Henry Hill

Infobox Person
name = Henry Hill


caption = FBI mugshot of Henry Hill taken in 1980.
birth_date = birth date and age|1943|6|11
birth_place = Brooklyn, New York, U.S.
residence = Malibu, California
nationality = American
known_for = Former Mobster
Aliases =
spouse = Lisa Caserta
Karen Friedman 1965-2002 (filed for divorce in 1990, finalized in 2002)
children = Gregg Hill
Gina Hill
parents = Henry Hill, Sr. (Irish-American)
Carmella Hill (Sicilian-American)

Henry Hill (born June 11, 1943) [cite book | last =Pileggi | first =Nicholas | title =Wiseguy: Life in a Mafia Family | publisher =Simon & Schuster |date=1986 | pages = 13, 28 | isbn = 0671447343 Gives 1943 as year of birth.] is a former American mobster, Lucchese crime family associate, and FBI informant whose life was immortalized in the book "Wiseguy", written by crime reporter Nicholas Pileggi, and the 1990 Martin Scorsese film "Goodfellas", in which Hill was played by Ray Liotta. He was the owner of a restaurant called The Suite. Another film — a Steve Martin comedy titled "My Blue Heaven" — was influenced by Hill's story.

Early life

Henry grew up in a poor working class family in East New York, Brooklyn. His father, Henry Hill, Sr., was an Irish-American electrician, and his mother, Carmella Hill, was an Italian Sicilian-American. Henry and his seven siblings lived in a small house. From an early age he admired the local mafiosi that socialized across the street from his home, which included Paul Vario, a "capo" in the Lucchese crime family. In his early teens, he began running errands at Vario's cabstand, shoe shine stand, and pizzeria.

Hill's first experience in gang life began parking cars and doing other odd jobs for the Lucchese crime family. Henry stopped going to school soon after to pursue a life of a gangster. Hill's first arrest came when he attempted to use a stolen credit card to buy tires at a Texaco gas station. Refusing to say anything to the police, he earned the respect of Lucchese Family associate Jimmy Burke, who saw great potential in young Henry. Hill soon dropped out of high school to devote all his time to working for gangsters. Burke, like Hill, was unable to become a made member of the Mafia due to his Irish ancestry, but the Mafia was happy to have associates of any ethnic background as long as they made money and did not cooperate with the authorities.

In 1960, Hill joined the Army and was stationed at Fort Bragg, near Fayetteville, North Carolina, for three years. He was a member of the 82nd Airborne paratrooper unit there, but maintained contact with Vario and his other friends in New York throughout his enlistment. Hill continued to hustle while in the service, selling extra food, loan sharking salary advances to his fellow soldiers, and selling tax-free cigarettes. Before being discharged, Hill spent two months in a military stockade for brawling and stealing a sheriff's car.

In 1963, he returned to New York, beginning the most notorious phase of his criminal career. Hill, along with Burke and Tommy DeSimone, and others in Burke's Robert's Lounge crew, hijacked trucks, sold stolen goods, imported and sold untaxed cigarettes, engaged in loan sharking and bookmaking, and planned airport robberies, carrying out the Air France Robbery in 1967 and the huge Lufthansa heist in 1978, as well as committing numerous mob-related murders.The Lufthansa score was the largest in history. The Lucchese family did not deal in any drugs due to the lengthy prison sentance that came with the drug traffiking charges.

In 1965, Hill met his wife, Karen. The two first eloped to North Carolina where they had a large wedding, to which most of Hill's gangster friends were invited. After the birth of their two children they rented an apartment in a two-family home in Island Park, New York (1968).

Fallout between Hill, Vario, and Burke

Hill was paroled in 1978 after serving six years of a ten-year prison sentence for extortion. Hill and Burke had severely beaten and pistol-whipped Gaspar Ciacco, a Tampa, Florida gambler who owed union official friends of theirs (Luis and Raul Charbonier) a large gambling debt. Burke was also released on parole around the same time as Hill. He knew about Hill's drug dealing in prison and warned him not to continue with this now that he was out. Vario strongly opposed the trade of drugs in his crew because prison sentences imposed on anyone convicted of drug trafficking were so lengthy that the accused would often become informants in exchange for a lighter sentence. Hill nevertheless started a major interstate drug trafficking operation with Mazzei; the potential to earn large amounts of money was too great to resist.

