NEW YORK — An aging mobster who stayed mostly in the shadows for decades by adhering to the Mafia’s strict code of silence was acquitted Thursday of charges he helped plan a legendary 1978 Lufthansa heist retold in the hit film “Goodfellas.”
A federal jury reached the surprising verdict at a Brooklyn racketeering trial where it heard testimony that portrayed Vincent Asaro, 80, as a throwback to an era when New York’s five organized crime families comprised a secret society that committed brazen crimes and settled scores with bloodshed.
Asaro jumped up, pumped his fist and clapped after the verdict. When he walked out of the courthouse, he threw his hands up in the air and hollered: “Free!”
“I was shocked, I was really shocked,” Asaro said outside. “I’ve got two years in, and I’m dying to get home.”
It was a stunning defeat for the federal government in a courthouse where prosecutors over the years have won convictions of major mob figures like Gambino family head John Gotti and Genovese crime boss Vincent “Chin” Gigante. The U.S. attorney’s office declined to comment after the verdict.
Asaro, whose father and grandfather were members of the secretive Bonanno crime family, “was born into that life and he fully embraced it,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Alicyn Cooley said in closing arguments. His devotion to the Bonannos “was as permanent as the ‘death before dishonor’ tattoo on his arm,” she added.
Asaro said he believed jurors found him not guilty because the prosecution’s case was “overkill.”
The defense accused prosecutors of relying on shady paid cooperators, including Asaro’s cousin Gaspare Valenti. They argued that the witnesses had incentive to frame Asaro to escape lengthy prison terms of their own.
“These are despicable people,” defense lawyer Elizabeth Macedonio said in her closing. “They are accomplished liars.”
At trial, prosecutors described how Asaro rose through the ranks and developed an “unbreakable bond” with the more notorious James “Jimmy the Gent” Burke, the late Lucchese crime family associate who orchestrated the holdup at the Lufthansa cargo terminal at Kennedy Airport.
