- Harry Maione
Harry "Happy" Maione (1908 –
February 19 ,1942 ) was a New York mobster who served as a hitman forMurder, Inc. (the enforcement arm of theNational Crime Syndicate ) during the 1930s. Maione was called "Happy" because he never smiled and his face displayed an eternal scowl.Early Years
As a young man, Maione led the Ocean Hill Hooligans, an Italian street gang in the
Ocean Hill, Brooklyn section of New York. His protegee in this gang was Frank "Dasher" Abbandando. He is the father ofGenovese crime family mob associate Michael (Mike Rossi) Maione who was convicted of drug trafficking from the testimony of mafia turncoatJoseph Valachi in 1959. Michael served under Genovese crime family capo Pasquale Eboli.In 1931, Maione and Abbandando helped Abe "Kid Twist" Reles and
Martin Goldstein move on theShapiro Brothers (Meyer, Irving, and William). Previously that year, the Shapiros had unsuccessfully tried to murder Reles and Goldstein. The Shapiros then abducted Reles' girlfriend and raped her. Reles and Goldstein wanted revenge and the two Italians wanted to take over the Shapiro operations. OnJuly 11 ,1931 , Irving Shapiro was gunned down near his apartment. OnSeptember 17 ,1931 , Meyer was found shot to death in the basement of a tenement building on Manhattan'sLower East Side .Murder, Inc.
Maione, Abbandando, Reles, and Goldstein then banded together. They were soon joined by Harry "Pittsburgh Phil" Strauss, Emanuel "Mendy" Weiss, Albert "Tick Tock" Tannenbaum, Seymour "Blue Jaw" Magoon,
Louis Capone , Charles "The Bug" Workman, Cooper McCue, andVito "Socko" Gurino .The gang started picking up murder contracts from the
National Crime Syndicate with the help of Syndicate Board MemberJoe Adonis . The gang soon became the official murder-for-hire squad of the Syndicate, and was dubbed "Murder, Inc." by the press. Maione acted as the Italian liaison to the Jewish members of Murder Inc.; Reles was his counterpart on the Jewish side. Murder Inc was directed by the brutal Louis "Lepke" Buchalter (another member of the Syndicate board) and the nefarious Albert "Mad Hatter" Anastasia.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 Rudnick was one such victim; he was killed by Maione, Abbandando, and Strauss onMay 11 ,1937 .In 1940, Reles became an informant for the State of New York. He then implicated Maione 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 with an ice pick and Maione buried a meat cleaver in his skull.
Reles' testimony was enough to convict Maione on
first degree murder . OnFebruary 19 ,1942 , Harry Maione was executed in theelectric chair atSing Sing Prison in Ossining, New York.ee also
*
List of individuals executed in New York
*Capital punishment in the United States References
* [http://users.bestweb.net/~rg/execution/NEW%20YORK.htm Executions in New York]
External links
* [http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GSln=Maione&GSfn=Harry+&GSbyrel=all&GSdyrel=all&GSob=n&GRid=12221& Harry "Happy" Maione] at
Find A Grave
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