Goodfellas: The REAL Jimmy Conway/Burke

charismatic ruthless paranoid generous and bloodthirsty these are just some of the words that have been used to describe Jimmy Burke a man who would go down in history as one of New York City's most infamous figures immortalized in the 1990 film Goodfellas where he was portrayed by actor Robert De Niro Jimmy was a complicated man and at times seemed like an enigma to his criminal Associates he was known for his Charming Persona that he often used to mask his violent nature as described by an associate at the time Jimmy could look at you and smile and you'd think you were sitting with your best friend in the world meanwhile he's already got your grave Doug no one knew where they stood with him just that if you crossed or displeased him in any way he wouldn't hesitate to take you out no matter what your relationship with him had been Jimmy at one point even ordered the murder of his own best friend who had provided him with an all-expenses paid trip to Florida earlier that week now while Goodfellas is regarded by many mob historians as largely accurate much of Jimmy's life didn't make the final cut and so today we'll take a deep dive into the rise and fall of Jimmy Burke Jimmy was born with the name James Conway on July 5th 1931 in the Bronx in New York City he never knew who either of his parents were as his mother was an Irish prostitute named Jane Conway who had no idea who the real father was at the age of two Jimmy's mother abandoned him outside the New York foundling home a Catholic orphanage for young boys and for the next 11 years he was in and out of dozens of foster homes where he was regularly the subject of both physical and sexual abuse by his foster parents according to psychiatric social workers who had interviewed a young Jimmy by the age of 12 he had been adopted by so many different sets of foster parents that he had trouble recollecting many of their names or faces at the age of 13 Jimmy and his newest set of foster parents were driving back home when Jimmy began acting out in the back seat his foster father a strict disciplinarian with a furious temper turned around to smack him this caused him to take his eyes off the road and the car then suddenly went out of control and crashed Jimmy's Foster father was killed instantly which earned him the ire of his foster mother who blamed him for the crash and began to beat him regularly Jimmy petitioned the Child Care Agency to move him to a new house but for years they refused due to how many times he had already been moved in the past with no other options Jimmy started spending large amounts of time away from home and on the streets where he would commit numerous Petty crimes such as shoplifting theft vandalism and breaking and entering two months after the car crash Jimmy was arrested for the first time and charged with disorderly conduct at a local playground the charge was eventually dismissed but just one year later he was charged with burglary after he broke in and stole more than twelve hundred dollars from a house near his foster home he was sentenced to six months in a juvenile detention facility on Staten Island this would be the first of many times where the young Jimmy would find himself incarcerated by the state as between the ages of 16 and 22 he would only enjoy 86 days outside of prison eventually Jimmy was placed in a new foster home and moved into the Suburban home of the Burke family in Queens New York for the first time in his life Jimmy had a stable household in parents who loved him and treated him with respect he felt so strongly attached to his new foster parents that he took their last name as his own and would also visit them every Mother's Day and Father's day for the rest of his life but even though he now found himself in a loving household Jimmy still continued his criminal activities and at the age of 17 he became best friends with a local gangster and associate with the gambino crime family named Dominic cersani Dominic and Jimmy were involved in numerous money-making schemes such as gambling and Loan sharking but their main business was creating and caching fraudulent checks in September 1949 Jimmy was arrested after he tried to cash in three thousand dollars worth of fake checks in a queen's Bank the police knew that Dominic was behind the scheme and so they took Jimmy to the 75th Precinct in Brooklyn and handcuffed his hands behind his back detectives then took turns punching him in the stomach and bashing him in the head with their night sticks in an effort to get him to turn against Dominic and agree to testify in court instead of giving in Jimmy kept his mouth shut and endured the beating this led prosecutors to put sole responsibility for the fake checks on Jimmy which earned him five years in Auburn Maximum Security Prison Jimmy was 18 at the time and so this would be his first experience serving time in an adult prison on the first day of his sentence Jimmy was greeted by over a dozen of the prison's toughest inmates who had been waiting for him in the reception area one of the men told him that they were all friends of Dominic and that they along with some very powerful people on the outside were all very proud of him for not talking