Owney Madden
Named in a 1930 syndicated newspaper series as one of the men behind the boxer Primo Carnera's management, "since his release from Sing Sing," and in a witness statement on the FBI's Fur Dressers Case page, in 1915 New York newspaper reports of his manslaughter trial and conviction, in a 1921 report of a shooting, and in three passages of the Kefauver hearings where other witnesses name him. No federal case, FBI file or court opinion about him has been found.
- Rights
- Biography on this page is limited to what the cited records state: newspaper pages of 1915 to 1930 in the public domain, an FBI history page and Senate hearing volumes, which are federal works.
On the record
- 1930-10-09 — Milton Mackaye's article in the Evening Star of 9 October 1930 names Will Duffy and "Owney Madden, since his release from Sing Sing one of the prosperous barons of Broadway," as "grand lamas" of a syndicate behind Primo Carnera, and says Madden is listed on the Boxing Commission's books as "gambler." These are a journalist's allegations.
- 1932 — The FBI's Fur Dressers Case page quotes a witness who told agents that, before he joined the Fur Dressers Factor Corporation in 1932, it had arranged for strong-arm men with "Jerry Sullivan, a lieutenant of the Owney Madden gang." That is a witness's statement quoted by the FBI.
The 1930 series and the FBI page describe Madden through other people’s words: a journalist’s series on boxing and a witness quoted by the FBI. Neither is a court finding. The newspaper series also recounts earlier arrests and charges; this page does not repeat them, because no court record of them has been filed. The 1915 pages report, as the papers printed it, a New York trial in which Madden was described as charged with instigating the killing of a rival and a jury’s verdict of manslaughter in the first degree; the court record itself has not been opened. The 1921 page reports detectives’ suspicion of “the Owney Madden gang,” a paper’s account of a police theory. The three Kefauver passages are other witnesses’ statements that name him, two of them placing him at Hot Springs, Arkansas; he did not testify, and none of them is a finding of the committee.
No record filed on this page states a family, a rank, or a role in any organization.
Records
clippingEvening Star, 9 October 1930, page D-2: The scandal of boxing (Owney Madden)The fourth of six syndicated articles by Milton Mackaye on control of professional boxing, naming Owney Madden, "since his release from Sing Sing," and Will Duffy as the men behind Primo Carnera's management. A journalist's allegations, not a record of any case.itemFur Dressers Case (FBI history page)The FBI's own account of its 1932 to 1939 antitrust investigation of the Protective Fur Dressers Corporation and the Fur Dressers Factor Corporation, in which Louis Buchalter and Jacob Shapiro were named defendants, through Buchalter's surrender on August 24, 1939.
clippingEvening World, 26 May 1915, page 1: Girl Tells Jury She Gave Signal for Gang MurderThe Evening World's front-page report of testimony at the New York trial of Owney Madden, "on trial for instigating the murder of Patsy Doyle, a rival leader," as a woman witness told the jury how she gave the signal that led to the killing.
clippingNew-York Tribune, 3 June 1915, page 14: Owney Madden, Found Guilty in Gang Killing, Escapes Chair by Manslaughter VerdictThe Tribune's report that a jury in the Court of General Sessions found Owen Madden guilty of manslaughter in the first degree for instigating the killing of William Moore, alias Patsy Doyle, with a photograph of Madden and the two women witnesses.
clippingNew York Herald, 9 September 1921, page 1: Girl's Escort Shot by Gunmen in MotorA front-page report of a shooting from a car at Seventh Avenue and Twenty-eighth Street, Manhattan, in which, the Herald said, detectives were trying to lay the trouble to "the Owney Madden gang," which it called "officially non-existent for some time."itemKefauver Part 2: Virgil W. Peterson's statements naming Owney Madden (1950)Three passages in the Chicago Crime Commission director's statement to the Kefauver Committee in which Owney Madden is named: among Frank Costello's associates of the 1920s and early 1930s, in a list of Costello's associations, and as someone Gaetano Ricci was "understood" to have telephoned in Hot Springs, Arkansas.itemKefauver Part 5: questions about Owney Madden to Louis Campagna and Daniel Serritella (1950–1951)Two short exchanges in the Illinois hearings. Asked whether he knew Owney Madden, Louis Campagna said "I know of him" and that he may have met him on the golf course at Hot Springs; Daniel Serritella said he did not know him.itemKefauver Part 11: Owney Madden in the testimony of Harry Stromberg and Frank Wiener (1950–1951)Pennsylvania hearings in which Harry Stromberg, indexed as alias Nig Rosen, said he saw Owney Madden at Hot Springs ("He lives there") but "never went to see" him, and a former state athletic commissioner said men including Madden pressed him to reinstate a boxer he had suspended about 1929 or 1930.