NEW YORK — A prosecutor called the $6 million Lufthansa terminal heist in 1978 the “score of scores” as the racketeering trial of alleged career mobster Vincent Asaro, the first person ever charged in the notorious “Goodfellas” robbery, began in federal court in Brooklyn on Monday.
Prosecutor Lindsay Gerdes told jurors that Asaro helped plan the heist at Kennedy Airport, waited in a “crash car” with plot mastermind Jimmy Burke — the Robert De Niro character in the movie — while a crew carried it out, and received a $500,000 share.
“The defendant is a gangster through and through,” she said in her opening arguments, explaining that his grandfather, father and son all were wiseguys. “He lived and breathed the Mafia. … What mattered to this defendant was money and power.”
The Lufthansa heist is just one in a series of crimes ranging from murder to loan-sharking that prosecutors have alleged that Asaro, 80, of Howard Beach, committed in his rise from a Bonanno family associate and “tough guy” to soldier and captain.
But a defense lawyer told jurors that Asaro was entitled to the presumption of innocence, and that the government’s case was based on testimony from turncoat witnesses who have gotten $2 million in support from the FBI and who aren’t believable.
Diane Ferrone had especially sharp words for star informant Gaspare Valenti, Asaro’s cousin, who wore a wire for years. “He’s no star,” Ferrone said. “He’s more a black hole.”
The government’s first witness on Monday was Sal Vitale, a former Bonanno family underboss who admitted participation in 11 murders before becoming an informant. He said he drove Bonanno boss Joe Massino to a meeting where Asaro handed him a case filled with gold chains.
When Massino returned to the car, Vitale testified, he said, “This is from the Lufthansa score.”
Vitale said Massino, who himself eventually became an informant and is expected to testify, later spread the loot out at his house, covering his dining room table.
“He gave me one chain,” Vitale said sarcastically. “He was always a big spender.”
Vitale said he first met Asaro in 1975, when he needed a fence built at his house and Massino recommended that he hire Asaro.
“He put the fence up,” Vitale testified, as Asaro, whose lawyers twice asked the judge to make sure had a clear sight line to the witness box, stared at his old associate from the defense table. “The fence is still up. He did an outstanding job.”
