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Vincent Asaro, allegedly involved with heist retold in "Goodfellas," found not guilty

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X

XiaNaphryz

LATIN, MATRIPEDICABUS, DO YOU SPEAK IT
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/13/n...d-in-lufthansa-heist-is-found-not-guilty.html

Vincent Asaro, who was charged with helping plan the 1978 Lufthansa robbery at Kennedy International Airport along with other acts of racketeering and extortion that spanned much of his 80 years, was acquitted on all counts on Thursday.

The jury in Federal District Court in Brooklyn began deliberations late on Monday and continued through the week with a break on Wednesday for Veterans Day.

During a three-week trial, prosecutors argued that Mr. Asaro, a third-generation Mafia member, had committed murder and robbery and performed shakedowns and other crimes on behalf of his Mafia family, the Bonnanos. The most famous one, depicted in the movie “Goodfellas,” was the robbery at the Lufthansa airline terminal at Kennedy Airport. It was then said to be the largest cash robbery in United States history. Mr. Asaro helped plan it, they said, and his accomplices stole $5 million in cash and $1 million in jewels from a cargo vault.

But the jury rejected the prosecution’s case, dealing a stunning blow to the United States attorney’s office for the Eastern District of New York.

An informer named Gaspare Valenti — Mr. Asaro’s cousin — had approached the Federal Bureau of Investigation in 2008, and had helped prosecutors link the Lufthansa crime, and many others, to Mr. Asaro.

Mr. Asaro had also killed a man in 1969 whom he suspected of being an informer, prosecutors charged. The man, Paul Katz, owned a Queens warehouse where Mr. Asaro and James Burke, a Mafia associate known as Jimmy the Gent, would unload their goods. After Mr. Asaro and Mr. Burke were arrested at the warehouse, they began to suspect Mr. Katz of working with the police, Mr. Valenti testified.

One morning in 1969, Mr. Burke and Mr. Asaro arranged to meet Mr. Valenti at a house his father was building in Queens. They brought materials for cracking into concrete, and they brought Mr. Katz’s body, Mr. Valenti said. Mr. Asaro revealed that they had strangled Mr. Katz with a dog chain. They buried him underneath the basement concrete.

In the 1980s, Mr. Valenti said, he and Mr. Asaro’s son, Jerome, dug up and moved the body after Mr. Burke, who was in prison at the time, “caught a delusion” and worried that the body would be found.
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nfzdTFu.jpg
 
W

Walpurgis

Banned
I didn't know that The Goodfellas was based on a true story. And that last part where Mr. Burke got paranoid in prison about a 10 year old body that no one will ever find is straight out of a mafia movie.
 
C

CreepingFear

Member
There were a lot of liberties taken for Goodfellas. I believe Joe Pesci's character was two real life people combined to create his character.
 
D

Dai101

Banned
CreepingFear said:
There were a lot of liberties taken for Goodfellas. I believe Joe Pesci's character was two real life people combined to create his character.
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AFAIK is just his age and physical built were changed, the real DeSimonne stood 6' 2" and had was just 28 when he was wacked. Everything else is just toned down from him.

Yikes
 
B

bluethree

Member
Dai101 said:
AFAIK is just his age and physical built were changed, the real DeSimonne stood 6' 2" and had was just 28 when he was wacked. Everything else is just toned down from him.

Yikes
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I remember seeing a Youtube video going into the differences between the real life people and the characters, and yeah, the real guys seemed more crazy and extreme. Paulie in particular was apparently much more of a psychotic jerk in real life.
 
C

CreepingFear

Member
Dai101 said:
AFAIK is just his age and physical built were changed, the real DeSimonne stood 6' 2" and had was just 28 when he was wacked. Everything else is just toned down from him.

Yikes
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I did not read Wiseguy by Henry Hill and his co-author, but I thought I read that the Spider scene and the Billy Bats scene were two different people in real life?
 
E

Extra Sauce

Member
MechDX said:
Spoiler tagging a 15 year old movie?

Seriously?
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Goodfellas is a great film that will be discovered by more people for generations to come. There's nothing wrong with facilitating those people having the same experience you had when you first watched it.
 
G

Gorillaz

Member
I remember hearing alot bout how some of those stories were actually pretty close to the original. Was always interesting.
 
H

hipbabboom

Huh? What did I say? Did I screw up again? :(
What a nightmarish hell-scape that movie painted. A world where everyone was rotting trash waiting to die. I for the life in me cannot understand why people fantasize about their lifestyle.
 
I

IceCold

Member
richiek said:
This was the real Henry Hill. He had quite a life post Goodfellas.

HILL-obit-popup.jpg
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His last days were pretty sad. He went on Howard Stern a couple of times and was always wasted. He was an alcoholic and kept pissing off the FEDs since he kept telling people about his mob past even though he was under witness protection. The part where he tells Howard Stern that his daughter married a black dude is pretty hilarious though.
 
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