Vincent Asaro: Lufthansa Acquittal, Arson Case, and Death

Vincent Asaro was a Bonanno crime family captain best known for being tried and acquitted in 2015 of federal racketeering charges tied to the 1978 Lufthansa heist at John F. Kennedy International Airport, the real robbery dramatized in Martin Scorsese’s Goodfellas. He was later convicted in a separate road-rage arson case, sentenced to eight years in federal prison, granted compassionate release in 2020 after a debilitating stroke, and died on October 22, 2023, in Queens at age 86.¹

A Life Inside the Bonanno Family

Asaro was born in 1935 and grew up in Queens. His father and grandfather were both Mafia members, and he followed them into the Bonanno family, where he was a made member for more than four decades.² He stayed rooted in his old neighborhood throughout his life.³

By the mid-1970s he had risen to captain, or caporegime, running his own crew. Wiretap recordings later showed that by 2012 the family’s leadership had offered him the role of consigliere, and he sat on the family’s ruling panel, helping run day-to-day Bonanno operations.⁴ His crew worked closely with associates from other families, most consequentially Lucchese associate James “Jimmy the Gent” Burke.

His Alleged Role in the Lufthansa Heist

On December 11, 1978, at roughly 3:00 a.m., armed men in ski masks drove a Ford Econoline van into the Lufthansa air cargo building at JFK, held employees hostage, forced a supervisor to open the vault, and left with about $5 million in cash and $1 million in jewelry. It was one of the largest cash robberies in American history at the time.⁵

The robbery was masterminded by Burke, who planned it out of Robert’s Lounge in Queens using a tip from a Lufthansa cargo agent. Prosecutors later alleged Asaro helped direct the job and served as a lookout in a “crash car” during the operation.⁶

Almost none of the stolen money was ever recovered. Burke grew paranoid in the weeks after the robbery and orchestrated a wave of killings to silence people connected to the job. The Lufthansa cargo agent who first passed information to Burke’s crew, Louis Werner, was the only person ever convicted and jailed for the robbery itself.⁵ Burke died in prison in 1996 while serving time for unrelated crimes. Nicholas Pileggi’s 1985 book Wiseguy, drawn from the accounts of one of Burke’s associates, became the basis for Goodfellas.⁷

The 1969 Katz Murder and the 2014 Indictment

Paul Katz ran a warehouse in Ozone Park that Burke’s crew used to stash goods from truck hijackings. Police raided the warehouse in 1968 and arrested the crew, including Asaro. After the raid, Asaro and Burke suspected Katz of cooperating with law enforcement.⁸

On December 6, 1969, Katz left his home after receiving a phone call and never returned. According to later testimony from cooperating witness Gaspare Valenti, Asaro and Burke strangled Katz with a dog chain and buried his body in the basement of a house Burke’s family owned in Ozone Park.⁹ In June 2013, acting on information from a cooperating witness, the FBI excavated the basement and recovered bones, teeth, hair, and clothing. DNA testing confirmed the remains were Katz’s.⁴

In January 2014, a federal grand jury in the Eastern District of New York charged Asaro with racketeering conspiracy. The predicate acts included the Lufthansa heist, the Katz murder, moving Katz’s body, soliciting the murder of a cousin suspected of being an informant, armed robbery of roughly $1 million in gold salts, and extortionate debt collection.⁹ Four co-defendants were charged alongside him, including his son Jerome Asaro, a Bonanno captain who later pleaded guilty to racketeering conspiracy and received 90 months in prison.¹⁰

The government’s central witness was Asaro’s own cousin, Gaspare Valenti, a former Bonanno associate who had approached the FBI in 2008 saying he was broke and haunted by nightmares.¹¹ Valenti wore a wire and captured Asaro on tape complaining about the split from the heist: “We never got our right money, what we were supposed to get. Jimmy Burke kept everything.”⁶

The 2015 Acquittal

Asaro’s federal racketeering trial began on October 19, 2015, in Brooklyn before Judge Allyne R. Ross. The prosecution called more than 70 witnesses over three weeks, anchoring its case on Valenti and other former Bonanno members who had turned government witnesses, including former boss Joseph Massino.¹²

Valenti testified that Asaro had recruited him for the Lufthansa job and had been “very happy, really euphoric” on learning they had stolen far more than expected. He also described the Katz killing and his own role in helping bury the body.¹³ Sal Vitale, Massino’s former underboss, testified that Asaro had given Massino a case of gold chains after the heist, saying it was “from the Lufthansa score.”¹⁴

Defense attorney Elizabeth Macedonio countered that the government’s case rested on “despicable” and “accomplished liars” who had been released from prison in exchange for their testimony. She called Valenti a “shady paid cooperator” who had tried to “bait” Asaro into incriminating statements. The defense called only two witnesses over a single afternoon.¹⁵

