Though mobster Vincent Asaro was acquitted of participating in the infamous 1978 Lufthansa heist and strangling a man with a dog chain, he was eventually brought down by his road rage.
ZUMA Press, Inc./Alamy Stock PhotoVincent Asaro being escorted by FBI agents in 2014.
Although the so-called golden age of the Mafia had seemingly faded as the 21st century approached, mobster Vincent Asaro would continue making headlines well into the 2020s. Asaro was a prominent member of New York City’s Bonanno crime family, allegedly overseeing much of the family’s operations at John F. Kennedy International Airport.
Sometimes called “The Last Goodfella,” Asaro faced numerous charges throughout his life in the mob, but only a handful of convictions, including the theft of an interstate shipment and burglary of a post office. However, he reached a new level of infamy in 2014, when the then-78-year-old was indicted over his alleged participation in the infamous 1978 Lufthansa heist. He was also accused of the murder of associate Paul Katz, whom Asaro purportedly believed was cooperating with law enforcement.
Vincent Asaro was ultimately found not guilty of both charges, but in 2017, he pleaded guilty to a separate arson charge, in which he ordered a driver’s car to be set on fire after a road rage incident that took place back in 2012. He was originally supposed to serve eight years in prison for the crime, but he was ultimately granted compassionate release in 2020 due to his advanced age and ailing health. And he died a free man three years later.
But despite the fact that prosecutors were unable to convince a jury that Asaro was involved in the Lufthansa heist, his long career in the Bonanno family is as violent and storied as any other mobster’s.
Vincent Asaro Was Born Into A Life Of Crime
U.S. Attorney’s Office, Eastern District of New YorkAn undated image of Vincent Asaro.
While some other mobsters found their way into the Mafia because they saw an opportunity or wanted money, Vincent Asaro was quite literally born into it. Born on July 10, 1937, in Queens, New York, Asaro grew up knowing that both his father and his grandfather were members of the Bonanno family.
As ABC 7 reported, Assistant U.S. Attorney Alicyn Cooley said Asaro “fully embraced” a life of crime, adding that his devotion to the Bonanno family “was as permanent as the ‘death before dishonor’ tattoo on his arm.”
As Asaro rose through the ranks, he developed a close relationship with James “Jimmy the Gent” Burke, an associate of the Lucchese family, who infamously masterminded the Lufthansa heist. This connection would eventually become one of the key points of Asaro’s Lufthansa trial.
Lucchese family associate-turned-informant Henry Hill would later identify Asaro as a capo in the Bonanno family, known to oversee the family’s interests at JFK Airport. There aren’t many in-depth chronicles of Asaro’s life story, but thanks to his name being mentioned in connection to several crimes, the most important details of his life can be discerned.
U.S. Attorney’s Office, Eastern District of New YorkVincent Asaro (right) with his cousin Gaspare Valenti (left) in an undated photo. Valenti would later testify against Asaro.
For example, Asaro was suspected of murdering associate Paul Katz, the owner of a Queens warehouse where Asaro and Burke often stashed their goods, in 1969. Though Katz’s remains were not found until 2013, Asaro was reportedly so startled by the discovery that he accidentally drove right into a metal pillar. While that by no means proved Asaro had anything to do with Katz’s death, his known association with Katz’s warehouse — and the fact that the warehouse had been raided by police, almost as if Katz had tipped them off — certainly seemed to imply he knew something about it.
Asaro and his son Jerome were also accused in the 1981 torching of a former nightclub in Ozone Park, Queens. This nightclub had been named “Afters,” for “after Lufthansa.” Reportedly, Vincent Asaro was angry that the club was going to be replaced with another venue that would cater to Black guests.
Years later, Asaro’s cousin Gaspare Valenti, a Bonanno crime family member-turned-informant, revealed a number of chilling secretly-recorded conversations between Asaro and other members of the mob. In one, Asaro is heard talking with associate John Rangano about how to collect a debt.
“Stab him today,” Asaro said. “Today, today.”
While his arrests in 2014 and 2017 made major headlines, they were not Asaro’s only run-ins with the law. Ever since 1957, Asaro had been arrested over 20 times for a variety of crimes, including bank robbery, kidnapping, rape, and assault. Most of the charges against him were dismissed, but he was convicted of the theft of an interstate shipment and the burglary of a post office in the early 1970s. And in 1998, he was sentenced to four to 12 years for possession of stolen property and enterprise corruption.
