Early Years
Abbandando was one of twelve children of Lorenzo Abbondondola and Rosaria Famighetti. On his tombstone, his family name was inscribed as "Abbundando". Abbandando's family immigrated from Avellino, Italy to New York. As a teenager, Abbandando extorted money from shop owners by threatening to torch their shops.
In his twenties, Abbandando joined a street gang in the Ocean Hill section of Brooklyn. Before long, he was a lieutenant for Harry "Happy" Maione. Abbandando organized gambling, loan sharking, and extortion rackets for the gang as well as committing murders. In 1928, Abbandando was convicted of beating a New York City police officer and was sent to reform school in Elmira, New York, where he demonstrated skill at baseball and received the nickname "The Dasher".
In his "free" time, Abbandando was a connoisseur of fine clothes and fancy cars. He was reportedly a sexual predator; he would drive around Brownsville and Ocean Hill, looking for young women to rape. At his later murder trial, the prosecutor said that Abbandando had all but admitted one rape. Abbandando replied, "Well, that one doesn't count really—I married the girl later." Most of his victims would be stabbed in the chest with ice picks.
Read more about this topic: Frank Abbandando
Famous quotes containing the words early and/or years:
“It is easy to see that, even in the freedom of early youth, an American girl never quite loses control of herself; she enjoys all permitted pleasures without losing her head about any of them, and her reason never lets the reins go, though it may often seem to let them flap.”
—Alexis de Tocqueville (18051859)
“I leave the governors office next week, and with it public life ... [which] has been on the whole a pleasant one. But for ten years and over my salaries have not equalled my expenses, and there has been a feeling of responsibility, a lack of independence, and a necessary neglect of my family and personal interests and comfort, which make the prospect of a change comfortable to think of.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (18221893)