to the police they also said that if he had any problems while inside that he should come see them while in custody Jimmy began associating with the various mafia members he was incarcerated with and due to his charm he was able to form strong friendships with many of them that would later help serve his criminal career after prison it has also been rumored that while he was in Auburn Jimmy committed numerous murders at the behest of several high-up Mafia figures whom he had been serving his time with in 1954 he was released and his foster dad got him a union job as a bricklayer the tough manual labor soon transformed Jimmy from a skinny kid into a muscular man who's six three 250-pound frame casted an intimidating presence it wasn't long before he was noticed by one of the Union's underworld benefactors a capo with the lucasi crime family named Paul vario who had heard from Dominic that Jimmy was a hard worker and a good earner who most importantly knew how to keep his mouth shut Paulie put him to work as a loan shark and debt collector and it wasn't long before the charismatic Jimmy was able to convince Paulie to let him open up his own gambling operation in the Ozone Park neighborhood of Queens Jimmy soon developed a fierce reputation after he personally broke every bone in the face of a man who refused to pay his gambling debts this allowed him to quickly expand his operations and before long he was one of Paulie's best earners which garnered him a lot of friends and influence within the New York underworld but it didn't matter how much money he kicked back to the higher ups because of his Irish ancestry he would never be able to become a fully initiated member of the mafia also known as a maid man because only full-blooded Italians who can trace their lineage all the way back to the old country are eligible for such an honor but it didn't matter to Jimmy who soon became known as one of New York's most feared and dangerous men this reputation was solidified in 1962 when he met a girl named Michelle morong the two started dating and Michelle soon confided in him that she was being harassed by an ex-boyfriend who would routinely Circle her house in his car yell at her on the street and harass her on the phone at all hours of the day Jimmy visited the man and told him to stop which led to the ex-boyfriend scoffing and telling Jimmy to get lost and so he calmly left but then returned a couple of days later with a chainsaw and cut the Man Apart piece by piece the police discovered the man's remains on the day of Jimmy and Michelle's wedding they knew without a doubt that the crime was Jimmy's doing but had no evidence against him and so instead they kept a close watch on him as they now considered him to be one of the most dangerous criminals in the city while Jimmy's gambling operation in Ozone Park was proving to be highly profitable he soon realized that its close proximity to the airport could provide him with far more lucrative opportunities many of the people who had run up gambling debts with him were also employees at JFK International Airport and so Jimmy would offer them a deal in return for wiping the Slate clean the employee would alert him whenever a truck with valuable Goods was leaving the airport then Jimmy and his crew which included Tommy disamon in Henry Hill would hijack it and steal the cargo Jimmy would then take the trucker's driver's license and tell the man we know who you are and where you live he'd then slip a hundred dollar bill in the trucker's wallet a practice which earned him the nickname Jimmy the Gent at this time almost half a billion dollars of cargo was being transported through JFK Airport every year and so about every criminal group in New York was in some way involved with stealing from the airport but in this Jimmy was the Undisputed King as his carrot and stick approach of threatening the drivers while simultaneously bribing them sent the message that if you helped out and provided tips on any valuable Goods that Jimmy would make it worth your while this helped him create a complex web of insiders within all levels of the airport who kept him informed of where and when the best loot was coming in but Jimmy also extensively used fear to keep his collaborators in line as employees who alerted the authorities were routinely murdered and left within the trunks of cars parked in the airport's long-term parking area as a warning to any other would-be do-gooder Airline workers who went to the police never stood a chance as Jimmy had tons of corrupt cops and prosecutors on his payroll who informed him immediately whenever an employee was talking to the law but other times if a union boss or shipping Foreman got wise to the fact that some of his drivers were tipping off the hijackers and then tried to fire them Jimmy would go talk to Paulie who would then talk to Johnny Dio the man who ran the unions for the Lucchesi family the union would then file a grievance and threaten a strike if anyone was fired and so the collaborators always got to keep their jobs Jimmy was making money for the mob by the truckload he was generating so much cash with his hijackings that in an unprecedented move the lucasi family and the Colombo family had a sit down and