Reputed ex-mob captain acquitted in trial over 1978 heist portrayed in 'Goodfellas'
Despite secret recordings of him complaining that he didn’t get his fair share of a record cash heist in 1978 from a cargo terminal of a New York City airport, a federal jury on Thursday found an aging reputed Mafia member not guilty on all charges.
In addition to the $5 million heist from John F. Kennedy International Airport, which was portrayed in the critically acclaimed Goodfellas movie, Vincent Asaro, 80, was also accused in the Brooklyn racketeering case of playing a role in a 1969 murder, extortions and other robberies, reports the New York Times (reg. req.). An earlier New York Times story provides more details about the trial.
As well as the cash, which would be worth close to $20 million in today’s dollars, the perpetrators of the heist also stole $1 million worth of jewels.
At trial decades after the heist, counsel for Asaro argued that former friends and associates who testified against him were doing so to save their own skins. Some surveillance records were 40 years old, but only as a code of silence lost influence were the feds able to get witnesses to testify. Asaro is a third-generation member of New York’s Bonanno crime family, according to the Times, and allegedly once served as a mob captain.
Prosecutors appeared dazed at the defeat when the verdict was announced Thursday, following a trial that lasted nearly a month, reports the New York Daily News.
Asaro smiled, pounded the defense table with his fist and kissed one of his lawyers repeatedly on the lips, according to the CNN and the newspaper.
Hat tip: Associated Press
Related coverage:
ABAJournal.com: “Suspect in JFK airport $5M cash heist portrayed in ‘Goodfellas’ is among 5 indicted by feds”
