James Burke (gangster)

In the book Wiseguy, Henry Hill said that after William "Billy Batts" Bentvena was released from prison in 1970, they threw a "welcome home" party for Bentvena at Robert's Lounge, which was owned by Burke. Hill stated that Bentvena saw Tommy DeSimone and jokingly asked him if he still shined shoes and DeSimone perceived it as an insult. DeSimone leaned over to Hill and Burke and said "I'm gonna kill that fuck."[5] Two weeks later, on June 11, 1970, Bentvena was at The Suite, a nightclub owned by Hill in Jamaica, Queens. Late in the night, with the bar club nearly empty, DeSimone pistol-whipped Bentvena. Hill said that before DeSimone started to beat Bentvena, DeSimone yelled, "Shine these fucking shoes!"[5]

After Bentvena was beaten and presumed killed, DeSimone, Burke, and Hill placed his body in the trunk of Hill's car for transport. They stopped at DeSimone's mother's house to get a shovel and lime. They started to hear sounds from the trunk, and when they realized that Bentvena was still alive, DeSimone and Burke stopped the car and beat him to death with the shovel and a tire iron. Burke had a friend who owned a dog kennel in Upstate New York, and Bentvena was buried there.[5]

About three months after Bentvena's murder, Burke's friend sold the dog kennel to housing developers, and Burke ordered Hill and DeSimone to exhume Bentvena's corpse and dispose of it elsewhere.[5] In Wiseguy, Hill said the body was eventually crushed in a mechanical compactor at a New Jersey junkyard, which was owned by Clyde Brooks. However, on the commentary for the film Goodfellas, he states that Bentvena's body was buried in the basement of Robert's Lounge, a bar and restaurant owned by Burke, and only later was put into the car crusher.

The Lufthansa heist was planned by Burke and carried out by several associates. The plot began when bookmaker Martin Krugman told Burke's associate Henry Hill that Lufthansa flew in currency to its cargo terminal at John F. Kennedy International Airport.[12] The information had originally come from Louis Werner, a worker at the airport who owed Krugman $20,000 for gambling debts (equivalent to $97,000 in 2022) and from his co-worker Peter Gruenwald.[5]

Burke decided on Tommy DeSimone, Angelo Sepe, Louis Cafora, Joe Manri, Paolo LiCastri and Robert McMahon as the robbers.[13] Burke's son Frank would drive one of the backup vehicles and Parnell "Stacks" Edwards's job was to dispose of the van afterwards.[13] Depending on their role in the robbery, each participant was to receive $10,000 to $50,000. However, those amounts were based on the estimated haul, which was only $2 million compared to the actual take of $5.875 million. Werner was to receive a flat 10% of the take.[13]

On December 11, 1978, an estimated $5.875 million (equivalent to $26.4 million in 2022) was stolen, with $5 million in cash and $875,000 in jewelry, making it the largest cash robbery committed on American soil at the time.[14]

Burke is also alleged to have either committed or ordered the murders of many of the robbers to avoid being implicated in the heist. The first was Edwards, on December 18, after he failed to get rid of the robbery van. Burke was never implicated or charged in the robbery,[15] and the stolen cash and jewelry were never recovered.[16]

In 1980, Burke was arrested for a parole violation.[17] In 1982, Burke was convicted of conspiracy and sentenced to 12 years in prison[18] for his involvement with the 1978–79 Boston College basketball point-shaving scandal, based primarily on the testimony of former mob associate Henry Hill. Hill's testimony in federal court resulted in a total of fifty convictions in this and other cases, including those of Burke and their boss, capo Paul Vario. While Burke was serving that sentence, he was charged with the 1979 murder of drug dealer Richard Eaton. He was convicted at a trial in which Hill testified and was sentenced in 1985 to a further 20 years in prison.[19][20]