But he was really pushed into the spotlight in the 2010s.
Acquitted In The Lufthansa Heist Case, But Found Guilty Of Arson
ZUMA Press, Inc./Alamy Stock PhotoVincent Asaro leaving court after being charged in connection with the 1978 Lufthansa heist in 2014.
When Vincent Asaro was indicted in 2014 on charges relating to the Lufthansa heist, it was major news. After all, the $6 million robbery was one of the most infamous mob robberies of all time, and it was also one that led to the downfall of many criminals who had been involved.
The heist was famously depicted in the crime drama Goodfellas, which was inspired by Nicholas Pileggi’s book Wiseguy about Henry Hill’s life — a book that only exists because Jimmy Burke grew so paranoid after the heist, he became determined to take out anyone who’d been involved. Hill, fearing for his own life after authorities played a tape of Burke and Lucchese crime family capo Paul Vario talking about “whacking” Hill, became an informant.
But although Henry Hill implicated Burke and Vario in his testimony, and had plenty of stories to tell about other mobsters like Tommy DeSimone and Billy Batts, Hill only seemed to mention Asaro in passing, and Asaro seemed to keep any involvement he might have had in the robbery hidden. For the most part, people thought they knew who was actually involved in it. Had authorities really failed to nab Vincent Asaro for all those years?
Thomas Monaster/NY Daily News Archive via Getty ImagesThough James “Jimmy the Gent” Burke was sentenced to prison following Henry Hill’s testimony, authorities were never able to definitively prove that he orchestrated the Lufthansa heist.
As a jury would determine, the answer was no. To the disbelief of prosecutors, who’d spent years building a case against Asaro, he walked free. Even the testimony from Asaro’s cousin, the star witness Gaspare Valenti, couldn’t convince jurors. As Valenti testified, Asaro personally enlisted him for the Lufthansa heist, allegedly saying, “Jimmy Burke has a big score at the airport coming up, and you’re invited to go.” Valenti also claimed that Asaro and Burke strangled suspected police informant Paul Katz with a dog chain.
But the then-80-year-old was found not guilty in 2015. Asaro believed that the jurors acquitted him because the prosecution’s case was “overkill.” He said, “[The prosecutor] must’ve put 30 agents on the stand, all lies.” And Asaro was so happy following his acquittal that he quipped before getting into a waiting car, “Don’t let them see the body in the trunk.”
Unfortunately for Asaro, a more recent incident from 2012 would resurface and prove to be his downfall in 2017. He was involved in a road-rage incident that ended in arson, after he was cut off at a traffic light. Enraged, Asaro and two associates — one of whom was John Gotti’s grandson — went to the driver’s home and torched his car, according to the New York Post.
U.S. Attorney’s Office, Eastern District of New YorkSurveillance photo of Vincent Asaro (center) with notorious Gambino crime family boss John Gotti.
“Asaro nursed enough of a grudge from simply being cut off in traffic that he not only followed a member of the public for an extended period, terrorizing him, but also had an associate find out his home address and then ordered the man’s car to be burned to a crisp days later,” said Brooklyn federal Judge Allyne Ross.
This time, Asaro actually pleaded guilty to the crime in 2017 and even apologized: “It was a stupid thing I did and I’m terribly sorry. I was on my way home — it happened. It just got out of hand.” He was sentenced to eight years in prison for the crime, but he wouldn’t serve out his whole sentence.
Vincent Asaro’s Release From Prison And His Final Years
Apparently, Vincent Asaro’s luck hadn’t run out yet, as he was given compassionate release in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“If Asaro were to contract COVID-19, given his age and current state, it is not unlikely that the consequences would be dire,” Judge Allyne Ross wrote in a 16-page decision that granted Asaro early release from prison in April 2020.
Asaro’s health had already begun to decline in his later years, and he had suffered a stroke while in prison. Fears that he would contract the COVID-19 virus were not unfounded, and so he was freed from prison. Fortunately, Asaro seemed to stay out of trouble in his final years.
Then, on October 22, 2023, it was announced that Vincent Asaro had died at the age of 86. His former lawyer Gerald McMahon remarked, “He obviously had nine lives. But this must have been the tenth.”
After reading about Vincent Asaro, learn about Bugs Moran, the Chicago mobster who rivaled Al Capone. Then, read about Philip Johnson, the man who almost got away with the biggest cash heist in U.S. history.
