by trauma’ while a Costa Rican pathologist was said to have found evidence he was subjected to pain and anguish before he was bludgeoned to death.
The North American justice system refused to extradite Matthew. He was released from prison and remains a free man. Yet not everyone agrees with the decision.
In another blockbuster-style twist to the long-running saga, the Costa Rican authorities have told the MoS they consider the case still ‘active’ and want to put Nolan on trial. And the victim’s daughter, Alisha, wants Nolan to face court in Costa Rica.
The three Nolan brothers have had a cosmopolitan upbringing. They were born in London to Brendan Nolan, an advertising executive, and their American mother Christina, and have spent much of their lives shuttling between the US and Britain.
Jonathan, 38, and Christopher, 46, who were educated at £30,000-a-year Haileybury school in Hertfordshire, are now two of the most highly sought talents in the screen industry, and are feted in Hollywood.
Matthew, now 63, chose to make his mark in business. He worked as a property developer in Chicago and married his wealthy American wife, Erika, in a lavish society ceremony at one of the city’s most exclusive venues in 1999.
Posing for the wedding photographs, the three handsome English brothers seemed the epitome of American success. But despite the glamorous lifestyle Matthew enjoyed with his wife and two sons, it would seem that he had major financial problems: he and Erika filed for bankruptcy in 2009.
The tangled story of the murder and Nolan’s alleged involvement were laid out in extraordinary detail by an Illinois Federal Magistrate during a hearing in 2009 into the extradition request.
The US District Court was told the victim, Cohen, worked as an accountant for Florida millionaire gem dealer Robert Breska, who was sentenced to four years in jail in the 1980s after being exposed as a drug trafficker.
When $8 m of Breska’s money went missing he, according to American court papers, blamed Cohen despite counter allegations that Cohen’s Costa Rican business partner Mario Quintana stole the money.
Cohen, it seems, was in no doubt about the trouble he was in.
In 2004, Quintana was discovered shot dead, in an apparent suicide.
Cohen, realising that he had lost all chance of recovering the cash, said, according to the court documents, that Breska ‘is capable of putting my life in danger… if anything were to happen to me. Mr Breska would be the person responsible.’
Breska, the court heard, brought Nolan in to recover the lost money and introduced him to Cohen.
Nolan, it was said, was calling himself Matthew McCall Oppenheimer in an attempt to hoodwink Cohen into believing he was a scion of the Oppenheimer diamond family.
The Costa Rican investigators told the American court that this assumed identity was to hide Nolan’s real occupation as a hired killer.
The court papers said: ‘Breska told Cohen this man was a multi-millionaire and a member of a family that was dedicated to the jewellery business.’ They added that Cohen and Nolan met in March 2005 in Costa Rica, where Nolan also met hotel bellboy Luis Alonso Douglas Mejia, who subsequently was convicted in Costa Rica of Cohen’s kidnap and murder.
According to the Costa Ricans, witnesses claimed they saw Cohen and Nolan together in the capital San José. Later, Mejia and Nolan allegedly forced Cohen into a Toyota hire car in a local shopping centre car park on March 6.
When the FBI were called in to help locate Nolan, agents discovered he had flown out of Costa Rica the same day to Houston, Texas, then went on to Paris, New York and finally Miami, all the time allegedly using a fake Paris address and his father’s English mobile number for his contact details.
Three days later, however, Nolan was allegedly back in Costa Rica and rejoined Mejia, who was holding Cohen captive. The court heard the Costa Rican authorities claimed the pair ‘continued to torture the victim’, damaging his internal organs. The torture ‘ caused a massive haemorrhage and resulted in death’. Cohen’s body was discovered on March 10.
At Nolan’s extradition hearing, Judge Michael T Mason noted that Nolan flew out of the country the following day and added: ‘There is competent evidence that Nolan continued his efforts to locate Breska’s assets following Cohen’s death.’
