The indictment against Asaro was a complicated one in that it involved, along with the Lufthansa heist and the Katz murder, various extortion, arson, attempted murder, and other charges. The charges spanned different periods of time, and, aside from claims that they were all part of the racketeering activities of the Bonanno crime family, they didn’t seem to have any significant connection. The indictment seemed like a hodge-podge. Prosecutors like to bring in enough charges to prove their case, but with Asaro it might have been overkill. As the case was presented by the government, it may have been just too confusing for the jury to keep straight and to accept that the allegations were all part of some big picture. It was also telling, as Macedonio pointed out in her summation, that no alleged extortion victims apart from John Zaffarano were called as a prosecution witness.
Defense attorney Steven Zissou, who followed the trial closely after his client DiFiore pleaded guilty, believed that an earlier decision by Ross to sever Asaro’s co-defendants from his case may have affected the courtroom dynamic, which worked in the elderly gangster’s favor. At trial, the jury only saw Asaro, who with his spectacles, winter sweaters, and slender frame didn’t seem to be a very threatening person—certainly not your stereotypical gangster type. But had some of Asaro’s co-defendants been on trial with him, such as his son and the more physically imposing John Ragano, the jury might have had a different vibe, Zissou said.
The case largely rose or fell with Gaspare Valenti. The government likes cooperating witnesses because they were close to the action and could testify about their first-hand observations. Valenti was the key, and if he was believable, then his cousin was dead in the water. But the defense chipped away at his credibility in summation, planting the seed of reasonable doubt by bringing up inconsistencies and implausibility. Was it enough to finally sway the jury? Perhaps.
Valenti swore to tell the truth, something underscored by the fact that his agreement with the government and his future freedom largely turned on the fact that prosecutors had to be convinced that he never lied. But Valenti’s rendition of the Lufthansa heist was unexpected by veteran lawyers and prosecutors who had followed the case. It has been said before but worth repeating that Asaro’s name never came up in Henry Hill’s public version of the heist and its participants, although in fact Hill was nowhere near the airport when it happened. Yet, Hill did tell investigators that Asaro was present during planning sessions at Robert’s Lounge and claimed he was near the airport with Burke when the robbery took place. For legal reasons related to the rules of hearsay evidence, the jury never did learn during the trial of Hill’s allegations about Asaro. Left only with Valenti’s version of events—all the other heist participants were dead—the jury was unconvinced that he was telling the truth beyond a reasonable doubt.
The bigger problem with Valenti may have been his mercenary motive for deciding to cooperate. He received over $175,000 in living expenses, which to jurors who are working people just might have been offensive to their sensibilities. The other witnesses like Sal Vitale and Peter Zuccaro had a different kind of baggage. They had admitted to killing numerous people, sometimes in the most cold-blooded fashion. Where was the equity, jurors could ask themselves, in convicting a broke old man like Asaro while those killers walk around as free men? Those cooperators had been pretty bad as gangsters, and was this case then just an argument about whether old man Asaro was worse? He hardly had the body count to his credit to prove it. In fact, it seemed doubtful from the testimony that Asaro really did admit to Valenti that he actually killed Paul Katz, the one and only homicide alleged in the indictment.
This was not the first time prosecutors in Brooklyn federal court had lost a case against a mob figure despite having some impressive Mafia turncoats as witnesses. Over three years earlier, jurors acquitted reputed mob associate Francis “B.H.” Guerra of double murder, extortion, and assault charges and then reputed Genovese crime family captain Anthony Romanello of extortion charges. In both those cases, the defense attorney was Gerald McMahon, who for a brief period represented Asaro early in his case. To McMahon’s way of thinking, the jurors were getting tired of the way mob rats were getting deals to testify against others, and it was time for prosecutors to start thinking about how they use such cooperators. If true, this was a nuance that appears to have escaped the prosecution, which put its money on Valenti.
In American jurisprudence there is the concept of jury nullification. Essentially, nullification means that evidence and law be damned, the jury still won’t find a defendant guilty. It may be that the jury doesn’t like the law or it doesn’t like the result that will occur if they follow the judge’s instructions. Legal scholars point out that during Prohibition juries refused to enforce statutes controlling alcohol. One of the best-know nullification cases was that of John Peter Zenger, who was acquitted in 1733 of what amounted to criminal libel in Colonial New York.