eventually agreed to share his Services the fact that two Italian crime families negotiated so they could both share the services of an Irishman only added to Jimmy's Fame and status as one of the most powerful criminals in the country in January 1967 Henry Hill was at the Air France terminal selling smuggled cigarettes to the workers while there he met with Bobby McMahon the cargo Foreman who had been working with Air France for so long that he was commonly known by the nickname Frenchy Bobby was one of Henry's best cigarette customers and also one of Jimmy's best insiders just a couple of weeks earlier Bobby had tipped off Jimmy about a small box of valuable silk dresses that had just come in once he had stolen them he was able to sell them for over eighteen thousand dollars now Bobby had another tip he was eager to share with Henry he told him that Air France routinely flew in American cash that had been exchanged for French money overseas and that it usually came in several white canvas bags each containing sixty thousand dollars as at the moment they were constructing a new cement storage room the bags of money were for now being stored in the cargo office without any protection the money was in fifty and one hundred dollar denominations and would be completely untraceable it was the Perfect Score Henry immediately told Jimmy who assembled a team and planned for the robbery that weekend Henry Tommy and two more of Jimmy's men drove to the Air France terminal in rental cars with fake license plates they were all armed with pistols and the plan was to rush the Cargo Office tie up anyone inside then take the money and Escape when the four arrived they immediately realized that this plan wouldn't work as there were over 30 employees in and around the cargo office there were also many more nearby unloading trucks the packages of money were visible and stacked up against the wall in the office just like Bobby said but unfortunately they didn't have the manpower to round up everyone and so they left that night empty-handed the next day Henry told Bobby that they needed another way but Bobby explained that would be difficult because he never knew exactly when the money was coming in or how long it'd be there for over the subsequent weeks every time Henry traveled to the Air France terminal he saw the cement storage room come closer and closer to completion until finally one day it was finished the only key to the room was held by a security guard from a private agency and the man kept it with him at all times if Bobby or any of the other Air France employees needed to access the storage room he'd go there with them to unlock the door never letting the key out of his possession they could just stick the guy up but the problem with that was they had no way of knowing if the money would be there eventually the conspirators agreed that the only solution was to somehow get the key from the guard make a copy of it and then return it before he ever noticed it was missing they had Bobby friend the guard and take him out for drinks at a local bar while he was gone Henry and Tommy broke into his apartment they tore the place apart but couldn't find the key anywhere which led them to the realization that the guard took his job so seriously that he kept the key in his possession at all times even on the weekend Jimmy was getting impatient he knew he had a massive payday coming and all that stood in his way was one over zealous security guard he brought up the idea that next time Bobby told them the money was in the storage room they kidnapped the security guard steal the money and then Whack Him afterwards Jimmy was leaning towards this course of action until he heard Henry mention that when he and Tommy broke into the guy's apartment they noticed a bunch of nudie mags strung all over the floor at that moment Jimmy came up with an ingenious plan a couple of days later Bobby met with the security guard and told him that he had a surprise for him the two went to the Jade East motel near JFK and there waiting in one of the rooms was a Natalie Wood lookalike prostitute Bobby then made an excuse that he had to return to work and then left the two alone following Jimmy's instructions the girl suggested that the two go downstairs to the private hot tub so they could get better acquainted she also made sure the door would be left unlocked the security guard eagerly undressed and the two then put on bathrobes and left a couple minutes later Henry went into the room and started shifting through the security guard's pants he grabbed his key ring and then ran out of the motel and into Jimmy's waiting car the two then raced to a local locksmith because the guard had an entire key ring consisting of 18 keys and they weren't sure which key was the one they wanted they had the locksmith make duplicates of all 18. when it was done Henry then hurried back to the motel and put the key ring back exactly where he found it the guard never suspected a thing a couple of days later Bobby called and said that the money was in the safe room and the coast was clear with the storage room key in hand the hard part of the heist was over Henry and Tommy then walked into the Air France cargo terminal used the key to enter the room and then simply walked out with four hundred and eighty thousand dollars in cash and over three hundred thousand dollars in jewelry before Jimmy could pay himself he first had to kick up one hundred thousand dollars to his Capo Paul vario also since JFK Airport was considered the joint territory of both the lucchesis and the colombos he also had to send one hundred thousand to Sebastiano Buster alloy the Capo who ran the airport for the colombos Jimmy's cut of the robbery was sixty thousand and with it he purchased a bar near JFK named Robert's Lounge which would eventually become a popular mob hangout as well as a graveyard where many of Jimmy's enemies would find themselves buried in the basement at this time Jimmy's hijacking crew continued to hit trucks leaving the airport and since they were regularly acting on Insider information they were always successful but that didn't mean hijacking was Jimmy's only Revenue stream as he was making almost as much money from selling smuggled cigarettes in New York cigarettes were almost triple the price that they were in the South due to taxes so Jimmy had masterminded an extensive smuggling operation and had dozens of trucks driving back and forth from North Carolina to New York the trucks were filled to the brim with cigarette cartons bought in North Carolina and then sold in New York City for an immense profit to help out in this Jimmy enlisted his old friend Dominic cersani Jimmy and Dominic had stayed close friends this whole time and they even frequently went on vacation together with their wives but that didn't matter when one night Dominic was pulled over by the cops while he was driving a truck filled with illegal cigarettes back in 1949 Jimmy had kept his mouth shut while being interrogated by the police in order to not implicate Dominic but he didn't return the favor and told the cops everything he knew about Jimmy's cigarette smuggling business including information about an incoming shipment but Jimmy wasn't caught off guard as spy he had in the Brooklyn District Attorney's Office tipped him off to what had happened a couple of days later the cops pulled over the truck only to discover it was completely empty Dominic who had no idea that he had been found out gave Jimmy and his wife tickets for an all-expenses paid trip to Florida but before he could go Jimmy told him that he wanted to take him for a drive when Dominic got in the car he was strangled with piano wire by Tommy DeSimone who had been hiding in the back seat Jimmy and Tommy then took Dominic's body back to Robert's lounge and buried him in the basement Tommy was Jimmy's most notorious enforcer a man known all throughout the New York underworld is hyper violent and completely unpredictable Jimmy liked having him around because of that even if sometimes he went a little too far like one time when an uncooperative union representative was giving Jimmy trouble he sent Tommy to the man's house with strict orders to just rough him up but as soon as Tommy saw the man he attacked and beat him so savagely he didn't survive Jimmy yelled when he heard the news but he didn't punish Tommy for not following orders as he understood how powerful a weapon fear can be and from that moment on the unions never gave him any more trouble Tommy was out of control and is increasingly unstable Behavior made it easy for Jimmy to manipulate him which he would soon do to help solve a major problem in July 1970 William bent Vena commonly known as Billy Batts was released from prison after serving eight years for selling drugs to an undercover cop while Billy was gone Jimmy had taken over his lucrative loan sharking business which he now wanted back and Jimmy had no intention of letting that happen the problem though was that Billy was a made man and no matter how much money Jimmy earned for the mob he would never have that honor if he wanted to keep the loan sharking business he needed to think of a way to get rid of Billy a solution came during a party at Robert's Lounge that was thrown to celebrate Billy getting out of prison well into the night a drunk Billy began making fun of Tommy by telling him to go home and get a shine box a reference to the fact that when he was younger Tommy had been the shoe shine boy for all of the older Mobsters like Billy this enraged Tommy and over the next several weeks after the party Jimmy encouraged this anger behind closed doors for a more detailed look at the death of Billy Batts and its subsequent aftermath please watch my video on Tommy DeSimone but suffice it to say Tommy would eventually murder Billy allowing Jimmy to keep the loan sharking business Jimmy was on top of the world but things wouldn't stay golden for long as a year after the bat's murder Tommy found himself in prison for truck hijacking not long after both Jimmy and Henry were sent to prison as well for beating up a Florida bookie who unfortunately for them had a sister who worked as a typist for the FBI both men were sentenced to 10 years in federal prison with Jimmy Henry and Tommy all locked up the airport hijacking crew ceased to operate causing Jimmy's main source of income to dry up which wasn't good for the man whom Henry would later describe as quote a degenerate Gambler the kind of guy who'd bet on two cockroaches racing on the floor while Jimmy was in prison his gambling debts piled up as he was no longer able to pay the interest on them by the time that both he and Henry were released from prison on parole in July 1978 he was in need of some Fast Cash luckily for him though while Henry was serving his sentence in Louisburg penitentiary in Pennsylvania he befriended a Philly mobster named Paul Mase who wanted Henry and Jimmy in on an unorthodox scam he was trying to pull the scheme involved betting on college basketball two members of the Boston College Eagles men's basketball team had agreed that in games where they were favored to win they would make sure that the margin of victory was smaller than the bookmaker's odds Henry and Jimmy would then bet against the spread being covered and they placed small bets with bookies all across the country so as to not arouse suspicion to help out with this Henry brought in a bookie friend of his named Marty Krugman in return for their help the players were paid 2500 a game meanwhile Jimmy and his crew made well over a million dollars during the season but a far more lucrative scheme was about to fall right into Jimmy's lap the bookie Marty Krugman had a client who was a shipping supervisor at the cargo terminal for the German airline Lufthansa at JFK International the man was named Lewis Werner and over the last 11 years he had been trying to support an estranged wife his girlfriend alone shark and a 400 a day gambling habit all on his fifteen thousand dollar annual salary he owed Marty 20 000 but instead of demanding his money back Marty strung him along and allowed his gambling debt to get larger and larger in the hope that maybe one day he'd provide a lucrative tip about something coming in at the airport that paid off when in late 1978 Werner told him about the heist of a lifetime like Air France Lufthansa also flew in large amounts of untraceable American currency that had been exchanged overseas the money was kept in a vault but Werner claimed that at 3am every night the entire night shift went on break and all ate their lunch together in the employee lounge he claimed it'd be easy for a small group of armed men to subdue all of the employees and break into the Vault to steal the money Marty brought the tip to Henry who then brought it to Jimmy who began preparing for what would turn out to be the heist of the century he assembled a team of his most skilled hijackers and began extensive planning as he knew that if they failed it likely meant a long stay in federal prison Tommy and Bobby McMahon would lead the gunman inside while Parnell Stacks Edwards would dispose of the getaway vehicles Jimmy's oldest son Frank would drive a decoy car to fool any pursuing cops in total six men would carry out the actual robbery and Jimmy made sure that every man knew his role and had them train extensively and run drills in the basement of Robert's Lounge on December 11 1978 a black Ford van quietly pulled up outside the Lufthansa cargo terminal at JFK after using bolt cutters to cut off the padlock on the gate four masked gunmen quietly crept into the terminal they immediately went to the lunchroom and on the way they ran into an employee who was heading to the same place they took the man hostage at gunpoint and resumed their Journey inside the lunchroom were five other Lufthansa employees who were all tied up in order to lay on the ground they took the supervisor and demanded he tell them if there was anyone else in the warehouse he said that two other employees were unaccounted for one was downstairs and so the manager was forced to call him to the lunchroom when he arrived he was jumped by the gunman and tied up with the rest the last employee was outside the terminal and noticed a strange black van parked just outside the fence with its lights off when he approached the van he was quickly grabbed and Pistol whipped by the two gunmen waiting inside he was then tied up and brought to the lunchroom with the rest of the hostages with all of the employees accounted for the gunman then took the manager and ordered him to open the vault and inside they saw 72 boxes filled with money just like Werner had said the men in the van then drove it around to the unloading Dock and then all of the gunmen formed a line between the Vault and the van and began loading the boxes of money it took them over 30 minutes to get all of the boxes into the van then they made their escape in total it took a little under an hour and a half to complete the robbery they left the airport and drove to a Brooklyn safe house where they met Jimmy the money was then removed from the van and placed in the trunks of two cars he had waiting there with the money loaded the two cars then drove off while Jimmy had initially believed that the hall would be 2 million dollars when all of the money was counted he discovered that it was actually over 5 million in addition to 800 000 in jewelry Jimmy and his crew had orchestrated the largest cash robbery in U.S history this should have been their crowning achievement but instead it was the beginning of the end due to Jimmy's reputation of being the best airport robber in the city the police and FBI instantly suspected him and his crew their suspicions were confirmed just two days later when they discovered the getaway van Stax Edwards was supposed to drive it to a New Jersey junkyard after the heist but instead he got high and left it parked in front of a fire hydrant outside his girlfriend's house the police impounded the van and soon discovered stax's fingerprints all over it the employees who had been taken hostage identified the van as the same one they had seen on the night of the robbery since Stacks was a known associate of Jimmy and his crew the police hoped that if they could find him he'd agree to testify in court but Tommy found him first and on orders from Jimmy he shot Stacks six times in the back of the head but the damage was done and the FBI now identified Jimmy and his men as the most likely perpetrators and so they put the entire Roberts Lounge crew under heavy surveillance following them in helicopters and unmarked cars wherever they went and bugging all of their phones including all of the phones inside Robert's lounge and all of the nearby pay phones on the street Jimmy knew that they were being watched and became more and more paranoid that just like Stacks other members of his crew might screw up and inadvertently lead the police straight to him as his paranoia increased he was also being continuously harassed by Marty Krugman who wanted his money every day after the heist Marty would track down Jimmy and nervously demand the five hundred thousand dollars he believed he was owed for bringing them the tip Jimmy was convinced that he was going to talk to the FBI and so on January 6 Marty disappeared to this day his body has not been found with the heat increasing Jimmy decided to get rid of some of his cash and bought five hundred thousand dollars of cocaine from a Florida dealer named Richard Eaton when the coke was delivered Jimmy discovered it was fake not long after Richard and his business partner Tom Monteleone were discovered hanging in the back of a meat freezer truck they had both been tortured to death with the drug business settled Jimmy went back to tying up Loose Ends due to his paranoia he was convinced that he needed to get rid of absolutely anyone who could tie him to the heist Louis cofora a money laundering expert whom Jimmy had befriended while in prison was the next to go within just weeks of the heist Louis had purchased his wife a custom-made pink Cadillac which he would drive near the areas where the FBI was still investigating both Louis and His Wife disappeared in March 1979 and much like Marty Krugman neither of their bodies have ever been found in May Joe manri and Bobby McMahon two night shift supervisors at JFK who had helped Jimmy plan the Air France robbery a decade ago and also provided useful information on the Lufthansa Heist were both found dead in the front seat of a parked car they had both been shot in the back of the head the following month Gambino family associate Paulo lacastri whose job was to oversee the robbery plans and to ensure that the gambinos received their agreed upon two hundred thousand dollar cut was found dead his naked and bullet riddled corpse was discovered on a burning trash Heap Jimmy's next Target was Louis Werner but the police got to him before Jimmy could Werner was charged for his part in the robbery and eventually agreed to help the police take down Jimmy but this would go nowhere as by that point Jimmy had killed everyone who could possibly link him to Werner in the end Werner would end up being the only person ever charged over the heist while Jimmy was lying low Henry was arrested on April 27 1980 and charged with drug trafficking he had been operating a drug smuggling business and one of his dealers had ratted him out when Henry made bail Jimmy told him that they needed to meet urgently the two met in a busy restaurant where Jimmy slid him a matchbook with a Florida address Jimmy said to meet him there as he had a lucrative business opportunity he wanted his help in but Henry believed that Jimmy was in fact setting him up to be murdered facing 20 to life in federal prison Henry agreed to become an informant and entered the witness protection program in exchange for complete immunity Henry cooperated with the FBI and the NYPD and provided them with countless hours of taped confessions and detailed everything he knew about Jimmy Paul vario and the entire Lucchesi family now while Henry wasn't involved in the Lufthansa Heist he was involved in the college basketball betting scam which was a federal crime he also had knowledge of the Richard murder which was enough for Jimmy to be sentenced to 45 years in prison while serving his sentence in Wendy Correctional Facility in Alden New York Jimmy developed lung cancer and died on April 13 1996. he was 64. and that was the story of Jimmy Burke if you enjoyed it please like And subscribe thanks and I'll see you next time

Channel: Crime Time Stories

Views: 1,489,230

Keywords: goodfellas, godfellas, goodfelas, robert de niro, joe pesic, joe pesci, jimmy burke, jimmy conway, new york, mob, mafia, organized crime, lucchese family, five families, crime, gang, gangster

Id: 0mKwxllDUYY

Length: 28min 1sec (1681 seconds)

Published: Sat Aug 12 2023