The alibi, in fact, was almost too good. At the Prison Colony, Baker was serving two concurrent terms of four to ten years, imposed in 1944 for breaking and entering and larceny and for possession of burglar tools. At the time of Bakers release in 1949, Pino was on hand to drive him back to Boston. He, too, had left his home shortly before 7:00 p.m. on the night of the robbery and met the Boston police officer soon thereafter. Then, there was the fact that so much dead wood was includedMcGinnis, Banfield, Costa, and Pino were not in the building when the robbery took place. The pardon meant that his record no longer contained the second conviction; thus, the Immigration and Naturalization Service no longer had grounds to deport him. Each of the five lock cylinders was taken on a separate occasion. In the late summer of 1944, he was released from the state prison and was taken into custody by Immigration authorities. Pino, Costa, Maffie, Geagan, Faherty, Richardson, and Baker received life sentences for robbery, two-year sentences for conspiracy to steal, and sentences of eight years to ten years for breaking and entering at night. WebInvestigators didnt know if this money was related to the Brinks-Mat robbery, but Diamond led officers to investigate the British Virgin Islands, and one accountant in particular. The alibi was strong, but not conclusive. He had been released on parole from the Norfolk, Massachusetts, Prison Colony on August 22, 1949only five months before the robbery. The amusement arcade operator told the officer that he had followed the man who passed this $10.00 bill to a nearby tavern. A lock () or https:// means you've safely connected to the .gov website. Apparently suspicious, OKeefe crouched low in the front seat of his car as the would-be assassins fired bullets that pierced the windshield. After a period of hostility, he began to display a friendly attitude. That same afternoon (following the admission that Fat John had produced the money and had described it as proceeds from the Brinks robbery), a search warrant was executed in Boston covering the Tremont Street offices occupied by the three men. [17], Immediately following the robbery, Police Commissioner Thomas F. Sullivan sent a mobilization order for all precinct captains and detectives. Neither Pino nor McGinnis was known to be the type of hoodlum who would undertake so potentially dangerous a crime without the best strong-arm support available. All of them wore Navy-type peacoats, gloves, and chauffeurs caps. Apparently in need of money he kidnapped Vincent Costa and demanded his part of the loot for ransom. Questioned by Boston police on the day following the robbery, Baker claimed that he had eaten dinner with his family on the evening of January 17, 1950, and then left home at about 7:00 p.m. to walk around the neighborhood for about two hours. Since Brinks was located in a heavily populated tenement section, many hours were consumed in interviews to locate persons in the neighborhood who might possess information of possible value. [14] They each wore a chauffeur cap, pea Again, he was determined to fight, using the argument that his conviction for the 1948 larceny offense was not a basis for deportation. Commonly regarded as a dominant figure in the Boston underworld, McGinnis previously had been convicted of robbery and narcotics violations. FBI.gov is an official site of the U.S. Department of Justice. Before the robbers could take him prisoner, the garage attendant walked away. There were the rope and adhesive tape used to bind and gag the employees and a chauffeurs cap that one of the robbers had left at the crime scene. Nothing suggests it was a stick-em-up robbery or strong-arm heist. The defense immediately filed motions which would delay or prevent the trial. This lead was pursued intensively. Between 1950 and 1954, the underworld occasionally rumbled with rumors that pressure was being exerted upon Boston hoodlums to contribute money for these criminals legal fight against the charges in Pennsylvania. Even fearing the new bills might be linked with the crime, McGinnis suggested a process for aging the new money in a hurry.. And what of McGinnis himself? An official website of the United States government. There were recurring rumors that this hoodlum, Joseph Sylvester Banfield (pictured), had been right down there on the night of the crime. Pino would take the locks to the mans shop, and keys would be made for them. None proved fruitful. WebOn the evening of January 17th 1950, a group of armed gunmen entered the Brinks Building on Prince Street and robbed the company of $1.2 million in cash and $1.6 million in Three of the newspapers used to wrap the bills were identified. Since the robbery had taken place between approximately 7:10 and 7:27 p.m., it was quite