POLICE FIND $400,000 CASH STASH IN HIDE-OUT : ROBBER'S WIFE TIPS OFFICERS TO ADDRESS.

Byline: Jaxon Van Derbeken Daily News Staff Writer

Stowed in a safe in an Anaheim Hills house, authorities said Friday they found about $400,000 that belonged to Larry Eugene Phillips Jr., his share of loot from a string of robberies before his death.

Phillips' wife, tracked down in Colorado, gave investigators the address of the house - another in a series of hide-outs that police have uncovered since the foiled Feb. 28 bank robbery in North Hollywood that claimed his life.

The whereabouts of the money and motives that drove Phillips and Emil Matasareanu to make their suicidal stand remain mysteries that investigators still are scrambling to solve.

Offering new insight into Matasareanu is an account of his dying words, reported Friday exclusively by the Daily News. He told an officer before he bled to death: ``F--- you. Shoot me in the head.''

On Friday, Valerie Nicolescu, Matasareanu's mother, disputed an officer's account provided to investigators.

``They can say anything they want to, I don't believe that,'' she said. ``He was asking for help, he raised his hands, saying, `I give up, help.' Those were his words. He was asking for help, he put down his weapon and he asked for help.''

She said that her son was left to die. ``He was somebody in need, he got treated worse than you treat an animal. He is a human, he is a person, it doesn't matter what he did,'' she said.

On behalf of Matasareanu's two young sons, an attorney has filed a lawsuit against the Los Angeles police. The police deny that they allowed him to die, but rather that they kept paramedics out of the area until it was safe.

Police have searched Nicolescu's Altadena home and seized $23,000. They also have searched a Rowland Heights home and business, in which a mentally ill woman was found locked in a dark room.

Authorities say Phillips and Matasareanu are believed to have stolen more than $1.5 million in two robberies in May 1996, and a June 1995 armored car holdup during which a guard was killed.

In Anaheim Hills, police seized along with the money an automatic AR-15 rifle, an AK-47 rifle, an HK-91 rifle with scope, a 9 mm Beretta pistol, a 9 mm Sig Sauer pistol, a .38-caliber Smith & Wesson pistol, and miscellaneous parts for AK-47s and AR-15s.

Police also seized approximately 2,000 rounds of ammunition, do-it-yourself hand grenade kits, several AK-47 100-round magazines loaded with armor-piercing ammunition and army-style helmets.

Meanwhile, Phillips' 28-year-old wife, Jeanette Theresa Federico, was being held in Colorado on a warrant for child stealing out of Santa Fe, N.M., and is awaiting an extradition proceeding later this month.

Authorities said Friday that Federico is not a suspect. She contacted investigators in Los Angeles after hearing that police were searching for her and agreed to meet them in the police station at Thornton, Colo.