Nolan remained at liberty for another four years until 2009, when he was trapped by FBI agent Pablo Araya – who discovered Nolan was due to attend his own bankruptcy hearing in Chicago. Araya, who arrested Nolan, said: ‘Matthew Nolan was the most arrogant person I have talked to.
‘I grabbed him after he had eluded
or one or two years, and when I ted him his words to me were, would never have got me if it ’t for the bankruptcy.” But it was reed that got him – because of ankruptcy.’ an was arrested and sent to Chis Metropolitan Correctional er while the extradition hearing prepared. It took place later that
Giving his decision, Judge on refused to extradite Nolan on apping and murder charges, rulhat Costa Rica had not submitted cient evidence that Nolan was a on who kills’. en asked how Nolan had escaped dition, Agent Araya said: ‘I do not how he paid for his defence. He going through bankruptcy. Someaid for a high-powered attorney. e Costa Rica extradition request not up to the legal standards ired and it took a good lawyer to hat and the good lawyer fought it prevailed.’
Even then, Nolan’s anxious wait was not over. The court did approve his extradition on false passport charges – but the Costa Rican authorities abandoned their request and in 2010 Nolan was released.
But by then this story had already taken another extraordinary twist.
Earlier that year, in April, Nolan had pleaded guilty to preparing an escape from the Chicago jail. Guards discovered a 31ft-long ‘rope’ made of bed sheets, and a harness, razor and clip designed to unlock handcuffs.
Araya said: ‘It was make-believe stuff. Prison guards had his cell turned over and he had ropes made up. The guard said it was the best rope they had ever seen made.’
Matthew Nolan’s brush with the law and bankruptcy does not appear to have impaired his lifestyle. He and his wife – a Pilates instructor – and their sons, Parker and Peter, live in a substantial four-bed Chicago home.
His lawyer, Andrea Gambino, last week said: ‘Matthew Nolan is innocent of the charges levelled against him by the government of Costa Rica.’
She added that the American courts had concluded the Costa Rican extradition request contained an ‘exces-
Justice must be done... Nolan needs to stand trial
sive amount of sheer speculation, inconsistent statements and typographical and/or translation errors’.
Referring to murder victim Robert Cohen’s 44-year-old daughter, Ms Gambino said: ‘Mr Nolan respects Ms Cohen’s grief and is sorry for her loss.’
But Alisha continues to believe justice has been denied. Speaking to the MoS Alisha, from Orlando, Florida, said: ‘I think that judge was wrong to rule there was not enough evidence to go ahead with extradition because I think the evidence was strong.
‘My mom and I want justice. We believe Matthew Nolan should stand trial in Costa Rica for the murder of my father. I believe that, if Nolan was not from a famous family, it would be a different situation.’
There may yet be more plotlines to play out in this Byzantine tale.
In 2012, Matthew Nolan filed a court action against the US Government alleging that the Bureau of Prisons had inflicted ‘physical, psychological and psychiatric injury’ during his incarceration at the Chicago prison.
And he may not yet be entirely free from the threat of standing trial because, five years after his release, the Costa Rican authorities have not given up attempts to extradite him.
A spokeswoman for Costa Rica’s Public Ministry, which deals with legal matters, told the MoS that they dropped the extradition action only because the use of a false passport was ‘secondary’ to the ‘main ones [which] were murder and kidnapping.’
The spokeswoman said: ‘This evidence that the US judge considered was insufficient to link Mr Nolan with the crimes committed against Mr Cohen, is the same evidence used to condemn Mr Mejia here in Costa Rica.
‘The Costa Rican Public Ministry and the respective Costa Rican authorities have done everything possible to submit Mr Nolan to legal procedure, which is still open against him because of such matters committed against and harming Mr Cohen.’
Nor has Alisha given up hope. She said: ‘I’m thrilled by the news that the case is still open. I would just like to see justice finally done. Nolan needs to stand trial.’