Morris Rudensky
| Morris "Red" Rudensky | |
|---|---|
| Born |
Macy Motle Friedman August 16, 1898 Lower East Side, Manhattan, New York, United States |
| Died | April 21, 1988 (aged 89) St. Paul, Minnesota, United States |
| Nationality | American |
| Occupation | Burglar, Loss prevention consultant |
| Criminal penalty | 10-to-life |
| Conviction(s) | Robbery |
Morris "Red" Rudensky (born Macy Motle Friedman; August 16, 1898 – April 21, 1988) was an American prohibition-era gangster, prominent cat burglar and safe-cracker. Later in his life he became an author as well as a spokesman and security consultant for several companies.
Born to a Jewish family in Manhattan's Lower East Side Rudensky began his career by stealing bagels. At age 13 he was deemed incorrigible and sent to the Elmira State Reformatory. He escaped to make his way to Chicago where he cracked safes for the best price. He worked with both Al Capone's Chicago Outfit and Bugs Moran's North Side Gang but also traveled, cracking safes on consignment in Kansas City, St. Louis and Detroit.
He would later become known as an escape artist, successfully escaping from the Pontiac State Reformatory, where he was serving ten-years-to-life for the robbery of the Argo State Bank. Still a teenager Rudensky organized the theft of $2.1 million in whiskey from a federal warehouse in Kansas City, Missouri, using over fifty men. Rudensky continued to operate a well-organized theft ring in the Midwest robbing various payroll deliveries, distilleries, banks, and trains, and did freelance work for Egan's Rats and Al Capone.
At the age of twenty-one, Rudensky was again in prison, where he was known as "King of the Cons" for frequently getting into fights, and made several escape attempts successfully escaping briefly, after packing himself in a box being taken out of the prison print shop, but was soon caught. Around 1927, Rudensky was sent to Leavenworth, a federal penitentiary in Kansas, where he escaped twice, once crawling into a body bag with a corpse.
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