Eliminating Potential Witnesses
In the mid-1930s, New York District Attorney Thomas E. Dewey targeted Buchalter for prosecution. In response, Buchalter started eliminating all potential witnesses. Murder, Inc., rubbed out anyone that Buchalter even suspected of being an informant. Loan shark George "Whitey" Rudnick was one such victim; he was killed by Maione, Abbandando, and Strauss on May 11, 1937.
In 1940, Reles became an informant for the State of New York. He then implicated Maione and Abbandando in the horrific slaying of Rudnick. According to Reles, the men supposedly killed Rudnick and started stuffing him back in their car. Suddenly, the "corpse" started coughing. To finish him off, Strauss stabbed Rudnick 63 times with an ice pick and Maione buried a meat cleaver in his skull.
In May 1940, Maione was convicted of first degree murder, but the verdict was overturned on appeal. After a second trial, Maione was convicted again. This time, the conviction was not overturned by an appeals court. On February 19, 1942, Harry Maione, along with Frank Abbandando, was executed in the electric chair at Sing Sing Prison in Ossining, New York.
Read more about this topic: Harry Maione
Famous quotes containing the words eliminating, potential and/or witnesses:
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—John Kenneth Galbraith (b. 1908)
“And what is the potential man, after all? Is he not the sum of all that is human? Divine, in other words?”
—Henry Miller (1891–1980)
“Perfect courage is to do without witnesses what one would be capable of doing with the world looking on.”
—François, Duc De La Rochefoucauld (1613–1680)