Vincent Asaro Passed Away

Discuss all mafia families in the U.S., Canada, Italy, and everywhere else in the world.

Moderator: Capos

Post Reply
Dr031718
Sergeant Of Arms
Posts: 658
Joined: Wed Oct 10, 2018 4:45 pm

Vincent Asaro Passed Away

Post by Dr031718 »

According to Nadu and Scott B Vinnie Asaro passed away from a heart attack yesterday
User avatar
SonnyBlackstein
Filthy Few
Posts: 7557
Joined: Fri Nov 07, 2014 2:21 am

Re: Vincent Asaro Passed Away

Post by SonnyBlackstein »

Wow.

At least in his own bed
Don't give me your f***ing Manson lamps.
Little_Al1991
Sergeant Of Arms
Posts: 795
Joined: Thu Nov 11, 2021 5:22 am

Re: Vincent Asaro Passed Away

Post by Little_Al1991 »

Any detailed overview of this guy? he seems interesting
User avatar
Gustazul
Honorary Member
Posts: 41
Joined: Fri Jul 22, 2022 12:14 pm

Re: Vincent Asaro Passed Away

Post by Gustazul »

"We don't break our Captain's, we kill em" - Vincent "Chin" Gigante.
Tonyd621
Full Patched
Posts: 3144
Joined: Sun Oct 06, 2019 10:46 am
Contact:

Re: Vincent Asaro Passed Away

Post by Tonyd621 »

In the can or one behind the head... how about in your bed?
Probably died broke, though...
User avatar
Shellackhead
Full Patched
Posts: 1210
Joined: Fri Apr 17, 2020 4:13 pm

Re: Vincent Asaro Passed Away

Post by Shellackhead »

Tonyd621 wrote: Sun Oct 22, 2023 1:51 pm In the can or one behind the head... how about in your bed?
Probably died broke, though...
Died free tho, unlike people like John Gotti who died chained up to a bed
maatsetungi
Associate
Posts: 37
Joined: Sun May 19, 2019 11:05 am

Re: Vincent Asaro Passed Away

Post by maatsetungi »

Here is the story of Asaro from the NYT
Vincent Asaro, Mobster Acquitted in Lufthansa Heist, Dies at 86
In a stunning verdict, he was found not guilty of participating in the storied 1978 theft, retold in the film “Goodfellas.” Then he went to prison over a road rage incident.

Oct. 27, 2023
Vincent Asaro, a career mobster who was found not guilty of murder and of helping to organize the staggering $6 million Lufthansa heist at John F. Kennedy Airport — one of the biggest cash heists in American history — only to be sentenced to prison when he was 82 over road-rage revenge, died on Sunday in Queens. He was 86.

His death was confirmed by Gerald McMahon, a lawyer who, with Elizabeth Macedonio, successfully represented him in the Lufthansa case. No cause was given.

The brazen theft in 1978 of $5 million in cash and $1 million in jewels from a vault at a Lufthansa hangar at Kennedy Airport figured prominently in the book “Wiseguy” (1985) by Nicholas Pileggi and the Martin Scorsese film “Goodfellas” (1990).

The authorities had suspected the Mafia’s involvement, but the case remained unsolved and the investigation closed until Mr. Asaro was arrested in 2014, linking him and the Bonanno crime family to the robbery.

He was also accused of using a dog chain in 1969 to strangle Paul Katz, the owner of a warehouse where Mr. Asaro and James (Jimmy the Gent) Burke, who was suspected of masterminding the Lufthansa theft (and who was portrayed by Robert DeNiro in “Goodfellas”), stored their stolen loot. Mr. Asaro and Mr. Burke had believed that Mr. Katz was an informer after the warehouse was raided by the police.

The indictment implicated Mr. Asaro in a sweeping conspiracy in which he was also accused of robbing FedEx (then Federal Express) of $1.25 million of gold salts, which can be used in medicinal treatments; bullying his way into the pornography business; and seeking, unsuccessfully, to bump off a cousin who had testified about an insurance scam.

Mr. Asaro’s 2015 trial was a sensation.

Though the robbery had taken place more than three decades earlier, it had been immortalized in the book and film, and even for younger New Yorkers it felt like a coda to the “Godfather” era.

Moreover, the key witness against Mr. Asaro was another cousin, Gaspare Valenti, who had been a government informant since 2008 and had secretly recorded Mr. Asaro from 2010 to 2013.

Mr. Valenti’s testimony on the stand was a jaw-dropping breach of the Mafia’s code of silence.

It also revealed the devolution of a ruthless mobster who in his day job could suggest to customers which fences to buy from his store in Ozone Park, Queens, while in his other life he could impatiently advise a younger mob associate who had asked him how best to collect a debt: “Stab him today.”

