Substance Abuse In Henry Hill's The Lufthansa Heist

“As far back as I could remember, I always wanted to be a gangster.”- (Goodfellas) This quote is the beginning of the unbelievable but true story of Henry Hill, told through the mob classic Goodfellas. Henry Hill was born to a poor family in New York, where he had always looked up to the local gangsters, capo Paul Cicero and Jimmy Conway. As he grew into his teenage years he looked to work for their business and was hired. He started off doing simple things like running errands, as well as collecting and dropping off money. Shortly after, he was advancing into things like the illegal sale of cigarettes with Tommy DeVito. During the sale of some cigarettes he was he was arrested, while Tommy was able to flee the scene successfully. This was

the first and biggest challenge that he had encountered, in which he learned the most important lessons of his life. After successfully beating the charge against him, Jimmy takes him aside and gives him some money and tells him that he is proud of him. Confused, Henry thinks he would be mad at him for getting caught. Jimmy tells him that everyone gets caught sometimes, but that he did it the right way by not saying anything. He then tells Henry the two most important things in life, “Never rat on your friends and always keep your mouth shut.” (Goodfellas) From then on, Henry was “one of them”.

He began to get into more serious crimes such as the hijacking of trucks with Jimmy. Eventually, it realistically wasn’t hijacking, they had drivers that they would pay to tell them when the big shipments would come in and would let them take what they wanted. Jimmy was dubbed “The Gent” due to his gentleman like demeanor during the hijackings. During a welcome home party for Billy Batts, he insults Tommy by treating him like he was the child from back in the day and tells him to, “Go home and get your shine box” (Goodfellas). Tommy does not take kindly to that and at the end of the party decides to beat him to death in the bar they were at. The only problem with this is that Billy was a “made man”, which made him untouchable and became a big problem when he was not ever heard from again. Jimmy and Henry helped Tommy to hide the body. Months after, the spot where they buried the body was becoming used, so they were forced to go back and remove the previously buried remains and move them again. Henry and Jimmy are now order to go down to Florida to collect the debt from a gambler, which takes some convincing physically and ends up coming back to haunt them. The man they beat up had a family member that worked as a typist for the F.B.I., for their actions they both received ten years in prison.

Henry then starts to sell drugs from inside prison to make more money for his family.

He is strongly advised by Paul to stay away from any kind of narcotics, in which Henry tells him that he wouldn’t dream of doing that. Henry continues to used his connections that he made in prison to sell drugs while out of jail. Next comes the most historic score in their careers, The Lufthansa Heist. A robbery that took place at John F. Kennedy Airport, where the total return was in excess of six million dollars. After the heist Jimmy specifically told everyone not to go out and buy anything that might attract unusual attention Multiple people went directly against what Jimmy said and went out and bought multiple expensive things. Another problem arises, when the driver of the van that was used to transport the stolen money, was suppose to be taken to a junkyard and instead the driver went to his girlfriend’s house and celebrated with her. The van was found by the police and was staring to connect the dots. As you could imagine, this upset Jimmy, and he takes extreme caution as the police are starting to close in. Jimmy made the only decision he could make to cut all ties from these people, so he has some of the people that were involved killed as a way to protect himself, by not giving them an option of testifying against him. During this time Tommy is told he is going to be “made”, or become a “made man”. As he walks into the room where he is supposed to be made, he is shot in the head

multiple times as retribution for what he had done to Billy Batts. Henry is now frequently using cocaine as well as distributing it and it finally catches up to him as he is arrested trying to get more drugs from Pittsburgh. He is arrested and sure that Jimmy is trying to kill him and decides to betray everything he has ever known and enters the Witness Protection Program. He then flips and gives the government everything he knows which leads to a multitude of arrests and the end of what he knows of life. He ends the movie by saying “I’m an average nobody. I get to live the rest of my life schnook.” (Goodfellas)

For multiple reasons that real names of these people weren’t used in the movie, but for this part of the paper I will be using their real names as they were used when they appeared in court. Jimmy Conway is actually James Burke, Paul Cicero’s name is Paul Vario, and Tommy DeVito is Tommy DeSimone. (dailymail.co.uk)

James Burke, was convicted of fixing college basketball games as part of an illegal gambling scandal, and was sentenced to twenty years in prison. He was later convicted of the murder of an associate because testimony of Henry Hill. He would later die of lung cancer in prison at the age of 64. Though never being convicted, it has been said that James Burke was one of the people that were behind the Lufthansa Heist, which is the most historical robberies on American soil, amounting to around six million dollars’ worth of goods stolen from John F. Kennedy International Airport. It was said, he was advised about a large shipment of untraceable money that was coming in through the airport, due to a worker at the airport that had amassed quite a bit of a gambling debt, in exchange for his balance to be cleared.

Paul Vario, was convicted of contempt and conspiracy to commit perjury and was sentenced to three years in prison. He was also convicted on counts of racketeering, extortion, illegal gambling, and loansharking. While in prison they were said to have lived like kings, drinking wine and the ability to cook their own food. Paul died in prison at the age of seventy-three on charges that have been acquired through the testimony of Henry Hill.

During the 1970’s the government created the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act or RICO Act. RICO can carry criminal and civil penalties, for the criminal RICO there are three requirements. The crimes have to be done within a business enterprise, there has to be a pattern of racketeering, and there has to be two predicate activates within a ten-year period. Richard Nixon was the one that signed the RICO Act into the law.

Witness Protection, along with the RICO Act, was created in 1970 to protect witnesses in the trials to take down organized crime.

It is when the government protects someone that they value as a witness as well as having their lives be threatened or in danger due to their testimony. Some witnesses are only protected until the end of the trial they are testifying in, or they may have a completely new identity and live the rest of their lives under government protection. Witnesses and their families typically get new identities with authentic documentation. Housing, subsistence for basic living expenses and medical care are provided to the witnesses. The U.S. Marshals are the service that actually protects the people that are entered into the program.

(usmarshals.gov)

Extortion is the act of obtaining something through either force or a threat, and it is considered to be a felony. In this case, the extorting was due to being paid “protection money”, which is payments to these figures for the protection of their businesses. Racketeering is either when an organization runs rackets, which are illegal businesses like the sale of narcotics and weapons, or a legitimate business that is used to embezzle money. Loansharking is another example of a racket, which is when somebody is loaned money, that typically comes with a high interest rate and a guarantee that if you do not pay back the money that you owe there will be consequences and repercussions. Illegal gambling was another common practice, high stakes card games, roulette, craps and sports betting were commonly played. Sports betting playing a major role in the loansharking business, they would loan money out to people who would bet the money they just borrowed, which they either won the money and were able to pay back their debts, or they would lose and owe them more money. Another common crime was tax fraud, which is when someone intentionally doesn’t pay the government the taxes that are owed to them. (criminal.findlaw.com) This was so common because most of these people were “ghosts” anyway, having little to no legal information about them at all. Henry says, the only things that he had to let you know that he was alive was his birth certificate and his arrest record.