probable that a gang, as well drilled as the Brinks robbers obviously were, would have arranged to rendezvous at a specific time. He advised that he and his associate shared office space with an individual known to him only as Fat John. According to the Boston hoodlum, on the night of June 1, 1956, Fat John asked him to rip a panel from a section of the wall in the office, and when the panel was removed, Fat John reached into the opening and removed the cover from a metal container. Underworld figures in Boston have generally speculated that the racketeer was killed because of his association with OKeefe. Pino had been questioned as to his whereabouts on the evening of January 17, 1950, and he provided a good alibi. Pino, Richardson, and Costa each took $20,000, and this was noted on a score sheet. The detainer involved OKeefes violation of probation in connection with a conviction in 1945 for carrying concealed weapons. Charged with unlawful possession of liquor distillery equipment and violation of Internal Revenue laws, he had many headaches during the period in which OKeefe was giving so much trouble to the gang. WebJudith Clark was paroled in 2019 after then Gov. Three of the remaining five gang members were previously accounted for, OKeefe and Gusciora being in prison on other charges and Banfield being dead. On January 11, 1956, the United States Attorney at Boston authorized special agents of the FBI to file complaints charging the 11 criminals with (1) conspiracy to commit theft of government property, robbery of government property, and bank robbery by force and violence and by intimidation, (2) committing bank robbery on January 17, 1950, and committing an assault on Brinks employees during the taking of the money, and (3) conspiracy to receive and conceal money in violation of the Bank Robbery and Theft of Government Property Statutes. On August 29, 1954, the officers suspicions were aroused by an automobile that circled the general vicinity of the abandoned car on five occasions. In September 1949, Pinos efforts to evade deportation met with success. OKeefe and Gusciora reportedly had worked together on a number of occasions. Pino could have been at McGinnis liquor store shortly after 7:30 p.m. on January 17, 1950, and still have participated in the robbery. At approximately 7:30 p.m. on June 3, 1956, an officer of the Baltimore, Maryland, Police Department was approached by the operator of an amusement arcade. As the robbers sped from the scene, a Brinks employee telephoned the Boston Police Department. Thus, when he and Gusciora were taken into custody by state authorities during the latter part of January 1950, OKeefe got word to McGinnis to recover his car and the $200,000 that it contained. OKeefe did not know where the gang members had hidden their shares of the lootor where they had disposed of the money if, in fact, they had disposed of their shares. On November 16, 1959, the United States Supreme Court denied a request of the defense counsel for a writ of certiorari. In December 1954, he indicated to the agents that Pino could look for rough treatment if he (OKeefe) again was released. During the regular exercise period, Burke separated himself from the other prisoners and moved toward a heavy steel door leading to the solitary confinement section. Extensive efforts were made to detect pencil markings and other notations on the currency that the criminals thought might be traceable to Brinks. One of his former girl friends who recalled having seen him on the night of the robbery stated that he definitely was not drunk. Continuous investigation, however, had linked him with the gang. After weighing the arguments presented by the attorneys for the eight convicted criminals, the State Supreme Court turned down the appeals on July 1, 1959, in a 35-page decision written by the Chief Justice. In December 1948, Brinks moved from Federal Street to 165 Prince Street in Boston. In the hope that a wide breach might have developed between the two criminals who were in jail in Pennsylvania and the gang members who were enjoying the luxuries of a free life in Massachusetts, FBI agents again visited Gusciora and OKeefe. (Geagan and Richardson, known associates of other members of the gang, were among the early suspects. Burke, a professional killer, allegedly had been hired by underworld associates of OKeefe to assassinate him. (On January 18, 1956, OKeefe had pleaded guilty to the armed robbery of Brinks.) McGinnis previously had discussed sending a man to the United States Patent Office in Washington, D.C., to inspect the patents on the protective alarms used in the Brinks building. An acetylene torch had been used to cut up the truck, and it appeared that a sledge hammer also had been used to smash many of the heavy parts, such as the motor. It