Jurors in Vincent Asaro’s trial were able to look at him for the four weeks he sat opposite them in the courtroom. They heard the evidence, listened to his sad-sack complaints on Valenti’s recordings about how life had passed him by and how he didn’t have two nickels to rub together. If Asaro was once a big gangster, the eighty-year-old in the courtroom on trial for a nearly forty-year-old crime, didn’t seem like a threat to anybody. Why should he bear responsibility for Lufthansa when all those also involved—even more significantly involved—had escaped being held accountable? For all anybody knows, that could have been the thing that decided the case for the anonymous jurors.
EPILOGUE
THE FIRST THING I NOTICED as I walked up the front steps of the house in Ozone Park was the small patriotic sign visible in one of the windows of the door: “God Bless America.” Given what the occupants of the house had gone through in recent months at the hands of the federal government, the sentiment was not one I had expected to see. I had tracked Vincent Asaro to this two-story frame house after going to his old address in Howard Beach and finding out he had moved from there some time ago.
It was an early July evening, and I had in my hand a one-page note I had typed. Through his attorney, Asaro had expressed the sentiment that he wanted to talk about his feelings, particularly as they related to Joseph Massino and Gaspare Valenti. But for reasons that he didn’t want to explain, Asaro felt he couldn’t talk to me. Nevertheless, I figured a visit might change his mind, even if only briefly.
Asaro lived in the three-bedroom home, built around 1935, with his girlfriend Michele. The dwelling was a detached structure that was typical for this middle-class area of Queens. The neighborhood was not far from Liberty Avenue and over the years had mirrored the ethnic changes in the borough, going from a mix of Italian, Irish, and German families to inclusion of more immigrants from the Caribbean and Latin America.
Michelle answered the door, and I asked for Vincent. She indicated he wasn’t around so I told her I had a letter.
“I can take it,” she said. Michele was a mature, well-groomed woman with short-cut blond hair. She had a slender face and friendly eyes, which looked at me with curiosity. I had recognized her from court, and I knew when she took the letter that I had the right house.
As she spoke, I heard the sounds of a man’s voice coming from the enclosed area of the porch. She handed him the envelope. I moved and looked inside, and there was Vincent Asaro. He seemed taller than I remembered him being. He was dressed in a freshly pressed white short-sleeved shirt and blue Bermuda shorts—it was summertime after all. The day he was acquitted, he was all smiles and buoyant. But today, he seemed thinner, and his face was lined with concern. He seemed surprised to see me, but there was a flash of recognition, likely from the way I had shadowed him during his triumphant walk from the courthouse last November.
“How did you treat me?” he asked with a smile, referring to my news stories.
“I treated you fine,” I responded, knowing that he must have seen my story reporting his courtroom victory.
I also r
eminded him that his attorney had told me of his declining to talk. The letter, I said, explained that I was respecting his decision and hoped he would reconsider. Asaro used his thin fingers to open the envelope. As Michele and I watched him, the only sound was the crinkling of the paper as he held it in his hands. I figured at his age and with the low light in the foyer that he might need my reading glasses. But Asaro had no trouble, and he read the note carefully for what seemed like an eternity. He folded the paper up carefully, placed it in the envelope, and looked at me.
“I’m sorry, I mean no disrespect, but I just can’t talk,” he said.
From years of experience as a reporter, I knew it was often a long shot to show up at someone’s home to get them to talk. I already was told he didn’t want to say anything. But sometimes in these situations a person, seeing a sympathetic face, might have a change of heart or at least say something. Asaro did not disappoint.
Gaspare Valenti’s decision to become a turncoat hurt Asaro. My presence on the front steps brought back memories of his cousin’s actions and seemed to enrage Asaro.
“I will say this,” said Asaro. “He lied through his teeth.”
