The crime committed by Jack Quinn was familiar. The forty-eight year-old trusted security company senior executive stole over $1.3 million in untraceable cash. The circumstances which led to his committing the theft were hardly unique, as the man with a taste for the good life was living well beyond his means and had dug himself too deeply in debt.

In contrast to many “inside heists” however, Jack Quinn’s was a quiet caper, and he, by living a seemingly quiet life as a fugitive, was, unlike most such perpetrators, never brought to answer for his offense.

Jack Quinn

Having worked in the sales and armored-car divisions of several security companies, Jack Quinn became vice president and general manager of Federal Protection Services Inc.in 1986. The company, headquartered in Riviera Beach, Florida, seventy-five miles north of Miami, provided security, armored cars, and armed guards to banks and other financial institutions and businesses.

In addition to overseeing the security operations in the handling of millions of dollars, Quinn had designed the protection agency’s dual-combination security system for their safe, and he was the only person who knew both parts of the passcode.

A Trusted Supervisor

Quinn and Guard and Patrol Supervisor Harry Goldberg were the only people working in the Federal Protection Services Inc. office for much of the morning of April 9, 1988. Quinn told Harry he would handle the preparing of the morning run of an armored car’s rounds to restaurants on the Florida Turnpike and logging the daily collections.

As he peered into the vault window several times throughout the morning, Harry observed Quinn sitting at his desk each time appearing to do be doing paperwork. He never saw him opening the safe; he was not looking at the right times as Quinn had been inside the vault for much of the morning, loading over $1.3 million in literal cash into boxes which he placed into the trunk of his company vehicle, a white Chevrolet Chevelle. He also placed two sealed bank bags of $107,000 into the trunk of his personal car.

Around noon, Quinn asked Harry to follow him to his rented home in Loxahatchee Groves, less than twenty miles southwest of Riviera Beach, where he left his personal car and told his wife Pauline that he had to return to the office for about half-an-hour.

Harry then drove Quinn back to work.

Harry Golden,

Quinn’s Colleague

That evening, with her husband still not having returned and having been unable to reach him at the office, Pauline called several coworkers, but none had had any contact with him . . . or any idea what he had done.

The following morning, Pauline found the two cash-filled bank bags in the car’s trunk along with a letter from her husband under the windshield wiper. It read in part: “I have done something very wrong, and I can’t stay and face the consequences. Please forgive me for my actions. I hope you will understand someday. I love you.” Another passage directed to the couple’s thirteen-year-old son Michael said “to be the man of the family,” to get a good education and to follow his dreams.

Pauline informed authorities of the money and note.

Pauline Quinn

Quinn had set a timer on the company vault preventing it from being opened until 5:30 a.m. on April 11, the following day. When opened, it was devoid of the untraceable money in varied denominations of $10, $20, $50, and $100 bills.

The FPS company car Quinn used was found abandoned at the Continental Airlines terminal of Palm Beach International Airport. The ticket left inside showed the car was driven into the parking lot at 5:36 p.m. on April 8. Investigators believe Quinn had likely transferred his loot into suitcases before fleeing. Nothing was found suggesting whether he had taken a cab or if he had rented a car.

Quinn was subsequently found to have purchased several one-way tickets on multiple airlines to New York, Washington, D.C., and other large cities, but it could not be determined which, if any, he had used, as no one could recall a man resembling him boarding a flight that day.

During the previous month, Pauline had found a wad of money stuffed in her car’s driver’s side vanity mirror as well as several significant amounts of cash stashed across the house. Her husband told her all of the dough was from various items he had recently sold, such as guns, a car, or property.

Authorities believe Quinn had instead acquired the money through two earlier unsolved thefts from his previous employer, Merchants Armored Transport Inc., where he had been head of their Armored Car Division. After the West Palm Bach company went out of business, he and their other employees were hired by FPS.

Unbeknownst to Pauline, her other half was over $50,000 in arrears and was working several night jobs trying to pay off his expenses. Quinn also owed his first wife Jacqueline Degen over $8,500 in child support payments for their son John, but these were the least of his problems.

In the weeks before the theft, the IRS, again without Pauline’s knowledge, had garnished three-fourths of Quinn’s wages because he had not reported his income or the past two years (some sources say six years.) They had seized several thousand dollars, but he still owed $15,000 in back taxes.

Having been jailed in 1986 for failing to pay over $10,000 in alimony, and faced with the possibility of a return trip for his IRS woes, police and Pauline believe Quinn panicked under the pressure and saw the theft as his only way out.

Quinn was also found to have been having a clandestine four-year affair with a woman named Beverly Lance. She had seen him on the day of the theft but said he had provided no inkling of his intentions.

Some acquaintances also believed Quinn was secretly seeing another woman with whom he may have run away. As far as I could determine, this woman was never named.

