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Part Four: The Aftermath
The case is tried in four weeks. There are flamboyant, grandstanding lawyers, and there is testimony from FBI, police, Dean, Keenan, Amsler, and players great and small, all twisting their stories to cover their various behinds, with Dean miraculously escaping without punishment. According to Keenan, pretty much the only person who told the whole truth and nothing but, was Jr. In a move that Keenan regrets more than any aspect of the kidnapping, he concocted the now-infamous story that the crime was a hoax, a publicity stunt he'd pulled off after being approached by mysterious characters involved with the Sinatra’s. It is something that has followed Jr. all his life, and is simply not true. They got 75 years plus life. Once ensconced in Lompoc as prisoner A4465LC, Keenan unwittingly paved his way for a rep that made his time relatively easy. He was in the TV room, watching sports. A guy came in and changed the channel to a Western. Keenan, sports fan, politely requested that the guy change it back. The fellow was so impressed with Keenan's manners that he attacked him. A guard stopped the fight before it got ugly, and the channel remained on sports. He was a double cop killer and had killed someone in prison. Keenan didn't know who he was, but the fact that he would fight him meant he was crazy. After that, he didn't have to fight at Lompoc. The sentence qualified them for psychiatric observation at the Medical Center for Federal Prisoners in Springfield, Missouri. They said in effect that he was legally and mentally insane at the time of the kidnapping, and we had no criminal malice, and didn't fit the profile of normal criminals. This brought all three men's sentences down to 25 years. All three pursued appeals, and as the judge organized his files to forward to the appellate court, he came across a summary from the medical centre that differed from the one he had originally reviewed. Because of this technicality, the judge reduced Keenan's time in the big house to 12 years. Amsler and Irwin were back on the streets in three and a half years, and the first time Keenan went up for parole his wish was granted. After only four and a half years, he was a free man in 1968. Frank Sinatra Jr. continues to sing, his voice and looks now more his own than a hereditary print of his father's. In recent years he has led the orchestra for Frank Sr. on dates around the world and kept quiet on the long-ago kidnapping that now seems so ludicrous. Now and again, Keenan and Jr will cross paths at Beverly Hills cocktail parties. They do not speak. They simply nod across a crowded room |