On November 12, 2015, after roughly two days of deliberation, the jury acquitted the 80-year-old Asaro on all counts. He told reporters he was stunned. “I didn’t even know I was found not guilty, my attorneys had to tell me.”¹⁶

The Road-Rage Arson Case

Asaro’s freedom did not last. In March 2017, a separate federal indictment charged him with directing an arson that grew out of a road-rage incident five years earlier.¹⁷

In April 2012, a driver switched lanes in front of Asaro in Howard Beach, Queens. Asaro chased the motorist and then contacted a Gambino family associate who used a law enforcement database to find the driver’s home address. Asaro ordered a Bonanno associate to torch the car. That associate recruited two men to carry out the job: Matthew Rullan, who poured gasoline on the vehicle, and John J. Gotti, grandson of the late Gambino boss John Gotti, who drove the getaway car. On April 4, 2012, they set the vehicle on fire outside the victim’s home. Asaro later visited the auto body shop where the burned car had been towed to confirm the job was done.²

Asaro initially pleaded not guilty but changed his plea on June 27, 2017, admitting he had violated the Travel Act by using a telephone to order the arson.¹⁸

Eight Years, Built on Acquitted Conduct

On December 28, 2017, Judge Ross sentenced Asaro to 96 months in federal prison, more than double the guidelines range of 33 to 41 months, and ordered $21,276 in restitution.²

The reason the sentence ran so far above the guidelines was Judge Ross’s decision to weigh Asaro’s full criminal history, including the conduct a jury had rejected two years earlier. Despite the 2015 acquittal, she said she was “firmly convinced” the government had proved the underlying conduct at that earlier trial, and she cited his role in the Katz murder, the Lufthansa robbery, and continued loansharking into 2013.¹⁹

Asaro appealed, arguing a judge should not be able to rely on conduct for which a jury had acquitted him. On April 23, 2019, the U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals rejected the appeal, holding under the Supreme Court’s 1997 decision in United States v. Watts that an acquittal does not bar a sentencing judge from considering underlying conduct proved by a preponderance of the evidence.²⁰ The Cato Institute filed an amicus brief when Asaro sought Supreme Court review, arguing the practice violates the Fifth and Sixth Amendments. The Supreme Court declined to hear the case.¹⁹

Compassionate Release and Death

While serving his sentence at the U.S. Medical Center for Federal Prisoners in Springfield, Missouri, Asaro suffered a stroke in August 2019. It left him with right-side paralysis and expressive aphasia, a brain disorder that severely impaired his speech. His attorneys told the court he could barely say more than “hello” and “how are you,” had forgotten the names of his children, and could not feed himself or use the bathroom without help.²¹

On April 17, 2020, with 23 months left on his sentence and COVID-19 spreading through federal prisons, Judge Ross granted compassionate release. She found his age, medical condition, and infection risk amounted to extraordinary circumstances, and said she did not believe he would “be orchestrating complex criminal schemes” in his condition.²² He was released to home incarceration under 24-hour location monitoring for the remainder of his sentence, followed by three years of supervised release, and could leave home only for approved medical appointments.²¹

Asaro died on October 22, 2023, in Queens at age 86. His lawyer, Elizabeth Macedonio, confirmed the death but did not give a cause.¹

1
The New York Times. Vincent Asaro Dead
2
U.S. Department of Justice. Long-Time Bonanno Crime Family Member Sentenced to 96 Months’ Imprisonment for Arson
3
The New York Times. Trial of Vincent Asaro Highlights Loss of Mafia’s Code of Silence
4
U.S. Department of Justice. Asaro Detention Memo
5
Encyclopaedia Britannica. Lufthansa Heist
6
CBS News. Alleged Bonanno Crime Family Member Arrested in 1978 Lufthansa Heist
7
Biography. Real Goodfellas Lufthansa Heist
8
New York Daily News. Son of Man Allegedly Strangled to Death With Dog Chain by Mob Boss Vincent Asaro Testifies at Lufthansa Trial
9
FBI. Bonanno Family Captain Vincent Asaro Indicted
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New York Post. Goodfellas Mobster Confronted by Victim’s Family at Sentencing
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CBS News. Goodfellas Mobster Tells Jury He Became Informant Because He Was Broke
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CBS News. Lufthansa Heist Informant
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Christian Science Monitor. Aging Mobster Acquitted in 1978 Heist Retold in Goodfellas
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NBC News. Accused Top Mobster Goes to Trial for Goodfellas Heist
15
CNN. Vincent Asaro Trial
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The New York Times. Acquittal of Vincent Asaro Is Latest Setback in Mafia Prosecutions
17
U.S. Department of Justice. Long-Time Bonanno Crime Family Member Indicted for Arson
18
The New York Times. Mob Figure Vincent Asaro Pleads Guilty to Arson Case
19
Cato Institute. Vincent Asaro v. United States
20
Findlaw. United States v. Vincent Asaro
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Casemine. United States v. Asaro, Opinion and Order
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CNN. Vincent Asaro Released