As he spoke, Asaro’s eyes flashed open with anger, and he was chomping at the bit, ready to explode. Along with the anger, I sensed a great deal of hurt with him. Gaspare had been his life-long friend, and in the gangster life they had once chosen together, becoming a rat was still a curse.
“They bought Gasper for $6,000 a month,” Asaro continued.
He was referring to the money the government had paid for Valenti’s subsistence during the eight years he had been cooperating with the FBI. The prosecution did admit to $3,000 a month, although security costs were extra. No matter what the amount, it was all blood money as far as Asaro was concerned.
Although he didn’t name her, Asaro inveighed against Argentieri for going after him for an old state case in which he had paid his dues.
“She tried to frame me on a case I did five years on,” opined Asaro, referring to the old state court auto-theft case involving Guy Gralto in which he was convicted and sent to state prison. One of the quirks in the federal law is that even though someone is convicted of a crime in state court, the FBI can use the old crimes to prosecute somebody for a conspiracy to commit that same offense, even roll it into a larger racketeering case. So, in effect, a person can be convicted for the same acts twice. While a permissible legal tactic, to Asaro the dredging up of the old crime he thought he paid his debt to society for was unconscionable. Only Asaro knows what he did or didn’t do in his life. But in terms of his Lufthansa case, he has that six-page verdict sheet that he can show everybody and argue his innocence.
As Asaro spoke, Michele sensed his excitement, and she stretched out her hand and touched his chest. The action seemed as much to keep him from raising his blood pressure as it was to console him. Asaro already had heart issues. Her gesture was tender. Whatever their relationship, she seemed genuinely concerned about him.
“I have a lot on my mind,” Asaro finally confessed as he quieted down. “My sister is sick.”
Asaro glanced down as he spoke about her, although it wasn’t clear how seriously she was ill. With all of his old friends either dead or having turned against him, Asaro’s social circle had narrowed more and more. There was still Michele, his daughters, and his sister. But the loss of even one person now seemed too much for him to think about. As I looked at him, I saw the old man the jury had seen. Maybe it was right that they decided to let him have his freedom.
There was one more shot from Asaro. The government witnesses had all sorts of homicides to their credit. Sal Vitale. Andy Ruggiano. Peter Zuccaro. They were all admitted killers. Where is the fairness in that? Asaro asked as he clicked off their names.
It was time for me to go. Asaro asked me what the title of the book was and he smiled when I told him. I asked him what he had for that first dinner after his acquittal, and he told me about the spaghetti and clams. We all shook hands, and I watched Asaro go back into the house.
“I really can’t talk,” he repeated.
As I walked to my car, I realized that Asaro was living in what for him was the old neighborhood. To the south, about a mile away, was Jimmy Burke’s old club. To the north, beyond Liberty Avenue by just a few blocks was John Gotti’s old Bergin Hunt and Fish Club. On Valenti’s recordings, Asaro lamented about the old street life, when Gotti reigned supreme on 101st Avenue, Jimmy Burke lorded over the crew at Robert’s Lounge on Lefferts Boulevard, and the Bonanno crime family was the one borgata in the city the federal government couldn’t touch. Times had changed. The city had changed. The mob had changed with its notion of omertà torn to shreds.
Vincent Asaro’s world was now one where the people on the streets of Ozone Park were more likely to have come from the Punjab than Palermo, and the food served at Burke’s old saloon was West Indian roti bread and not ravioli with marinara sauce. At least it was a world within which Asaro could walk around a free man. It was also his choice to accept the way things had become—or not—and daydream about the way life once was.
LUFTHANSA ROLL CALL
(as of July 1, 2016)
Nicole Argentieri (federal prosecutor) She became head of the public corruption unit of the Brooklyn U.S. Attorney’s Office.
Jerome Asaro (Bonanno soldier and father of Vincent) He died in 1977. His place of interment is unknown.
Jerome Asaro (Bonanno captain and son of Vincent Asaro) He is currently serving a ninety-month sentence after pleading guilty to federal racketeering charges in 2014. He is serving his sentence in Schuylkill Federal Correctional Institution and is scheduled for release on August 6, 2020.
