Mafia Kingpin Joe Bonanno Is Kidnapped

Oct. 20, 1964 - Joseph Bonanno (pictured), the Brooklyn mobster known as Joe Bananas, was kidnapped early this morning in front of an apartment building on Park Avenue, the police reported. He had been subpoenaed earlier to appear before a Federal grand jury in Manhattan tomorrow.

Bonanno’s lawyer told police he and his client had just left a taxicab in front of the lawyer’s apartment at 35 Park Avenue, near 36th St., shortly after midnight when two men approached them.

According to the attorney, William Maloney, one of the men grabbed Bonanno by the arm and said: “Come on, Joe. The boss wants to talk to you.”

Bonanno said, “Hey, what’s going on?”

Maloney, who had been walking ahead of Bonanno as they approached the building, said he turned around when he heard the scuffling and saw another man with a drawn gun. “Get the hell out of here,” the man told Maloney, the attorney recalled.

Bonanno, struggling to get free, was marched and dragged to a beige-colored sedan parked at the corner of 36th St. and Park Ave. When they reached the corner, one of the gunmen fired a shot. The gunman was about 40 feet away from Maloney when he fired. Maloney said, “I just thank God he missed.”

The men then entered the car and sped away, Maloney said. He told police he did not see the license plate of the car and did not know if a third man was doing the driving. When the car raced off, Maloney ran up to his apartment and called police. About eight detectives and six uniformed men were at the scene within eight minutes.

The doorman, Harold Beatty of Cliffside, N.J., told police he had not seen the incident because he had gone “into the locker room to get a pack of cigarettes.”

Asked if he thought a gangland execution might be awaiting his client, Maloney said: “You’re goddamn right it might be.”

Maloney categorically denied the kidnapping might have been staged to keep Bonanno from having to appear before the grand jurors. “Any suggestion that this was a dodge is utterly ridiculous,” he said.

Chief of Detectives Philip Walsh also discounted the possibility the kidnapping might have been staged. “It certainly didn’t look that way,” Walsh said. “It was nothing staged.”

Bonanno, who divides his time between New York and Tucson, Ariz., was described as a Brooklyn mob leader by Joseph Valachi at the crime hearings in Washington last year. Four other Brooklyn gang leaders were identified as Vito Genovese, Thomas (Three-Finger Brown) Luchese, Carlo Gambino, and the late Joseph Profaci.

Bonanno, 59 years old, has been arrested a number of times but has never served a prison sentence. His first arrest occurred in the 1920s when he was accused of transporting machine guns to the Al Capone gang in Chicago.

Bonanno, born in Castellammare de Golfo, Sicily, was among those who attended the gangland convention at Apalachin, N.Y., in 1957.

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