From his brutal murder of made man Billy Batts to his sudden "disappearance" in 1979, Tommy DeSimone lived a life that was much wilder than Goodfellas could ever depict.
Warning: This article contains graphic descriptions and/or images of violent, disturbing, or otherwise potentially distressing events.
Goodfellas is widely considered one of the best mob movies ever made. And part of what makes it so great is Joe Pesci’s scene-stealing character, Tommy DeVito. He can be charming and he often gets a laugh, but he’s also ready to snap into a murderous rage at a moment’s notice.
Of course, Goodfellas is based on the real stories of mobsters and mob associates in the orbit of New York gangster Henry Hill. And while many movies based on true stories take creative liberties with the storytelling, Pesci’s character is a pretty faithful representation of a very real and terrifying gangster: Tommy “Two Guns” DeSimone.
Wikimedia CommonsTommy DeSimone was a feared associate of the Lucchese crime family — until he went missing in 1979.
Tommy DeSimone spent nearly half of his short life working with the mob and played a role in several major crimes, including the Air France robbery and the infamous Lufthansa heist. More than anything else, though, DeSimone was known for his temper — and people who provoked him, like William “Billy Batts” Bentvena, usually came to wish they hadn’t.
This is the chilling true story of Tommy DeSimone.
How Tommy DeSimone Entered The Mob
Although he was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1950, Thomas “Tommy” DeSimone grew up in New York, surrounded by mobsters.
His uncle and grandfather were both major figures in organized crime, and his brothers ended up becoming associates of the Gambino crime family. Even one of his sisters, Phyllis, would end up involved with the mob, becoming Jimmy Burke’s “mistress” when she was just 16 years old.
DeSimone followed his family’s example and entered a life of crime at age 15, joining the crew of Lucchese family mobster Paul Vario.
NYPDA mugshot of Tommy DeSimone.
Through Vario, DeSimone met Henry Hill, and together, they worked on a number of criminal schemes. Hijacking trucks and fencing the goods was a favorite scheme, and DeSimone had a habit of carrying his gun for these hijackings in a brown paper bag. According to Hill, “Walking down the street, he looked like he was bringing you a sandwich instead of a thirty-eight.”
However, DeSimone wasn’t shy about using his gun. Hill claims that DeSimone committed his first murder at just 17. While walking down the street with Hill, he spotted a total stranger strolling in front of him. He then turned to Hill and said, “Henry, watch this,” before gunning the man down.
This was just one of many instances of DeSimone’s impulsive violence.
Why Henry Hill Thought Tommy DeSimone Was “A Total Psychopath”
Cold-blooded violence would follow Tommy DeSimone — and get him into trouble, in an infamous incident that was depicted in Goodfellas.
According to Henry Hill, it all went down in May 1970, when the crew was holding a party at Robert’s Lounge, Jimmy Burke’s bar, for William “Billy Batts” Bentvena, a made man in the Gambino family who had just been released from prison after serving time for a drug-related charge.
At the party, Bentvena ran into DeSimone and asked him if he still shined shoes, a reference to an old job he used to have. It was meant as a joke, but DeSimone wasn’t the type of person you wanted to joke with.
Temper aside, DeSimone also had a life-long inferiority complex. One of his mobster brothers had allegedly cooperated with the authorities, which meant that DeSimone always felt the need to prove his loyalty.
He wanted respect more than anything, especially from mobsters.
Warner Bros.A scene leading to the eventual murder of Billy Batts in Goodfellas.
Rather than taking Bentvena’s jest as intended, DeSimone leaned over to Burke and Hill and told them, “I’m gonna kill that motherf**ker.”
A few weeks later, on June 11th, DeSimone followed through on that threat. He confronted Bentvena at another nightclub, The Suite, beating him with a pistol and shouting at him, “Shine these f**king shoes!”
Assisted by Burke, who held Bentvena down, DeSimone continued to beat Bentvena until he was bloodied and seemingly lifeless.
Just like in Goodfellas, DeSimone’s crew helped him bury the body, putting Bentvena in the trunk of a car and driving to a remote location upstate.
But Bentvena wasn’t dead yet. In fact, DeSimone and Burke heard Bentvena making noise in the trunk. Though Goodfellas suggests that DeSimone and Burke fatally shot Bentvena, Hill later said Bentvena’s real death was far worse: “They just stabbed him, thirty or forty f**king times, f**king horrible.”
