A reputed mob captain with Howard Beach roots will be spending the next 21 months in a federal jail cell for his role as a loan shark, prosecutors announced.
Jack Bonventre, 46, was sentenced Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Brooklyn after previously pleading guilty to a charge of collection of unlawful debt conspiracy. He was also ordered to serve three years’ probation and pay a $40,000 fine.
Bonventre and several other associates in the Bonanno crime family were arrested in January 2014 on an indictment charging them variously with crimes including murder, conspiracy to commit murder, racketeering, loansharking and illegal gambling.
The FBI identified Bonventre as an acting Bonanno captain under Vincent Asaro, who was identified in the indictment as a conspirator in the infamous 1978 heist at John F. Kennedy Airport’s Lufthansa cargo terminal. More than $6 million in untraceable American currency shipped in from West Germany was stolen in the caper, which was largely unsolved for 35 years.
According to a Daily News report, Bonventre claimed he left organized crime years ago and had declined Asaro’s offer to be promoted as consigliere (adviser). He had spent a year under house arrest prior to Wednesday’s sentencing.
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