Vincent Asaro Death, American mobster and former Bonanno crime family captain has died

Vincent Asaro Death – Vincent Asaro, an American mobster and former Bonanno crime family captain has passed away. Queens’ Ozone Park, New York City, was the birthplace of Vincent Asaro in 1935. Joseph Asaro, Michael Zaffarano’s brother-in-law was his father. Vinny joined the Mafia after his father Joseph and Uncle Michael. He was admitted into the Bonanno crime family in August 1977, together with Peter Monteleone and Gerard “Jerry” Chilli.

About Vincent Asaro

Following the death of Bonanno boss Carmine Galante in 1979, Vinny joined the Bonanno family as a capo of a Queen’s crew. Michael Zaffarano, his uncle, passed away in February 1980. He was a caporegime in the Bonanno criminal family, overseeing the family’s holdings at JFK airport, according to Henry Hill, a former associate of the Lucchese crime family who is now an informant. Asaro would assist his son Jerome Asaro in joining the Bonanno family and becoming command of their crew. But in subsequent years, Asaro and his son fell out and stopped talking to one another.

Vincent Asaro accused of Lufthansa heist

Asaro was charged with federal racketeering on January 23, 2014, after being detained by the FBI in connection with the 1978 Lufthansa robbery. In addition, there were allegations of involvement in the pornographic sector, stealing $1.25 million worth of gold salts, and ordering the assassination of a cousin who provided testimony in court. Asaro was arrested together with his son Jerome, soldier John Ragano, acting capo Giacomo Bonventre, and acting boss Thomas DiFiore.

Author Daniel Simone, who co-wrote The Lufthansa Heist with Henry Hill and was released by Lyons Press on August 1, 2015, makes the controversial assertion that Henry Hill told him that “Asaro had no involvement in the famous robbery.” Asaro actually doesn’t make an appearance in Simone’s book or even get acknowledged.

Moreover, Simone certifies that none of the law enforcement officials who worked with him on The Lufthansa Heist’s Author’s Notes and Sources page ever brought up Asaro in relation to the crime. Instead, Simone mentions a number of them. Even stranger, those investigators were unaware of Gaspar Valenti, the informant who had sworn in opposition to his cousin Asaro. Asaro was acquitted of all counts pertaining to the Lufthansa theft in November of 2015.

Vincent Asaro’s Arson order

Asaro was prosecuted and indicted in an arson case in March 2017. Asaro entered a guilty plea in June 2017 to an allegation of ordering the setting of a car on fire against a driver who had cut him off in Howard Beach, Queens, in April 2012. The prosecution claims that Asaro hired a member of the Bonanno crime family to carry out the murder, but the member persuaded John J. Gotti, the grandson of the former head of the Gambino crime family, to carry out the order instead. John J. Gotti also entered a guilty plea in this case.

Asaro reportedly got in touch with a Gambino crime family associate who had access to a local police department database the day after the incident. The driver’s home address was connected to the license plate via the database. In 2012, Gotti and another man entered a guilty plea to charges that they were the getaway driver in a $6,000 bank heist, according to the prosecution. Asaro was detained at the Brooklyn Metropolitan Detention Center for his sentencing.

Vincent Asaro Released

He could have spent as much as 20 years behind bars, whereas the prosecution was only asking for 15 years. While Asaro has “participated in racketeering, murder, robbery, extortion, loansharking, gambling, and other illegal conduct,” according to the Brooklyn prosecutors, “he has served less than eight years in jail.” Asaro received an eight-year prison sentence towards the end of December 2017.

He was initially supposed to be released from the United States Medical Center for Federal Prisoners in 2022, but on April 14, 2020, he was granted a compassionate release. Six days later, he was freed from the facility, owing to his advanced age and precarious health (he had suffered a stroke the year before) and the potential for COVID-19 during the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States.

The family will release Vincent Asaro’s obituary and funeral arrangements at a later date.

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