The Frank Sinatra Jr. Kidnapping

Flamboyant Failed Defense

Root elicited only scant evidence about the victim's alleged willingness—for example, that Frank Jr. shook hands with John Irwin at his release and said, "It's too bad we couldn't have met under different circumstances."

But she grilled both Junior and Sinatra Sr. on the witness so gratingly that each finally lost his temper.

Sinatra Sr. was incensed. Stealing his son was one thing. Calling him a publicity hound was another.

In the press gallery, one wiseacre stage-whispered to another, "Do you think Sinatra will be acquitted?"

Root told the jury the case hinged upon "not who committed the crime, but whether a crime was committed."

In the end, the defense failed.

All three defendants were convicted, and Judge William East lowered the boom. Keenan and Amsler got life plus 75 years, and Irwin got 16 years.

But the circus played on.

Under federal prison guidelines, Keenan qualified for a psychiatric evaluation, which was conducted in Missouri. The prison shrink set prosecutors to gnashing their teeth when he ruled that Keenan's judgment was so clouded by Percodan addiction at the time of the abduction that he likely was insane.

Judge East was compelled to reduce the sentences of Amsler and Keenan to 24 years, and a picayune technicality further diminished their time.

As a result, under the liberal parole protocols of the 1960s, both Amsler and Irwin were released after just 3 ½ years. Keenan, the brains of the operation, walked free a year later.

Remarkably, Dean Torrence, the rock star who financed the kidnapping, escaped punishment.

Torrence told L.A. Weekly that he didn't believe Keenan was really going to kidnap Sinatra Jr.

"I don't think I ever took him seriously," Torrence said. "It was so insane."

Life Goes On

Forty years after he walked out of prison, Keenan is a lifetime removed from his federal felony, although he has nurtured his obsession with money.Right out of the joint, he got busy making his first million through real estate projects, including office and residential buildings, retirement homes and RV parks.

A recovering alcoholic, Keenan helped develop Lake Whitney, south of Fort Worth, Texas, where he now lives, and is involved in other high-end residential projects.

In 1998, Keenan told the story of the kidnapping for the first time, to Gilstrap of L.A. Weekly. The long, comical account of the unlikely crime became the basis of a 2003 Showtime film, Stealing Sinatra, starring Ryan Browning, David Arquette and William H. Macy as the hapless kidnappers.

Keenan was to earn as much as $1.5 million for participating in the production, but Sinatra Jr. successfully sued him under California's Son of Sam Law to stop him from profiting from the film.

Keenan has said that one of his greatest regrets about the crime was the defense strategy to blame Sinatra Jr.

He said it was the idea of defense attorney Root, who died in 1982 at age 77, after Keenan told her that Sinatra Jr. was "very cooperative."

Joe Amsler, meanwhile, had a brief career in motion pictures, acting as a stand-in and stunt double for actor Ryan O'Neal, another schoolmate, in such films as The Thief Who Came to Dinner and What's Up, Doc?

He later worked as a ranch hand in California before retiring to Virginia with health problems. Amsler, 65, died of liver failure in Roanoke on May 6, 2006.