Trial begins in 1978 'Goodfellas' Lufthansa heist

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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 DeNiro 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 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.

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