Jimmy Conway
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Jimmy Conway or Jimmy Burke (July 5, 1931 - April 13, 1996) was an Irish-American gangster who is believed to have organized the Lufthansa Heist in 1978. His nickname was Jimmy The Gent, and he is familiar to most people via Robert De Niro's depiction of him in the movie Goodfellas.
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Early Life
He was born James Conway in New York City in 1931, and for reasons unknown was placed in a foster home when he was two, never to see his natural parents again. He was shuttled around various homes and orphanages, eventually taking the name of Burke after one foster family.
When he was thirteen, Burke's foster father died in a car crash, apparently as he turned round to hit Jimmy for some transgression or other as the boy sat in the backseat. The deceased man's widow, who was in the car as well but survived, blamed Burke for the accident and gave him regular beatings until he was taken back into care.
As he approached adulthood, Burke began to get in trouble with the law, spending plenty of time in jail. In 1949, aged eighteen, he was sentenced to five-years for embezzlement This was, ironically, to turn out to be his break into the underworld of New York, his refusal to 'rat' (inform) on his accomplices giving him a reputation as a 'stand up guy', meaning he would not co-operate with the police and therefore could be trusted by other criminals. Behind bars he mixed with plenty of Mafia bosses and made many contacts (being of Irish descent, Burke could not become a fully fledged member of the Mafia, as they only accept Italian-Americans into their ranks, but they were happy to have associates of any ethnic background - so long as they made money and did not co-operate with the authorities.)
"Jimmy The Gent"
It is suspected that Burke committed a number of murders for the Mafia during the 1950s, in addition to plenty of other crimes such as importing untaxed cigarettes and liquor. He got married in 1962 and is rumoured to have murdered and dismembered an ex-boyfriend of his bride because he was being a nuisance. He fathered a daughter and two sons (one of whom he named Jesse James Burke, after the famous outlaw).
Burke was a mentor of Thomas DeSimone and Henry Hill, who were both teenagers in the 1960s. They carried out errands for Burke, such as selling stolen merchandise. When they were older, the pair helped Burke with the hijacking of delivery trucks. According to Hill, Burke would usually give $50 to the drivers of the trucks they stole, as if he were tipping them for the inconvenience, which lead to his nickname Jimmy The Gent.
"Roberts Lounge" bar, which was located in Ozone Park, Queens, was a favorite hangout of Burke, along with many other mobsters and criminals. Burke eventually began a loanshark operation that was based at the bar, lending out money to people with an extortionate rate of interest.
In 1972, Jimmy Burke and Henry Hill were arrested for beating up a man who owed them a large gambling debt. They were charged with extortion, convicted and sentenced to ten years in prison. Burke was paroled after six years and went straight back to crime, as did Hill who got out around the same time. Hill shortly began dealing in cocaine, and Burke was soon in on this new enterprise, even though the Lucchese Family, to whom they were loosely attached, did not authorize anyone dealing in narcotics. This ban was made because the prison sentences imposed on people convicted of drug trafficking were so lengthy that those facing such charges would often become informants to avoid jail time – which is exactly what was to happen with Henry Hill.
The Lufthansa Heist
The crime Burke is most famous for is the Lufthansa Heist, the theft of approximately $6,000,000 from the cargo terminal at JFK Airport, the largest robbery in American criminal history at the time. He carried it out with the help of many accomplices, including Tommy DeSimone. The robbery took place on December 11, 1978. Because it took place in the territory of the Gambino Mafia family, Burke had to get their permission (his contact in the Gambinos was John Gotti) and agree to pay them a portion of the loot.
There were a number murders and disappearances following the robbery as the criminals turned on each other. The get-away driver was shot dead within a few days because he did not dispose of the vehicle properly. Another robber was murdered along with his wife. A cocaine dealer named Theresa Ferrara, who often frequented at "Robert's Lounge" and had dated some of the Lufthansa Heist crew, was killed when it was found out she was an informant. Her dismembered body was eventually found dumped on a New Jersey beach.
Martin Krugman, who provided some of the inside information for the heist, vanished not long afterwards and was never seen again. It is alleged he was killed on the orders of Burke, who did not want to pay Krugman the $500,000 share of the stolen money he was due.
Downfall
In February 1979, a few months after the Heist, Burke strangled to death a mobster named Richard Eaton who had swindled him out of $250,000 in a cocaine deal. Eaton's body was found bound and gagged on February 18 in Brooklyn.
The following year, 1980, saw Henry Hill being arrested for drug-trafficking. He became an FBI informant in order to avoid prison. Also that year, one of the few criminals to have actually been prosecuted for the Lufthansa Heist, Louis Werner, became an informant after serving just twelve months of a fifteen-year prison sentence in the hope of getting an early release.
Partly thanks to the testimony of these informants, Jimmy Burke was taken into custody on April 1, 1980 on suspicion of a number of crimes. He was subsequently convicted at a trial in 1982 of fixing basketball games as part of a gambling scam in 1978 and was sentenced to twenty years' imprisonment. Authorities knew he had organized the Lufthansa Heist, but they did not have enough evidence to prove it.
Burke was later charged with the murder of Robert Eaton based on evidence Henry Hill gave to authorities. At the trial, Hill took the stand and testified against his former friend. Burke was convicted and on February 19, 1985, he was given a life sentence.
Burke was serving his time in Wende Correctional Facility in Alden, New York State when he developed lung cancer. He died from this disease on April 13, 1996, aged sixty-four. Had he lived he would have been eligible for parole in 2004.
Movie Depictions
Burke has been portrayed in two movies. In Goodfellas, a 1990 movie based on a book cowritten with Henry Hill, Burke was portrayed by Robert De Niro and the character went under his birth-name of Conway. He was also portrayed in the television movie The Heist, in which he was played by Donald Sutherland.
In Goodfellas, Burke was portrayed as a powerful, arrogant, and flashy gangster. He was also portrayed as a classic psychopath. In The Heist, Burke was portrayed as an aging immigrant gangster whose actions were primarily motivated to keep in the mafia's good graces and to keep his son from being killed.