Henry Hill Jr. was an American mobster who was associated with the Lucchese crime family of New York City between 1955 and 1980. In 1980, Hill was arrested on narcotics charges and became an FBI informant. He testified against his former Mafia associates, resulting in 50 convictions, including those of caporegime Paul Vario and James Burke on multiple charges. Hill’s life story was documented in the true crime book Wiseguy: Life in a Mafia Family by Nicholas Pileggi, which was subsequently adapted by Martin Scorsese into the critically acclaimed film Goodfellas in 1990. Hill was portrayed by Ray Liotta in the film.
About Henry Hill in brief
Henry Hill Jr. was an American mobster who was associated with the Lucchese crime family of New York City between 1955 and 1980. In 1980, Hill was arrested on narcotics charges and became an FBI informant. He testified against his former Mafia associates, resulting in 50 convictions, including those of caporegime Paul Vario and James Burke on multiple charges. Hill’s life story was documented in the true crime book Wiseguy: Life in a Mafia Family by Nicholas Pileggi, which was subsequently adapted by Martin Scorsese into the critically acclaimed film Goodfellas in 1990. Hill was portrayed by Ray Liotta in the film. In June 1960, at around 17 years old, Hill joined the United States Army serving with the 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg in North Carolina. Throughout his three-year enlistment, Hill maintained his contacts with mobsters. He continued to hustle hustle to the end of his enlistment. Hill claimed the timing of the FBI investigation into the 1957 Apalachin summit had prompted a Senate investigation into organized crime, and its links with businesses. This resulted in the publication of a list of nearly 5,000 names of members and associates of the major crime families. Hill searched through the list but could not find a partial list of members of five major families. He was first arrested when he was 16; his arrest record is one of the few official documents that prove his existence.
Hill gave his name and nothing else; Vario’s attorney later facilitated his release on bail. Hill dropped out of high school, working exclusively for the Vario gangsters. Hill received a portion of the money every week, and the rest was kept and divided among the Varios. The following year, Vito Vario gave Hill a highly sought-after union card in the bricklayers’ local. Hill would be a \”no show\” and put on a building contractor’s construction payroll, guaranteeing him a weekly salary of USD 190. Hill refused to talk to authorities and refused to give them money and they refused to take him out of the Witness Protection Program in the early 1990s. Hill and Lenny, Vino’s equally underage son, attempted to use a stolen credit card to buy snow tires for Tuddy’s wife’s car. Hill smashed the cab windows of a rival cabstand and filled them with gasoline-soaked newspapers, then tossed in lit matchbooks. The competing company’s owner was from Alabama, new to New York, and Hill’s first encounter with arson occurred when he drove to the rival cab stand with a drum full of gasoline in the back seat of Tuddy’s car. He first met the notorious hijacker James Burke in 1956. The 13-year-old Hill served drinks and sandwiches at a card game and was dazzled by Burke’s openhanded tipping: “He was sawbucking me to death. He wasn’t like anyone else I had ever met.”
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This page is based on the article Henry Hill published in Wikipedia (as of Jan. 09, 2021) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