Hill began wholesaling marijuana, cocaine, heroin, and quaaludes, earning enormous amounts of money. After the murders of several of his friends by Burke, following the Lufthansa Heist, and the disappearance of his close friend Tommy DeSimone, who, Hill believed, had been delivered by Vario into the hands of (and murdered by) the Gambino crime family for killing two "made" members without permission, he became increasingly paranoid.

Hill and Mazzei also set up a point shaving scheme, which was put in place when Mazzei convinced Boston College center Rick Kuhn to participate. Kuhn encouraged teammates to join the scheme, which became a scandal. Hill also claimed to have an NBA referee who worked games at Madison Square Garden during the seventies in his pocket because of the debt the referee had accrued gambling on horse races.cite web |url = http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=philbrick/070727&lpos=spotlight&lid=tab5pos1 |title = Reformed mobster believes Donaghy might not be alone |accessdate = 2007-10-29 |author = Philbrick, Mike |date=2007-08-02 |publisher = ESPN ]

On April 27, 1980, Hill was arrested on a narcotics-trafficking charge, bonded out of jail, and, shortly afterwards, was re-arrested as a material witness in the Lufthansa robbery. He became convinced that his former associates planned to have him killed: Vario, for dealing drugs; and Burke, to prevent Hill from implicating him in the Lufthansa robbery. This was confirmed by a surveillance tape played to Hill by federal investigators, in which Burke tells Vario of their need to have Hill "whacked." Paul Vario received four years for helping Henry Hill obtain a no-show job.

External links

*The Real GoodFella
* [http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/0321051henryhill1.html The Smoking Gun: Goodfella Henry Hill In Drug Bust]
* [http://www.thesmokinggun.com/mugshots/henryhillmug1.html The Smoking Gun: Henry Hill mugshots]

References

Books on Henry Hill

* cite book
last = Hill
first = Henry
coauthors = Priscilla Davis
title = The Wise Guy Cookbook: My Favorite Recipes From My Life as a Goodfella to Cooking on the Run
publisher = NAL Trade
date=2002
isbn = 0451207068
* cite book
last = Hill
first = Henry
coauthors = Bryon Schreckengost
title = A Goodfella's Guide to New York: Your Personal Tour Through the Mob's Notorious Haunts, Hair-Raising Crime Scenes, and Infamous Hot Spots
publisher = Three Rivers Press
date=2003
isbn = 0761515380
* cite book
last =Hill
first =Henry
coauthors = Gus Russo
title =Gangsters and Goodfellas: Wiseguys, Witness Protection, and Life on the Run
publisher =M. Evans and Company, Inc.
date=2004
isbn = 156731757X
*cite book
last = Hill
first = Gregg and Gina
title = On the Run: a Mafia Childhood
publisher = Time Warner Book Group
date = 2004
isbn = 044652770X
* cite book
last =Volkman
first =Ernest
coauthors = John Cummings
title =The Heist: How a Gang Stole $8,000,000 at Kennedy Airport and Lived to Regret It
publisher =Franklin Watts
date=1986
isbn = 0531150240
* cite book
last =Pileggi
first =Nicholas
title =Wiseguy: Life in a Mafia Family
publisher =Simon & Schuster
date=1986
isbn = 0671447343
* cite book
last = Porter
first = David
title = Fixed: How Goodfellas Bought Boston College Basketball
publisher = Taylor Trade Publishing
date=2000
isbn = 0878331921
* cite book
last = Hill
first = Gregg
coauthors = Gina Hill
title = On the Run: A Mafia Childhood
publisher = Warner Books
date=2004
isbn = 044652770X
* cite book
last =Hill
first =Henry
coauthors = Gus Russo
title =Gangsters and Goodfellas: Wiseguys, Witness Protection, and Life on the Run
publisher =M. Evans and Company, Inc.
date=2004
isbn = 156731757X
* cite book
last =English
first =T.J.
title =Paddy Whacked: The Untold Story of the Irish-American Gangster
publisher =William Morrow
date=2005
isbn = 0060590025