In a decision that shocked even the defendant, a jury has cleared an old-school mobster of charges he helped carry out a record-setting heist nearly 40 years ago that inspired the movie Goodfellas.
It was a Hollywood ending for Vincent Asaro, 80, who could have spent the rest of his life in prison if convicted of racketeering charges, which included allegations of murder, solicitation of murder, extortion and robbery.
“Free!” Asaro exclaimed with his hands thrust into the air as he left the federal courthouse in Brooklyn. “I’m dying to get home.”
Asked what he planned to do once he got there, Asaro said: “Have a good meal and see my family.”
Asaro had been in custody since January 2014, when prosecutors announced that they finally had arrested someone in the infamous December 1978 holdup of Lufthansa employees at John F. Kennedy International Airport. There was no statute of limitations on charges in the indictment because of the rules of federal racketeering laws.
At the time it occurred, the heist was the biggest in US history, and it inspired Martin Scorsese’s film Goodfellas. The perpetrators got away with about US$6 million in cash and jewels, most of which never was recovered.
The prosecution’s case hinged on whether jurors believed the testimony of witnesses who linked Asaro to the holdup and other crimes but who were longtime mobsters with criminal histories.
They included Asaro’s cousin Gaspare Valenti and Peter “Bud” Zuccaro, who had cooperated with federal authorities in exchange for money and possible leniency from prosecutors. Valenti and Zuccaro are in a witness protection programme.
Their years of secret recordings helped investigators charge Asaro, a member of New York’s Bonanno crime family. The 26-page indictment alleged a litany of crimes, including the strangulation of a suspected snitch whose body was buried beneath the floor of another mobster’s home, use of threats to squeeze money from debtors and involvement in the Lufthansa robbery.
When the jury, whose first full day of deliberations was Tuesday, announced its verdict, Asaro appeared not to hear, and he looked briefly confused. But the hawk-nosed, usually sour-faced defendant broke into a broad grin when a member of his defence team told him he was acquitted, and he slapped his hands on the table in triumph.
Asaro was not portrayed in Goodfellas, but prosecutors said he helped organise the Lufthansa holdup and was in a decoy car that was to be used to divert police if officers arrived on the scene.
Asaro, who seethed with anger during some prosecution witnesses’ testimony, was only the second person to be charged in the heist. The first was a Lufthansa employee who was convicted in 1979 of providing the robbers with inside information.
Valenti testified that Asaro was friends with the crime’s chief organiser, James “Jimmy the Gent” Burke of the Lucchese crime family. Burke, the inspiration for Robert De Niro’s character in Goodfellas, died of lung cancer while in prison in 1996 for murder and other crimes, which did not include the Lufthansa holdup. Valenti and Zuccaro were not depicted in the film.
In his testimony, Valenti said Asaro told him that Burke “had a big score” coming up and that Valenti could be part of the gang.
The defence accused Valenti, Zuccaro and other government informants of lying to save their own skins. Valenti and Zuccaro both admitted to being longtime organised crime members who had gambled away their fortunes.
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