Highlighted Crime
Story of the Week -
On June 11, 1943, mobster Henry Hill, whose life of crime
was chronicled in the 1986 book Wiseguy:
Life in a Mafia Family and the 1990 film Goodfellas, was born in New York City. Hill’s underworld exploits
included participating in the headline-making multi-million dollar heist at the
Lufthansa cargo terminal at New York City’s JFK International Airport in 1978.
It was the largest recorded cash robbery in American history at the time.
Hill, the son of an Italian-American mother and
Irish-American electrician father, was attracted from a young age to the flashy
lifestyles of the local mobsters in his Brooklyn neighborhood. In the mid-1950s
he started working as an errand boy for a mob-operated taxi stand and pizzeria
near his home. At age 17 Hill enlisted in the Army and was stationed at Fort
Bragg, North Carolina. He continued his involvement in small-time criminal
activities while in the military and was discharged after several years.
Back in New York, Hill, as an associate of the Lucchese
organized crime family, participated in a host of illegal pursuits, including
truck hijackings, loan sharking and drug dealing. In the 1970s he spent more
than four years in prison for an extortion conviction. When he got out, Hill
took part in the theft of $5.8 million in cash and jewels from the Lufthansa
cargo terminal at Kennedy Airport. Also in the late 1970s, Hill orchestrated a
scheme in which members of the Boston College men’s basketball team were bribed
to fix games.
In 1980, after being arrested on drug-trafficking
charges, Hill, fearing his associates would kill him out of concern he might
confess to the authorities, decided to make a deal with the government and
become an informant. He went on to testify against a number of his fellow
mobsters and helped put dozens of people behind bars. Along with his wife and
two children, Hill spent time in the federal witness protection program during
the 1980s, but he was eventually kicked out for drug offenses.
While he was in the witness protection program, Hill gave
a series of interviews to journalist Nicholas Pileggi, who went on to write a
bestselling about Hill. The book was adapted into the critically acclaimed film
Goodfellas, directed by Martin
Scorsese. As he grew older, Hill never fully reformed his ways and was arrested
for numerous charges during the last decade of his life. After suffering from
various health issues including heart disease, Hill died at age 69 in a Los
Angeles hospital on June 12, 2012.
Check back every
Monday for a new installment of “This Week in Crime History.”
Michael Thomas Barry is a columnist for www.crimemagazine.com and is the critically acclaimed author
of six nonfiction books that includes Murder
and Mayhem 52 Crimes that Shocked Early California, 1849-1949. Visit
Michael’s website www.michaelthomasbarry.com
for more information. His book can be purchased from Amazon through the
following link:
