Quantcast

Howard Beach mobster robbed Lufthansa: FBI

Howard Beach mobster robbed Lufthansa: FBI
AP Photo/Elizabeth Williams
By Sarina Trangle

There is no statute of limitations on the notorious theft of $5 million in cash and $1 million in gold jewelry swiped at gunpoint from the Lufthansa Terminal in 1978.

More than 35 years later, a grand jury handed up an indictment charging a 78-year-old Bonnano crime family boss from Howard Beach with helping to plan and commit the largest robbery in state history. Few of the other charges in Vincent Asaro’s 26-page indictment, such as his tie to the skull and corduroy buried beneath an Ozone Park House and the torching of a Rockaway Boulevard nightclub, garnered much attention.

Vincent Asaro, 78, pleaded not guilty to racketeering charges, including extortion, murder, robbery, arson and bookmaking, when arraigned Jan. 23 at the federal courthouse in Brooklyn.

George Venizelos, assistant director in charge of the FBI New York Field Office, highlighted Asaro’s role in planning and executing the armed robbery of the Lufthansa Terminal in John F. Kennedy International Airport when announcing the arrest of Asaro and four other Bonanno members, who are not charged in the heist made famous by the “Goodfellas” movie.

“Asaro himself was in on one of the most notorious heists: the Lufthansa robbery in 1978. It may be decades later, but the FBI’s determination to investigate and bring wiseguys to justice will never waver,” Venizelos said in a statement.

A criminal indictment claims that Asaro, the late Lucchese crime family associate James “Jimmy the Gent” Burke and others involved in the largest robbery in state history were expected to receive $750,000 apiece plus jewelry. Prosecutors said Burke did not share the proceeds. He is reported to have murdered many heist associates for fear that they would implicate him.

“We never got our right money,” Asaro said, according to an conversation recorded by the FBI in 2011. “Jimmy [Burke] kept everything.”

Prosecutors said they have four witnesses tying Asaro, a Bonanno administrator and captain, to the Lufthansa theft.

Asaro’s attorney, Gerald McMahon, disputed the reliability of one anticipated witness, former Bonanno boss Joseph Massino, calling him “one of the worst witnesses I’ve ever seen.”

McMahon questioned why agents were after an elderly man who recently underwent triple bypass surgery. He said Asaro would not plead guilty to any charges and described the defense strategy as “pure, actual innocence.”

Prosecutors claim Asaro’s criminal career began decades ago.

In 1969, agents said Asaro and Burke used a dog chain to strangle Paul Katz, who they believed was cooperating with authorities because police raided a Richmond Hill warehouse Katz owned that was used to store mob scores. They then buried his body in the basement of a vacant home, according to court documents.

When alerted to a police investigation into Katz’s disappearance in the mid-1980s, agents said Asaro instructed his son, Jerome Asaro, 55, and a colleague to move his body.

The FBI said it dug up Katz’s remains from the basement of an Ozone Park home this past summer and used DNA testing to confirm Katz’s identity.

Prosecutors contend the father and son worked together frequently.

In the early ’80s, the father instructed his son to burn down Afters, an Ozone Park nightclub, because a neighborhood restaurant owner was upset the venue’s new owners planned to cater to blacks, according to court documents.

Prosecutors said the younger Asaro and a partner poured gasoline throughout the club, which was given its name because Bonanno members began patronizing it after Lufthansa, and then threw a lit rubber ball through its window.

The Asaros unsuccessfully solicited the murder of a cousin in the ’80s, according to the FBI. Agents said the father and son considered their relative a “rat” because he testified against another family member in a fraud trial.

But agents said the Asaros’ relationship was contentious, particularly after the father was demoted for robbing those below him and began reporting to his son.

“Jerry’s for Jerry,” Asaro said, according to an FBI recording. “I lost my son when I made him as acting skipper.”

An attorney for Jerome Asaro declined to comment after his client pleaded not guilty Jan. 23.

A grand jury charged three other Bonanno made men with using extortion to collect an extension of credit — John Ragano, 52; Jack Bonventre, 45; and Thomas Di Fiore, 70 — who authorities consider to be the most powerful member of the family not behind bars.

All three pleaded not guilty.

Their attorneys declined to comment or did not return calls for comment.

Reach reporter Sarina Trangle at 718-260-4546 or by e-mail at strangle@cnglocal.com.