Vincent Asaro, a member of the Bonanno crime family who was acquitted on charges tied to the JFK airport heist featured in Goodfellas, was sentenced to eight years in prison on Thursday for a 2012 road rage incident.
According to the New York Times, the 82-year-old mobster escaped punishment for a number of crimes he was allegedly involved in dating back to the 1960s. In 2015, Asaro wound up in court on racketeering and theft charges for allegedly taking a direct cut from the $6 million stolen from JFK in the 1978 Lufthansa heist—the same job that inspired Martin Scorsese's 1990 film. He was also charged with murdering a man in 1969 who was thought to be an informant and burying the body at the home of mobster James "Jimmy the Gent" Burke, but was acquitted of both crimes.
But it was a 2012 road rage incident that ultimately landed the mobster with prison time. On Thursday, the same judge that presided over the Lufthansa heist trial sentenced Asaro to eight years in prison after he pled guilty to ordering his underlings to set fire to a car that had cut him off at a traffic light in Queens.
According to the Times, prosecutors said someone with access to a law enforcement database gave Asaro the driver's address after the mobster provided the car's license plate number. The next day, prosecutors said the grandson of former Gambino crime boss John Gotti, John J. Gotti, and another man went to the house, poured gasoline on the car, and set it ablaze.
"It was a stupid thing I did and I'm terribly sorry," Asaro said Thursday. "I was on my way home—it happened. It just got out of hand."
Judge Allyne Ross, who said Thursday she remained "firmly convinced" Asaro was guilty of the 2015 charges, handed down the lengthy prison term and said the crime showed that even in his old age, Asaro had a "desire to carry out revenge."
At 82, Asaro may very well spend the rest of his life behind bars after spending years connected to real-life crime drama that will remain immortalized on the screen.
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