Several sightings of a man resembling Quinn in the company of a younger woman on the Mexican resort island of Cozumel in December 1988, eight months after the theft, could not be confirmed as he. An American man who had moved to a small village in another part of Mexico sometime in 1989 was thought to be the fugitive, as he flashed a lot of cash and had mentioned of coming from Florida. He was not Quinn, but he was still arrested, as he was found to be a drug dealer.

Quinn Was Quite Busy

In 1990, the FBI tracked Jack Quinn to New Jersey and to Maryland, where he once been a police officer. Two years later, he was found to have earlier resided in Houston after it was discovered he had obtained a Texas driver’s license under the name of his brother-in-law Dale Calvin Clukey in May 1989. A thumbprint taken during the application process was matched to him, and he had provided phony information in renting a Mail Boxes Etc. address, which he used only as a mail drop for six months before closing it.

Quinn was also found to have used the aliases Dale Cluke and James Sullivan, but he eluded apprehension for the remainder of his life.

Quinn Is Tracked But Not Taken

In March 2026 the FBI announced Jack Quinn’s fingerprints were matched to those of “Jim Klein,” who had died of natural causes at Ashville, North Carolina’s Mission Hospital in December 2025 at age eighty-five. Investigators are trying to piece together Quinn’s nearly thirty-eight years on the lam. None of the over $1.3 million he absconded with has been recovered, most of which is likely to have been spent.

Quinn’s law enforcement and security background had likely helped him stay at large for so long.

Quinn Wins

 The FBI Fails To Catch The Riviera Beach Thief

Following Quinn’s theft, Federal Protection Services Inc. President Carl Fulgenzi sold his company’s armored car division, approximately one-third of his business, after Lloyd’s of London canceled FPS’ insurance and refused to pay his $1.3 million claim.

Lloyd’s contended FPS filed incorrect information on the insurance form which was filled out by Jack Quinn in 1986. He had written two people were needed to open the company vault when it took only one person: himself. The lie was perhaps made in his anticipation of committing the theft.

Fulgenzi sued Lloyd’s of London. In January 1991, a jury ordered them to pay $606,000 for the loss of the armored-car business and general business resulting from bad publicity.

Carl Fulgenzi

Federal Protection Services Inc. President

Her husband’s burglary and tax troubles financially decimated Pauline Quinn, and she and Michael had to move to Gaithersburg, Maryland, to live with her daughter from her first marriage. She admitted speaking to Jack on several occasions in the ensuing two years, as he had called to inquire about their well-being. She said he had also left a handwritten letter and $3,600 in cash at her home.

Pauline admitted to rendezvousing once with her fugitive husband, saying she and Michael had met him at Washington D. C.’s National Zoo in 1989. She said he was driving a maroon Chrysler Imperial, had gained weight, was wearing contact lenses that had changed his eye color, and had multiple beards and wigs to further alter his appearance. He was also said to be depressed, remorseful, and paranoid, but that he still preferred the fugitive life to one behind bars.

Pauline initially claimed to have last been in contact with Jack in July 1989, but she later admitted to speaking with him by phone sometime in 1990.  The FBI suspected they may have lived together for a period afterwards and that they remained in contact until near Pauline’s death in November 1999 at age fifty-nine. She had struggled with alcoholism after being deserted.

Pauline Admitted Seeing Her Fugitive Husband

Though her husband had abandoned her and had left her nearly broke, Pauline Quinn had endured two worse traumas, one occurring nearly ten years earlier and the other only a few weeks after her husband’s heist.

One of Pauline’s three daughters from her first marriage, eighteen-year-old Dale Belt, was among the three people killed in a car accident in Plattsburgh, New York on September 17, 1978.

Nearly a decade later, Pauline lost another daughter in an even worse manner.

Pauline’s Additional Traumas

On May 30, 1988, twenty-six-year-old Denise Kern, the daughter with whom Pauline had moved in following her husband’s theft of only seven weeks earlier, was killed by her husband, Kevin.

The slaying occurred in the course of an argument and his attorney secured Kevin Kern a manslaughter conviction in which he was sentenced to ten years in prison.

Denise Kern

On April 25, 1988, sixteen days after Jack Quinn’s theft from Federal Protection Services, Inc., Steve Hadley was apprehended over four-and-a-half years after committing a large theft from a Waterloo, Iowa credit union. The similarities between the two heists are striking.

Both men were trusted managers in their respective companies who each stole over $1 million in untraceable cash: Hadley took approximately $1.1 million, Quinn about $1.3 million.  Each theft was committed during the course of the men’s regular work shifts, with them putting their pilfered loot into boxes or containers and carrying them to their cars without raising any suspicion from coworkers. Both men left apologetic farewell letters to their wives.

Steve Hadley and Jack Quinn were also both profiled on Unsolved Mysteries in 1988. The publicity helped capture Hadley, but it did not do the same for Quinn.

Here is the link my write-up on Steve Hadley.

Corrupted Hadley

 

Sources:

• FBI
• Miami Herald
• Palm Beach Post
• South Florida Sun Sentinel
• Tampa Bay Times
• Unsolved Mysteries