In another incident that made it into the movie, DeSimone’s impulse for violence had deadly consequences for Michael “Spider” Gianco. Gianco was a young mob associate who was working as a bartender at Robert’s Lounge when he forgot DeSimone’s drink. DeSimone quickly pulled out a gun and shot Gianco in the leg after demanding that he “dance” for him.
Warner Bros.Bartender Michael “Spider” Gianco was another victim of Tommy DeSimone’s temper, as depicted in Goodfellas.
A few weeks later, Gianco ran into DeSimone again. But this time, Gianco was wearing a leg cast. After DeSimone started making fun of his cast, Gianco told him to “go screw [himself].”
Initially, DeSimone was going to let it slide — after all, it took some guts for a guy like Gianco to stand up for himself so brazenly. But then, Burke made a joke at DeSimone’s expense, telling him he must be “going soft.”
DeSimone responded by fatally shooting Gianco three times in the chest.
“Nobody says a word,” Hill later wrote of witnessing this murder, “but now I’m convinced Tommy is a total psychopath.”
Burke, enraged, left DeSimone to bury Gianco’s body by himself — and “all the while Tommy was grousing and pissed off that he had to dig the hole. He was like a kid who had been bad and had to clean the erasers after school.”
By then, it was clear that DeSimone was becoming a problem. Meanwhile, tensions were rising among the mobsters, and things would soon come to a head when Burke wanted to put together the infamous Lufthansa heist.
Tommy DeSimone’s Involvement In The Lufthansa Heist
In spite of (or maybe because of) his casual brutality, Tommy DeSimone remained an important part of Paul Vario’s crew. And when Jimmy Burke needed someone to help him carry out the biggest heist in United States history at the time, he included DeSimone in his plan.
Together, Burke, DeSimone, and several other mobsters and mob associates carried out the Lufthansa heist in 1978, stealing almost $6 million in cash and jewels from the Lufthansa terminal at the JFK Airport in New York.
At first, it seemed like they had gotten away with it — until they realized that one mob associate, Parnell “Stacks” Edwards, had carelessly left a getaway car in a no-parking zone. Police soon discovered the vehicle, along with Edwards’ fingerprints, putting all of his accomplices at risk of getting caught.
Thomas Monaster/NY Daily News Archive via Getty ImagesJimmy Burke, the mastermind of the Lufthansa heist.
In the aftermath, DeSimone served as a hitman, silencing not only Edwards but anyone else who could tie Burke — who had become increasingly paranoid — to the robbery. But what DeSimone didn’t know was that his own murderous past was about to catch up with him.
A few weeks after the heist, DeSimone got the news that he had been waiting almost his entire life for. He was going to be “made.” He would finally be someone that other mobsters had to respect.
Of course, the truth was that DeSimone was walking into a trap.
Someone, most likely Paul Vario, revealed to the Gambino family that DeSimone had murdered Bentvena. And according to the code of the Mafia, murdering a made man without permission meant death. In addition, DeSimone had killed another mob associate named Ronald Jerothe, who was the protégé of John Gotti, the future don of the Gambino family.
Tommy DeSimone’s Disappearance And Death
In January 1979, 28-year-old Tommy DeSimone suddenly disappeared. He has never been seen since then, and he was declared legally dead in 1990. Officially, no one knows exactly what happened to him.
But according to several sources within the Mafia, he was murdered in revenge for the killing of Bentvena and Jerothe. Henry Hill maintains that John Gotti personally killed DeSimone himself. According to another mobster who claimed he was at the scene, his death was slow and painful.
Interestingly enough, in Goodfellas, Tommy DeVito is shown dying quickly.
Warner Bros. PicturesThe death of Joe Pesci’s Tommy DeVito (inspired by Tommy DeSimone), as depicted in Goodfellas.
The specific details of Tommy DeSimone’s death remain uncertain to this day, but according to some rumors, he may have died even more brutally than he lived — being slowly cut in half with a chainsaw.
If these chilling accounts are true, then the body of DeSimone is probably buried in one of the so-called “Mafia graveyards” on the outskirts of New York, lying forever among some of his own victims.
In the end, DeSimone was a victim, too — one of the lifestyle he had always wanted to live and his own murderous temper.
After reading about Tommy DeSimone, learn the story of Henry Hill’s wife, Karen Friedman Hill. Then, read about the executions, informants, and flamboyance of the American Mafia in the 1980s.
