Sony’s Deal With Sinatra Kidnapper Raises Questions

In December 1963, singer Frank Sinatra bought his son’s freedom by paying kidnapper Barry Keenan and two henchmen a $240,000 ransom.

Thirty-five years and an abbreviated prison sentence later, Keenan, 58, stands to get several times that amount. This time the money comes courtesy of Sony Pictures Entertainment, which appears to have shoved aside common sense and ethics to buy Keenan’s version of how he masterminded Frank Sinatra Jr.’s kidnapping.

Sinatra is understandably bothered that the guy who kidnapped him at gunpoint at 20--then lied after his capture, proclaiming that the young man was in on it as a publicity stunt--stands to see a dime. So his lawyers, citing a state law preventing criminals from profiting from their crimes, got a court order temporarily preventing Sony from paying any money to Keenan and Joseph Amsler, his surviving partner in the crime.

The Sinatra movie deal is part of a troubling ethic in Hollywood in which selling an incident in your life to exploit for a TV movie or feature film is seen as something of an entitlement, regardless of your behavior. All you have to do is be in the right place at the right time, be in the wrong place at the wrong time or do something sufficiently outrageous to become a movie pitch.

If your child is rescued from a well and it makes it on the daily CNN cycle, an agent is right behind the rescue workers with a contract in hand. Get lost in the snowy mountains for a couple of days, and someone will try to turn it into a movie of the week. Marry a stranger in a shopping mall in a publicity stunt, and let the casting begin.

Keenan’s story goes like this: He plotted the kidnapping while high on painkillers, served a relatively small portion of what originally was a life sentence and then rebuilt his life after battles with drugs and alcohol to become a real estate developer. He says he’s remorseful about his role in the kidnapping, especially for lying that Sinatra was in on the plot, which stained Sinatra’s reputation and has dogged him ever since.

So Keenan, after years of public silence, is on a mea culpa blitz. Still referring to his victim informally as “Junior,” Keenan spoke of the kidnapping to J. Randy Taraborrelli for his 1997 book “Sinatra: Behind the Legend” and then repeated his remarks to the Los Angeles weekly New Times for a story in January, which caught Hollywood’s eye. He subsequently talked to People magazine and TV interviewer Bryant Gumbel.

From Ex-Con to Casino Consultant

When Sony first bought the rights in January, the Hollywood trades reported that Sony spent about $750,000. But Sinatra’s lawyers said in recently filed court papers that the amount could be as much as $1.5 million.

No doubt making the story even more appealing to Sony is the characterization of Keenan in press accounts as a “mega-developer,” something of an ex-con-turned-Donald Trump. Conveniently missing are some bumps in his career that might take a bit of the hyperbole out of the story.

From 1988 to 1992, Keenan was a consultant and special assistant at Commerce Casino, a Southern California card club. He was fired and filed a wrongful termination lawsuit. Keenan says the settlement prevents him from talking about the reasons.

Keenan until one year ago worked as a consultant to the Sanders family in Mississippi, which has been looking to develop a casino project in Biloxi.

“We did not renew his contract,” said businessman R. David Sanders, who declined to elaborate.

Says Keenan: “We had a misunderstanding over the direction of what to do with this.”

Keenan is in the early stages of trying to develop another casino resort project in Biloxi (he also splits his time between Los Angeles and Lake Whitney, Texas).

But he’s hardly the next Steve Wynn--an angle Sony would no doubt love to exploit--that various accounts of his story suggest.

Sinatra’s lawyer Richard Specter says that his client isn’t seeking to prevent a movie from being made about the kidnapping, just keeping the money out of Keenan’s hands under a state law that forbids felons from profiting from their crimes.

Sony, which is more than happy to promote most of its movie projects, declined repeated requests for comment about why it made the deal with Keenan to buy his account of what remains Hollywood’s most infamous kidnapping. Columbia Pictures’ president, Amy Pascal, bought the project for director Betty Thomas.

In court papers, the studio is trying to distance itself from the controversy it created. The studio argues that the law requires Sinatra to go after Keenan and Amsler, not Sony, for any money he believes they don’t deserve.

But Sony does briefly raise in court papers the constitutionality of the law, which is similar to one passed in the wake of the Son of Sam slayings in the 1970s when there were buyers for killer David Berkowitz’s story. That law was later struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court. California’s version was rewritten, and state officials believe it now passes legal muster.

Citing Sinatra’s opposition to the movie deal, Keenan sent a memo to his agent at Creative Artists Agency saying that he will donate the money to charities of his choice. He does ask in the memo, a copy of which Keenan faxed The Times, that some money be given to Amsler and to the family of the late John Irwin, the third kidnapper. He also says that Sinatra should rest assured that he’ll be portrayed in a positive light.

In an interview with The Times, Keenan says he doesn’t need the money because of his real estate success and would rather give it away than see it wasted by a movie company. He also invited The Times to monitor his giving the money away to charities, which include alcohol-recovery programs.

“Rather than have the studio keep that money, or have it fritter to the bottom line of a producer’s budget, we want to capture those funds for special charities so it does some good,” Keenan said.

Specter says he and Sinatra are wary.

“I’m skeptical,” Specter said. “Keenan says he’ll turn around and give it to a good cause. History shows he’s not of that moral character to start with. This is a guy who spent a lifetime telling stories.”

Specter cites a story attributed to Keenan in both the Taraborrelli book and the New Times article in which Keenan says that he periodically runs into Sinatra, who lives in Clarence, N.Y., on the cocktail-party circuit. In one version, he is quoted as saying they nod to each other but don’t speak.

Sounds like a perfect touch for a movie script, if it were only true. Said Specter: “He’s never been to a cocktail party with my client. It just isn’t true. My client would never nod his head at Keenan. He’d be in the bathroom throwing up.”

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Keenan blames the writers of the accounts, even though near identical versions are attributed to him in both the Taraborrelli book and in the New Times article.

“I ran into Junior at a concert at Pepperdine University five or six years ago, maybe less. After the concert I ran into him backstage,” he says now.

Not helping matters are other comments attributed to Keenan that seemingly try to put a positive spin on the kidnapping. In Taraborrelli’s book, for example, quotes attributed to Keenan make it sound as if he was really out to do the Sinatra family a favor in words that smack of a Hallmark-moment kidnapping.

“Virtually everything I had outlined in my plan of operation in terms of how the Sinatras would be affected had worked,” he is quoted as saying. “Father and son were hugging. Divorced parents were reunited in the moment. And the public now viewed Sinatra in a sympathetic light rather than as a hoodlum. They had a big celebration party that night. It couldn’t have worked better if they had paid me to do it, which, by the way, they hadn’t.”

Keenan says that the words are out of context, that it was part of his drug-induced rationale for the kidnapping.

But he then adds: “It certainly did bring father and son closer together at the time.”

Specter argues that it’s irrelevant where Keenan wants to donate the money because, under the law, none of it should pass through his hands. Specter and his client want the money put into a court-established trust so Sinatra, not Keenan, can decide where it goes.

“It’s not Keenan’s money to give away,” Specter says. “If it’s paid to Amsler and Keenan, we never see it again.”

All these things are matters Sony presumably should have thought of. The studio isn’t likely to find much public support for writing checks to convicted felons who can gain from the very crimes they committed, no matter where the proceeds eventually end up.

But in Hollywood, it’s the deal that always comes first.