ultimately proved unproductive. On the evening of January 17, 1950, employees of the security firm Brinks, Inc., in Boston, Massachusetts, were closing for the day, returning sacks of undelivered cash, checks, and other material to the company safe on the second floor. The Burlap money bags recovered in a Boston junk yard from the robbery, Some of the recovered money from the robbery. Only $58,000 of the $2.7 million was recovered. All efforts to identify the persons responsible for the theft and the persons who had cut up the truck were unsuccessful. As the loot was being placed in bags and stacked between the second and third doors leading to the Prince Street entrance, a buzzer sounded. OKeefe was wounded in the wrist and chest, but again he managed to escape with his life. O'Keefe received four years and was released in 1960. OKeefe and Gusciora had been close friends for many years. Although the attendant did not suspect that the robbery was taking place, this incident caused the criminals to move more swiftly. During the preceding year, however, he had filed a petition for pardon in the hope of removing one of the criminal convictions from his record. They were checked against serial numbers of bills known to have been included in the Brinks loot, and it was determined that the Boston criminal possessed part of the money that had been dragged away by the seven masked gunmen on January 17, 1950. On September 8, 1950, OKeefe was sentenced to three years in the Bradford County jail at Towanda and fined $3,000 for violation of the Uniform Firearms Act. Former inmates of penal institutions reported conversations they had overheard while incarcerated which concerned the robbing of Brinks. The money inside the cooler which was concealed in the wall of the Tremont Street office was wrapped in plastic and newspaper. Captain Marvel mask used as a disguise in the robbery. Interviewed again on December 28, 1955, he talked somewhat more freely, and it was obvious that the agents were gradually winning his respect and confidence. In the back were Pino, OKeefe, Baker, Faherty, Maffie, Gusciora, Michael Vincent Geagan (pictured), and Thomas Francis Richardson. Robinson died in a London The gang members who remained at the house of Maffies parents soon dispersed to establish alibis for themselves. As this bag was being emptied later that evening, the glasses were discovered and destroyed by the gang. The mass of information gathered during the early weeks of the investigation was continuously sifted. If local hoodlums were involved, it was difficult to believe that McGinnis could be as ignorant of the crime as he claimed. That prison term, together with Pinos conviction in March 1928 for carnal abuse of a girl, provided the basis for the deportation action. A number of them discontinued their operations; others indicated a strong desire that the robbers be identified and apprehended. There had been three attempts on his life in June 1954, and his frustrated assassins undoubtedly were waiting for him to return to Boston. Like Gusciora, OKeefe was known to have associated with Pino prior to the Brinks robbery. At approximately 7:00 p.m. on January 17, 1950, members of the gang met in the Roxbury section of Boston and entered the rear of the Ford stake-body truck. Examination by the FBI Laboratory subsequently disclosed that the decomposition, discoloration, and matting together of the bills were due, at least in part, to the fact that all of the bills had been wet. Two of the gang members moved toward the door to capture him; but, seeing the garage attendant walk away apparently unaware that the robbery was being committed, they did not pursue him. This occurred while he was in the state prison at Charlestown, Massachusetts, serving sentences for breaking and entering with intent to commit a felony and for having burglar tools in his possession. It was reported that on May 18, 1954, OKeefe and his racketeer associate took Vincent Costa to a hotel room and held him for several thousand dollars ransom. With the death of Gusciora, only eight members of the Brinks gang remained to be tried. OKeefes racketeer associate, who allegedly had assisted him in holding Costa for ransom and was present during the shooting scrape between OKeefe and Baker, disappeared on August 3, 1954. On the night of January 18, 1950, OKeefe and Gusciora received $100,000 each from the robbery loot. The roofs of buildings on Prince and Snow Hill Streets soon were alive with inconspicuous activity as the gang looked for the most advantageous sites from which to observe what transpired inside Brinks offices. While action to appeal the convictions was being taken on their behalf, the eight men were removed to the State prison at Walpole, Massachusetts.
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