Henry Hill Jr. (June 11, 1943 – June 12, 2012) was an American mobster who was associated with the Lucchese crime family of New York City from 1955 until 1980, when he was arrested on narcotics charges and became an FBI informant. Hill testified against his former Mafia associates, resulting in fifty convictions, including those of caporegime (captain) Paul Vario and fellow associate James Burke on multiple charges. Hill subsequently entered the Witness Protection Program but was removed from the program in 1987.
Hill's life story was documented in the true crime book Wiseguy: Life in a Mafia Family (1985) by Nicholas Pileggi, and subsequently depicted in two films which were both released in 1990; the critically acclaimed Martin Scorsese gangster film GoodFellas, in which Hill was portrayed by Ray Liotta, and the Herbert Ross crime comedy My Blue Heaven, in which a character inspired by Hill was portrayed by Steve Martin. Goodfellas was adapted by Pileggi and Scorsese from Wiseguy, depicting Hill's life in the mafia, whilst My Blue Heaven is a heavily fictionalised account of his time in witness protection, written by Pileggi's wife Nora Ephron based on the couple's joint research sessions.Hill, Henry (February 2007). Gangsters and Goodfellas: The Mob, Witness Protection, and Life on the Run. Rowman & Littlefield. pp. 225–226.
Early life Henry Hill Jr. was born on June 11, 1943, in the New York City borough of Manhattan to Henry Hill Sr., an Irish-American electrician, and Carmela Costa, a Sicilian immigrant.A sister mourns 'goodfella' Henry Hill in Spring Hill Dan DeWitt, Tampa Bay Times (June 15, 2012) Hill recounted in the book Wiseguy that his father had emigrated from Ireland at age 12 after the death of the elder Hill's father.Nicholas Pileggi, Wiseguy: Life in a Mafia Family (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1985), p. 6 The family, consisting of Henry and his seven siblings, resided in Brownsville, a working-class neighborhood of Brooklyn. Hill was dyslexic and performed poorly at school.
From an early age, Hill admired the local mobsters who socialized at a dispatch cabstand across the street from his home, a group that included Paul Vario, a caporegime (captain) in the Lucchese crime family. In 1955, when he was eleven years old, Hill wandered into the cabstand looking for a part-time after-school job. In his early teens, Hill began running errands for patrons at the cabstand and Vario's other front businesses. It was in this capacity that 13-year-old Hill first met notorious hijacker and Lucchese family associate James "Jimmy the Gent" Burke in 1956. Hill served drinks and sandwiches at a card game and was dazzled by Burke's openhanded tipping: "He was sawbucking me to death. Twenty here. Twenty there. He wasn't like anyone else I had ever met."
The following year, Vario's younger brother, Vito "Tuddy" Vario, and his son, Lenny Vario, presented Hill with a highly sought-after position in a bricklayers' union. Hill would be a "no show" and put on a building contractor's construction payroll, guaranteeing him a weekly salary of $190 (). Hill received a portion of this salary and the rest was divided among Vario and his associates. The card also allowed Hill to facilitate the pickup of daily policy bets and loan payments to Vario from local construction sites. Once Hill had this "legitimate" job, he dropped out of high school and began working exclusively for the Varios.Pileggi, p. 24
Hill's first encounter with arson occurred when a rival cabstand opened just around the corner from Paul Vario's. The competing company's owner was from Alabama and new to New York City. Sometime after midnight, Tuddy and Hill drove to the rival cabstand with a drum of gasoline in the backseat of Tuddy's car. Hill smashed the cab windows and filled them with gasoline-soaked newspapers and set them on fire.Pileggi, p. 28
Hill was first arrested when he was aged 16; his arrest record is one of the few official documents which used his real name.Pileggi, p. 3. Hill and Lenny, who was of the same age, had attempted to use a stolen credit card to buy snow tires for Tuddy's wife. When Hill and Lenny returned to Tuddy's, two police detectives apprehended Hill. During a rough interrogation, Hill gave his name and nothing else; Vario's attorney later facilitated his release on bail. While a suspended sentence resulted, Hill's refusal to talk earned him the respect of both Vario and Burke. Burke, in particular, saw great potential in Hill. Like Hill, Burke was of Irish ancestry and therefore ineligible to become a "made man". The Vario crew, however, were happy to have associates of any ethnicity, so long as they made money and refused to cooperate with authorities.Pileggi, p. 30.
In June 1960, at age 17, Hill joined the United States Army, serving with the 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg in North Carolina. He claimed the timing was deliberate; the FBI's investigation into the 1957 Apalachin meeting had prompted a United States Senate investigation into organized crime and its links with businesses and unions. This resulted in the publication of a list of nearly 5,000 names of members and associates of the five New York crime families. Hill searched through a partial list but could not find Vario listed among the Lucchese family.Pileggi, p. 41.
Throughout his three-year enlistment, Hill maintained his mob contacts. He also continued to hustle: in charge of kitchen detail, he sold surplus food, loan sharked pay advances to fellow soldiers and sold tax-free cigarettes. Before his discharge, Hill spent two months in the stockade for stealing a local sheriff's car and brawling in a bar with Marines and a civilian. In 1963 he returned to New York and began the most notorious phase of his criminal career: arson, intimidation,Pileggi, p. 55. running an organized stolen car ring,Pileggi, p. 58. and hijacking trucks.Pileggi, p. 136.
