The Sordid Past of the Third Nolan Brother

Matthew Nolan, born in 1968, is a British American man best known as the eldest brother of writer/directorChristopher Nolan, born in 1970, andJonathan Nolan, born in 1976. The brothers have an English father and an American mother. They were raised in London and had extended childhood stays with their mother's family in the Chicago suburb of Evanston, Illinois.

Matthew Nolansettled in Chicagoand worked as a property developer. He married an American woman in 1999. His trajectory seems to have changed in the early 2000s when he became involved with a gem dealer from Florida named Robert Breska, who himself had a background as a drug trafficker.

According tocourt records, in or around 2004, Robert Breska accused his accountant Robert Cohen of stealing approximately $7 million from his bank accounts. Cohen countered that it was his Costa Rican business partner, Mario Quintana, who'd stolen Breska's money. Not long after, Quintana turned up dead. The official account was that Quintana had committed suicide, but Cohen feared something more sinister.

Meanwhile, Breska remained fixated on the idea that Cohen had his money and that retrieving it was still a possibility. At this point, Matthew Nolan entered the picture. Breska introduced him to Cohen under the fake name of Matthew McCall Oppenheimer, as an heir to theOppenheimer diamond fortune.

On March 6, 2005, Robert Cohen seems to havetaken a meetingwith "Matthew Oppenheimer" (actually Matthew Nolan) in San Jose, Costa Rica.

Also present was Luis Alonso Douglas Mejia, a hotel bellboy allegedly conspiring with Nolan. Video evidence proffered in courtpurportsto show Nolan and Mejiawith Cohenin the parking lot of a San Jose shopping center, the last time Cohen was seen alive. Hours later, Nolan was on a plane to Houston, Texas.

Again percourt records, within three days, he was back in Costa Rica, where he once again met up with Mejia, who was holding Robert Cohen captive. On March 10, Costa Rican authorities discovered Cohen's dead body. He appeared to haveperishedfrom organ failure stemming from severe beatings and torture. The next day, Nolan left the country once again.

Luis Alonso Douglas Mejia wasconvictedof Cohen's murder by a Costa Rican court and sentenced to jail. Meanwhile, Nolan, as would later bedisclosed by an American judge,继续努力找到罗伯特Breskamoney.

Nolan spent the next four years as a free man, but in 2009 he and his wife filed for bankruptcy. He was trapped by FBI agent Pablo Araya, who’d been investigating the Cohen murder and discovered Nolan was due to attend his own bankruptcy hearing in Chicago. He wasarrestedand taken into custody.

Following the arrest in 2009, Nolan was formallychargedwith Cohen's murder in Costa Rica.

Costa Ricarequestedthat Nolan be extradited to stand trial in their court system. While an American judge reviewed Nolan's case, he was confined to the Metropolitan Correctional Center in downtown Chicago.

At that point, his story took another twist.

The judge overseeing Nolan's casedid not findsufficient evidence to extradite him to Costa Rica. The Costa Rican authoritiesabandonedtheir request in 2010 and Nolan could have walked free at that point, but he'd already been arrested a second time. The charge? Trying tobreak outof the Metropolitan Correctional Center.

In the fall of 2009, Nolan was found with whatNBC Chicago reportedas "a razor, a harness, a metal clip (to unlock handcuffs), and 31 feet [9.4 meters] of rope made from bedsheets." He pleaded guilty to possessing contraband in jail and obstruction of justice. In July of 2010Nolan was sentencedto 14 months in prison for his somewhat Batman-like escape attempt.

Matthew Nolan was never extradited to Costa Rica. In 2014, hesuedthe United States, accusing the Bureau of Prisons of "physical, psychological and psychiatric injury" during his time in the Metropolitan Correctional Center. The case dragged on for several years, and its final outcome appears hidden from public record.

To no one's surprise, Matthew Nolan remains unaffiliated with his brothers' filmmaking careers.