Ironically, the automobile reference returned to haunt him two years later. He was accused of recruiting a mob associate, who in turn recruited John J. Gotti, the grandson of the former Gambino family boss, to torch the car of a motorist who had cut off Mr. Asaro at a traffic light.

The driver was pursued at high speed by Mr. Asaro to no avail. The associate used law enforcement sources to track the license plate, after which Mr. Gotti and two other men located the car in Broad Channel, Queens, doused it with gasoline and set it ablaze. An off-duty police officer parked nearby witnessed the auto-da-fe and pursued the arsonists, but they sped away in a Jaguar.

Surprisingly, after a lifetime of denying culpability in crime, Mr. Asaro not only pleaded guilty but also apologized for what he acknowledged was “a stupid thing I did.”

He could have been sentenced to 20 years in prison. The prosecution asked for 15, pointing out that although he had “participated in racketeering, murder, robbery, extortion, loan-sharking, gambling and other illegal conduct, he has served less than eight years in jail.”

In December 2017, U.S. District Judge Allyne Ross ordered him to serve eight years — which, at 80, Mr. Asaro described as “a death sentence” — and to pay $21,276 in restitution to the owner of the car.

“If he had not aged out of a life of crime at the age of 77,” Judge Ross said, referring to his age during the opening phases of the Lufthansa trial, over which she presided, “I have little hope that he will do so.”

Vincent A. Asaro was born on July 10, 1937, in Queens to Joseph and Victoria Asaro, who separated when he was a teenager. His uncle, Michael Zaffarano, owned buildings housing adult theaters, distributed pornography and worked as a bodyguard for Joseph Bonanno, who ran his eponymous crime family for nearly four decades.

In 1957, Mr. Asaro married Theresa Myler; they divorced in 2005.

Mr. Asaro’s survivors include his son, Jerome. He was arrested with his father in 2014, pleaded guilty to racketeering and was sentenced to seven and a half years’ imprisonment.

Mr. Asaro racked up numerous charges and convictions over the course of his life. Among them, he was convicted in federal court in 1970 and 1972 for the theft of an interstate shipment and burglary of a post office. In 1998, he was sentenced in state court in New York to four to 12 years in prison for enterprise corruption and criminal possession of stolen property.

Three decades after the notorious Lufthansa heist, the beggarly but still choleric gangster had, according to prosecutors, squandered his $500,000 share of the loot on gambling and depleted whatever he had collected from his unforgiving manner of pursuing delinquent borrowers. He had hocked his jewelry and was seen shopping at a Waldbaum’s supermarket for orzo and lentils.

According to a conversation recorded by Mr. Valenti that was played in court in 2015, he was even unwelcome at the local social club where he had celebrated the heist.

“People hate me in there,” Mr. Asaro said. “I don’t pay my dues.”

Even his estranged son, whom he had initiated into the Mafia and had by then outranked him, rebuffed him when he desperately sought to borrow money, according to another recording.

Mr. Asaro had a stroke during his imprisonment for ordering the arson, which left him partly paralyzed. In 2020, he was granted a compassionate release from the United States Medical Center for Federal Prisoners in Springfield, Mo., because of his age and vulnerability to Covid-19.

“He obviously had nine lives,” Mr. McMahon said after Mr. Asaro’s death. “But this must have been the tenth.”
User avatar
SonnyBlackstein
Filthy Few
Posts: 7557
Joined: Fri Nov 07, 2014 2:21 am

Re: Vincent Asaro Passed Away

Post by SonnyBlackstein »

Vincent, Matthew Perry'd.
Don't give me your f***ing Manson lamps.
CabriniGreen
Full Patched
Posts: 3154
Joined: Thu Jul 06, 2017 6:09 am

Re: Vincent Asaro Passed Away

Post by CabriniGreen »

Little_Al1991 wrote: Sun Oct 22, 2023 12:49 am Any detailed overview of this guy? he seems interesting
The search function will yield a ton of info....

Guys like B. have covered him a lot...
Little_Al1991
Sergeant Of Arms
Posts: 795
Joined: Thu Nov 11, 2021 5:22 am

Re: Vincent Asaro Passed Away

Post by Little_Al1991 »

CabriniGreen wrote: Tue Oct 31, 2023 12:29 am
Little_Al1991 wrote: Sun Oct 22, 2023 12:49 am Any detailed overview of this guy? he seems interesting
The search function will yield a ton of info....

Guys like B. have covered him a lot...
Thank you.
Great information. Asaro really did seem like a scumbag but an embodiment of that typical tough guy wiseguy
Post Reply