Riverhead man's mortgage money rescued from dump

Matt Freudenberg was in a panic.

The Riverhead man had mistakenly thrown $3,000 he had earned from weekend concession sales into the garbage Monday morning, and the trash truck had already picked it up.

The money, which he had planned to use to pay his overdue mortgage, was gone.

"It was while I was in the shower that I realized what I had done," Freudenberg, 56, the father of three, said Wednesday.

But with the help of Maggio Sanitation Service Inc., which Freudenberg called frantically after his discovery, the truck was diverted to a transfer station at Yaphank. There, about eight workers searched 12 tons of garbage for more than an hour before the small paper bag containing Freudenberg's cash was found.

"We are just happy that the gentleman got his money back," said Vincent Maggio Jr., company owner and chief executive.

Freudenberg, a nurse at the John J. Foley Skilled Nursing Facility in Yaphank, said his plan Monday was to take the cash to the bank to pay some bills, including the late mortgage payment. He had earned the money selling candy apples and pretzels at a weekend festival.

But he accidentally stuffed the bag of money into a white plastic bag with an old sandwich wrapping and threw it away.

When he realized what he had done, he called the company at 8:30 a.m.

"We get these calls all the time," Maggio said. "We didn't have much hope of finding the money."

At first the company told him the money was gone. But Freudenberg got a call back saying they had diverted the truck to a transfer station.

When he got to the facility, he joined the workers in searching the garbage pile, which stood about 10 feet high and 25 feet wide.

"As soon as I'd seen it, I said, 'There's no way,' " Freudenberg said. "There was all kinds of stuff: Pampers, cereal boxes, coffee grinds."

Around 11:30 a.m., Rafael Varela, a forklift operator, found the money. "It was right in the middle of the load," Maggio said.

Varela said "it was lucky" that he found the plastic bag, since there were so many others like it. He immediately called out to Freudenberg, who was searching elsewhere. "He was jumping up and down - he was very happy," Varela said. "He gave me a hug and kissed me."

Freudenberg said he gave Varela, 48, of Central Islip, a $100 reward and another $100 to the other workers. But Varela said he refused the money. "It was part of my job," he said.

Freudenberg treated the workers on Tuesday to doughnuts and coffee.

Maggio said the company gets about two to three calls a week from people who want to find things that they had inadvertently tossed, but usually, their request is denied.

In this case, Maggio made an exception. "He sounded like he was very stressed," he said. "He was late on his mortgage and it was all the money he had."