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re: How ballsy was Spider in Goodfellas?

Posted on 4/29/18 at 10:20 pm to
Posted by mizzoubuckeyeiowa
Member since Nov 2015
35790 posts
Posted on 4/29/18 at 10:20 pm to
It was time for Tommy ­DeSimone to die.

The mobster — famously portrayed by Joe Pesci in “Goodfellas” — killed two made men, tried to rape the wife of his gangster pal Henry Hill and stupidly lifted his ski mask during 1978’s historic $6 million Lufthansa heist.

So John Gotti took care of it — personally.

The handsome capo used a silencer-equipped Colt .38 to shoot DeSimone three times in the skull in January 1979 in the basement of an Italian restaurant.

When they carried out the heist, DeSimone and his fellow robbers wore ski masks so the night-shift workers they rounded up at gunpoint in the Lufthansa warehouse lunchroom wouldn’t identify them to police. But De­Simone raised his mask to wipe sweat from his cheeks, and someone saw enough to help a police artist sketch his face.

This infuriated Burke and Vario, but they needed De­Simone’s skills as a killer. They wanted to eliminate any ­participant in the robbery who could finger them to the cops or the FBI.

The first to die was Parnell “Stacks” Edwards, who after the robbery was to have delivered the getaway van to be crushed at the Gotti-run salvage yard. Instead, Edwards parked the van by a fire hydrant in Canarsie, Brooklyn, where cops found it two days later.

Vario ordered DeSimone to kill Edwards. “Stacks gotta go .?.?. He’ll give up every one of us,” Vario said.

“Paulie, how can you ask me to whack Stacks?” DeSimone pleaded. “I mean, him and me go back before I can remember. I’m the only person on earth he trusts.”

DeSimone went to Edwards’ hideout and put five bullets in his skull.

“Sorry, pal. I hope it didn’t hurt. Sooner or later, I’ll see you in heaven or hell. Wherever you’re going, I’m sure that’s where I’ll be going,” he said.

DeSimone soon joined him.

For years, the Gambinos had simmered over DeSimone’s unsanctioned murders of two of their own mobsters, William “Billy Batts” Devino and Ronald “Foxy” Jerothe.

Devino — a made man whose last name is sometimes given as Bentvena — spent several years in federal prison on drug charges. During that time, DeSimone and Burke took over his loanshark business. They wanted to keep it, so after Devino was released, DeSimone and Burke killed him, says author Simone.

In “Goodfellas,” DeSimone kills Devino over an insult about his past as a shoeshine boy. That part of the movie was fiction, Simone says.

“This f-?-kin’ DeSimone whacked two of my top earners, and I let it go for a long time,” Gotti told his fellow capo. “Now he wants to be made, and I’m not gonna sit quietly. I mean, that’s as bad as putting a cactus up my a–. Understan’ what I’m sayin’, ­Paulie?”

The night DeSimone expected to be inducted into the mob, Vario’s son drove him from his home in Ozone Park, Queens, to Belmont in The Bronx. DeSimone wore “a double-breasted black Bill Blass suit, a starched blue shirt and beige silk tie,” the book says.

DeSimone was led to the basement of Don Vito’s restaurant. Several old men were seated around a card table, and candles gave the room a dim light. De­Simone was surprised to see Gotti, a Gambino. He thought his induction would be a Lucchese affair.

“Welcome, Tommy. Congratulations!” Gotti said. “Pull a chair up to the table and sit comfortably. This is not an ordinary day in your life, I want you to know.”

DeSimone sat down. Within three seconds, “Gotti pulled out a silencer-equipped .38 Colt Magnum from his inner breast pocket and drilled three bullets into DeSimone’s cranium. PAH .?.?. PAH .?.?. PAH.

“DeSimone’s head blasted forward, and with the thud of a ­10-pound boulder slumped onto the card table, blood seeping and leaching onto the green felt ­tabletop.

“Gotti buttoned his camel cashmere overcoat, straightened the lapels and walked out of the room with a vaunting stride,” the book says.

DeSimone’s remains were never found.
This post was edited on 4/29/18 at 10:21 pm
Posted by S
RIP Wayde
Member since Jan 2007
156192 posts
Posted on 4/30/18 at 8:27 am to
Posted by KiwiHead
Auckland, NZ
Member since Jul 2014
28031 posts
Posted on 4/30/18 at 12:06 pm to
DeSimone was as close to a true psychopath as you will find. The dude loved killing and it did not mater if you were involved with the mob or not. You could just be doing nothing and if DeSimone was agitated, he might mess you up or kill you.

The only thing that kept DeSimone from being liquidated before 1979 was the fact that he was "Mafia Royalty" . His uncle ran the Los Angeles Mob. By 1978 Vario had enough of him but did not have the go ahead to whack him. He was an extreme liability and the Lucchese family made a deal with the Gambinos to keep the peace. No one on the Lucchese side was upset about the deal
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