In 1965, Hill met his future wife, Karen Friedman, through Paul Vario, who insisted that Hill accompany his son on a double date at Frank "Frankie the Wop" Manzo's restaurant, Villa Capra. According to Friedman, the date was disastrous, and Hill stood her up at the next dinner date. Afterward, the two began going on dates at the Copacabana and other nightclubs, where Friedman was introduced to Hill's outwardly impressive lifestyle. The two later married in a large North Carolina wedding, attended by most of Hill's mob associates.Pileggi, pp. 83-94
Criminal career Air France robbery
Shortly before midnight on April 6, 1967, Hill and Lucchese associate Tommy DeSimone drove to the Air France cargo terminal at John F. Kennedy International Airport with an empty suitcase, the largest Hill could find. Inside connection Robert McMahon instructed the two to just walk in, as people often came to the terminal to pick up lost baggage. DeSimone and Hill entered the unsecured area unchallenged and unlocked the door with a duplicate key. Using a small flashlight, they loaded seven bags into the suitcase and left with (equivalent to $ million in ). No alarm was raised, no shots were fired and no one was injured. The theft was not discovered until the following Monday, when a Wells Fargo truck arrived to pick up the cash to be delivered to the French American Banking Corporation. Hill later believed that it was the Air France robbery that endeared him to the Mafia at large.
Restaurant ownership and murder of William "Billy Batts" Bentvena Hill used his share of the robbery proceeds to purchase a restaurant on Queens Boulevard, called The Suite, initially aiming to run it as a legitimate business and provide distance between himself and his mob associates. However, within several months, members of Lucchese and Gambino crews, including high-ranking Gambino members who "were always there", moved into the club en masse and made it another mob hangout.
According to the book Wiseguy, after William "Billy Batts" Bentvena was released from prison in 1970, a welcome-home party was thrown for him at Robert's Lounge, which was owned by Burke. Hill stated that Bentvena saw DeSimone and jokingly asked him if he still shined shoes, which DeSimone perceived as an insult. DeSimone leaned over to Hill and Burke and said, "I'm gonna kill that fuck." Two weeks later, on June 11, 1970, Bentvena was at The Suite near closing time when he was ambushed and pistol-whipped by DeSimone. Hill said that before DeSimone started to beat Bentvena, DeSimone yelled, "Shine these fucking shoes!"
After Bentvena was beaten and presumed killed, DeSimone, Burke and Hill placed his body in the trunk of Hill's car for transport. They stopped at DeSimone's mother's house to fetch a shovel and lime. They started to hear sounds from the trunk, and when they realized that Bentvena was still alive, DeSimone and Burke stopped the car and beat him to death with the shovel and a tire iron. Burke had a friend who owned a dog kennel in Upstate New York, and Bentvena was buried there. About three months after the murder, Burke's friend sold the dog kennel to housing developers, and Burke ordered Hill and DeSimone to exhume Bentvena's corpse and dispose of it elsewhere.
In Wiseguy, Hill said the body was eventually crushed in a car crusher at a New Jersey junkyard, which was owned by Clyde Brooks. However, on the commentary for the film Goodfellas, Hill states that Bentvena's body was buried in the basement of Robert's Lounge, a bar and restaurant owned by Burke, and only later was put into the car crusher.
Drug business In November 1972, Burke and Hill were arrested for beating Gaspar Ciaccio in Tampa, Florida. Ciaccio allegedly owed a large gambling debt to their friend, union boss Casey Rosado. They were convicted of extortion and sentenced to ten years at the United States Penitentiary, Lewisburg. Hill was imprisoned with Vario, who was serving a sentence for tax evasion, and several members of John Gotti's Gambino crew. At Lewisburg, Hill met a man from Pittsburgh who, for a fee, taught Hill how to smuggle drugs into the prison.
While Hill was in jail, his wife Karen had an affair with Vario. DeSimone attempted to rape Karen, and beat her when she resisted. It has been speculated that Vario subsequently took revenge by telling the Gambino family about DeSimone's role in Bentvena's murder; they in turn killed DeSimone.
On July 12, 1978, Hill was paroled after four years and resumed his criminal career. He began trafficking in drugs, which Burke eventually became involved with, even though the Lucchese family did not authorize any of its members to engage in such activity. Hill began wholesaling marijuana, cocaine, heroin and quaaludes based on connections he made in prison, making enormous amounts of money. However, a young child who acted as a mule of Hill's "ratted" him out to narcotics detectives Daniel Mann and William Broder. "The Youngster" (so named by the detectives) informed them that Hill was connected to the Lucchese family. Knowing of Hill's exploits, the detectives put surveillance on him. Mann and Broder had "thousands" of wiretaps of Hill, but Hill and his crew used coded language in the conversations. Hill's wiretap on March 29 is an example of the bizarre vocabulary:
Lufthansa heist
On December 11, 1978, an estimated $5.875 million (equivalent to $ million in ) was stolen from the Lufthansa cargo terminal at Kennedy airport, with $5 million in cash and $875,000 in jewelry, making it the largest cash robbery committed on American soil at the time. The plot had begun when bookmaker Martin Krugman told Hill that Lufthansa flew in currency to its cargo terminal at the airport; Burke set the plan in motion. Hill did not directly take part in the heist.
Basketball fixing