Thomas James DeSimone (June 6, 1946 – disappeared January 14, 1979) was an American criminal associated with New York City's Lucchese crime family who is alleged to have participated in both the Air France robbery and the Lufthansa heist. It is believed DeSimone was responsible for participating in at least 5 murders, from William "Billy Batts" Bentvena in 1970, Michael "Spider" Gianco in 1970, William Reckhow in 1970, Ronald "Foxy" Jerothe in 1974, and Parnell "Stacks" Edwards in 1978. DeSimone went missing in 1979 and is believed to have been murdered, as a result of the murder of Bentvena in June 1970. DeSimone had not been given permission from the Lucchese family or the American Mafia Commission to murder Bentvena as he was a formally inducted member of the Gambino family, and was subsequently murdered as the
disposition of this sequence.
DeSimone's career in the Lucchese family is explored in the book Wiseguy by Nicholas Pileggi, and inspired the character of Tommy DeVito, portrayed by Joe Pesci, one of the main characters of the 1990 film Goodfellas.
Early life
DeSimone was born in New York City, in the South Ozone Park area in the borough of Queens, on June 6, 1946, the youngest of eight children born to Robert Anthony DeSimone and Camilla Passerelli. He had four elder sisters and three elder brothers. Two of his brothers were associates of the Gambino crime family; Anthony was murdered by mobster Thomas Agro in 1979. One of his sisters Phyllis was a mistress of James Burke from the time she was aged 16. DeSimone was also the brother-in-law of mobster Joseph "The Barber" Spione, who was slain for refusing to help kill DeSimone in the late 1970s.
In 1965, when he was aged 19, DeSimone was introduced to Paul Vario, a caporegime in the Lucchese crime family. Henry Hill, a Vario associate who was in his early 20s at the time, later recounted his first meeting with DeSimone, describing him as "a skinny kid who was wearing a wiseguy suit and a pencil mustache." DeSimone worked under Vario, Burke and Hill, among others, becoming involved in truck hijackings, fencing stolen property, extortion, fraud, and murder. While hijacking, DeSimone would always carry his gun in a brown paper bag. "Walking down the street, he looked like he was bringing you a sandwich instead of a .38", Hill said.
Air France robbery
During the 1960s, Air France was the carrier of American currency that had been exchanged in Southeast Asia. The airline had contracted to return the money to the U.S. for depositing with American banks. The money was usually carried in linen bags, each containing $60,000, and the airline shipped up to $1 million a week in this manner. The money was stored in a cement-block strong room at Air France's cargo terminal at John F. Kennedy International Airport, with a round-the-clock private security guard. In 1967, Robert McMahon, an Air France employee, tipped off Burke, Hill, and DeSimone to an incoming delivery of between $400,000 and $700,000 in cash on Friday, April 7. McMahon said the best time for the actual robbery would be just before midnight when the security guard would be on his meal break.
On the day of the robbery, Hill and DeSimone drove to Kennedy airport with an empty suitcase, the largest Hill could find. At 11:40 pm, they entered the Air France cargo terminal. McMahon suggested that they should just walk in, as people often came to the terminal to pick up lost baggage. DeSimone and Hill entered the unsecured area unchallenged and unlocked the door with a duplicate key. Using a small flashlight, they found seven of the bags, which they loaded into the suitcase and left; $420,000 was taken. No alarm was raised, no shots fired, and no one was injured.
Murder of William Bentvena
After his release from prison in 1970, according to the mafia memoir Wiseguy, Henry Hill describes the "welcome home" party for William Bentvena at Robert's Lounge, a nightclub owned by Jimmy Burke: Bentvena jokingly asked DeSimone "if he still shined shoes", which DeSimone perceived as an insult, and leaning over to Hill and Burke intoned, "I'm gonna kill that fuck." Two weeks later, on June 11, 1970, Bentvena was at The Suite, Hill's nightclub in Queens. With the club nearly empty, DeSimone pistol-whipped Bentvena, yelling, "Shine these fucking shoes!" before beating him bloody. Burke decided on DeSimone, McMahon, Angelo Sepe, Louis Cafora, Joe Manri, and Paolo LiCastri as the robbers. Burke's son Frank would drive one of the back-up vehicles while Parnell "Stacks" Edwards, a musician and career criminal, was given the task of disposing of the getaway van afterwards. Vario subsequently ordered DeSimone to kill Edwards. Once he found out where Edwards was hiding, DeSimone and Sepe visited Edwards and shot him five times in the head.
Disappearance
On January 14, 1979, DeSimone's wife, Angela, reported him missing. She said she had last seen DeSimone a few weeks earlier when he borrowed $60 from her. It is believed that DeSimone was murdered as revenge for the two unsanctioned murders of John Gotti's men, Bentvena and Jerothe. Another theory is that DeSimone eventually became suspected of being a police informant and was killed by Jimmy Burke.
When Hill became an FBI informant in 1980, he told authorities that DeSimone had been murdered by the Gambino family. Despite the oft-given date of death of January 14, 1979, the exact date of DeSimone's murder is uncertain. Hill claimed that in "the week after Christmas", he and Burke had gone to Florida to straighten out a drug deal gone bad. DeSimone had remained behind in New York, having been told in late December 1978 or early January 1979 that he was going to be made.
Two theories about DeSimone's alleged murderers exist from mob insiders. According to mob informant Joseph "Joe Dogs" Iannuzzi, Thomas Agro claimed in 1985 that he had murdered DeSimone, as well as his brother Anthony after he turned informant. Agro also suggested murdering the eldest and last remaining brother, Robert. According to Ianuzzi, Agro would often laughingly refer to killing the third DeSimone brother, stating: "Maybe it's time to go for the DeSimone trifecta!" Another account, told by Hill in Gangsters and Goodfellas, states that Gotti himself was the assassin, although in the presence of Agro. On May 17, 2007, episode of The Howard Stern Show, Hill reaffirmed that Gotti had killed DeSimone. He also added that the death "took a long time", as Bentvena had been a personal friend of Gotti's, and he wanted DeSimone to suffer before he died. Gotti's role as the assassin was repeated in the 2015 book The Lufthansa Heist, co-written by Hill and journalist Daniel Simone,
It has been theorized DeSimone is buried in The Hole, a suspected "Mafia graveyard" on the Brooklyn-Queens border near Kennedy airport, where the body of Al Indelicato was found in 1981 and where the bodies of Philip Giaccone and Dominick Trinchera were recovered by police in 2004.
Portrayal in film
DeSimone was portrayed by Joe Pesci in the 1990 movie Goodfellas, renamed Tommy DeVito. Pesci won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his depiction.
See also
- List of people who disappeared mysteriously: post-1970