Feds Arrest 5, Including Bonanno Mobster Vincent Asaro In Connection With $6 Million 1978 Lufthansa Heist Made Famous In 'Goodfellas' Movie

It appears as though the Feds always get their man, no matter how long it takes. More than 30 years after hooded gunmen pulled a $6 million airport heist dramatized in the hit Martin Scorsese movie "Goodfellas," an elderly reputed mobster was arrested at his New York City home on Thursday and charged in the robbery and a 1969 murder. Flanked by a half a dozem Federal Agents, the grandfatherly alleged criminal appeared feeble and frail.

The New York Associated Press is reporting that Vincent Asaro, 78, was named along with his son, Jerome, and three other defendants in wide-ranging indictment alleging murder, robbery, extortion, arson and other crimes from the late 1960s through last year. The Asaros, both identified as captains in the Bonanno organized crime family, pleaded not guilty through their attorneys and were ordered held without bail at a brief appearance in federal court in Brooklyn.

 The elder Asaro's attorney, Gerald McMahon, told reporters outside court that his client was framed by shady turncoat gangsters, including former Bonanno boss Joseph Massino - the highest-ranking member of the city's five organized crime families to break the mob's vow of silence. According to court papers, an unidentified mob associate who pleaded guilty and became a cooperating witness told investigators that he participated in the robbery at the direction of Asaro. The famous robbery was hatched by James "Jimmy the Gent" Burke, a late Lucchese crime family associate who was close to Asaro, who told the bandits that he had a "score" that would make them rich, the papers say. 

The papers say the cooperator wore a wire and recorded a conversation he had with Asaro in 2011 in which the pair discussed being slighted. 

"We never got our right money, what we were supposed to get," Asaro said, according to the court papers. "Jimmy Burke kept everything."

 In addition to the heist, the elder Asaro was charged in the 1969 murder of Paul Katz, whose remains were found last year during an FBI dig at a house once occupied by Burke.

Read the Full Inditment HERE

Dwayne "Diamond K" Williams is a writer, director and media personality. He is the author of, You Are Not The Father - Life and Times Of A Childless Parent (www.YouAreNotTheFatherBook.com).  The book chronicles the heartbreaking DNA test that revealed he was not the biological father of the 7 year old son he was raising.