Vincent Asaro (Bonanno captain) He is living in the Ozone Park area after winning a verdict of acquittal in November 2015 in his federal trial on charges stemming from the Lufthansa heist, the murder of Paul Katz, and other crimes.
Vincent Basciano (Bonanno captain) He is serving a life sentence for a federal racketeering conviction in 2011 in which he was spared the death penalty. Basciano originally began serving his sentence in the high-security section of ADX Florence in Colorado. He is not eligible for parole but in 2015 was moved from the “Supermax” section of the prison to less-stringent living conditions, which allow him a cellmate and other privileges.
Janet Barbieri (girlfriend and government witness) She testified at the 1979 trial of her then-boyfriend Louis Werner for his complicity in the Lufthansa heist. Her whereabouts are unknown.
Catherine Burke (daughter of James Burke) She is living in Howard Beach and is married to imprisoned Bonanno captain Anthony “Bruno” Indelicato. She has never been charged with any crimes.
Francis Frank Burke (son of James Burke, Lufthansa participant, mob associate) He was killed in a drug dispute in 1987. He is buried next to his father.
James “Jimmy The Gent” Burke (gangster) The father of Catherine Burke and Francis Burke, he was never charged in connection with the Lufthansa heist but was convicted in 1984 on state charges for the killing of James Eaton. Burke was also convicted on federal charges in 1985 for the Boston College point-shaving scandal. Burke died in state prison in 1996 from cancer. He is buried in St. Charles Cemetery, East Farmingdale, New York. Burke’s character, known as “Jimmy Conway,” was played by Robert DeNiro in the film GoodFfellas.
Louis Cafora (mob associate) He was part of the planning and preparation for the Lufthansa heist. He and his wife Joanne went missing in March 1979 and are presumed dead.
Steve Carbone (FBI case agent) He was one of the lead investigating FBI agents on the heist investigation. He retired from the FBI and is living in Florida and New York.
Alicyn Cooley (prosecutor) She is a federal prosecutor in the Brooklyn U.S. Attorney’s Office.
Thomas DeSimone (gangster and Lufthansa participant) He disappeared in January 1979 and is believed to have been murdered by the Lucchese crime family at the behest of the Gambino crime family in retaliation for
his slaying of crime-family soldier William “Bill Batts” Benventa. DeSimone’s character was played by Joe Pesce in the film GoodFellas, for which he won a 1991 Academy Award for best supporting actor. DeSimone’s body has never been found.
Richard Eaton (mob associate) He was a member of Burke’s crew of gangsters. After blowing over $300,000 in money Burke had earmarked for a drug deal, Eaton was killed by Burke and Sepe. His body was found frozen in a desolate area of Brooklyn.
Parnell “Stacks” Edwards (mob associate and Lufthansa heist accomplice) He was a part-time musician and thief who was shot dead around December 18, 1979, by DeSimone and Sepe after screwing up and not disposing of the getaway van used in the heist as well as shooting his mouth off about the heist. Cops found the van and started tracing evidence found with the vehicle. Actor Samuel L. Jackson played Edwards’s character in the film GoodFellas.
Diane Ferrone (defense attorney) She maintains an active criminal defense practice in Manhattan.
William Fischetti (friend of Louis Werner) He cooperated with the government and testified as a government witness in the 1979 trial that led to Werner’s conviction.
Lindsay Gerdes (prosecutor) She continues to handle organized-crime cases for the Brooklyn U.S. Attorney’s Office.
Peter Gruenewald (airport worker and Lufthansa conspirator) He cooperated with the government and testified against Louis Werner in his 1979 federal trial for aiding in the Lufthansa heist. His whereabouts are unknown.
Henry Hill (drug dealer, hijacker, mob associate) He became a major government witness against Burke and others. He was the subject of Nicholas Pileggi’s book Wiseguys. Hill died in 2012 before publication of the book about his role in the Lufthansa heist he co-authored with Daniel Simone. Actor Ray Liotta played Hill in the film GoodFellas.
Karen Hill (wife of Henry Hill) She and Hill divorced in 2002 and she reportedly uses her witness protection identity to shield herself. Karen Hill was played by Lorraine Bracco in the film GoodFellas.
The Big Heist Page 25