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| Henry Hill | |
| Biographical Information | |
| Gender | Male |
| Born | June 11, 1943 East New York, Brooklyn, New York City |
| Died | June 12, 2012 Los Angeles, California |
| Affiliation |  Lucchese crime family
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| Title(s) | Associate |
Henry Hill was an Irish-American mobster who was associated with the Lucchese crime family from 1955 to 1980, when he turned into an FBI Informant, testifying against Jimmy Conway and his boss, Paul Cicero, both of whom died in prison. Hill died of natural causes in 2012.
Biography[]
Hill was born in East New York, Brooklyn, New York City, to an Irish father and a Sicilian mother. He was the brother of Michael Hill, who was bound in a wheelchair. Hill wanted to be a gangster as far back as he could remember, and hung around a parking lot where mobsters such as Paul Cicero hung out. He was paid money for parking Cadillacs in the parking space, and skipped school for several months just to be with the Lucchese gangsters. When his father found out after recieving a letter, he beat Hill, so Henry said to Tuddy Cicero that he could not work any more, since his father would "kill him". Cicero, Tony Stacks, and some of the other Lucchese gangsters were led to the mailman by Hill, and they threatened to put his head in a pizza oven if he kept on bringing letters from Henry's school.
Hill continued Mafia work, unloading cigarettes alongside his new friend Tommy DeVito, and also worked at a bar, where he met Jimmy Conway, no older than twenty-seven at the time. Conway became Hill and DeVito's boss, and they worked in the cigarette smuggling operation. Hill was arrested for doing this, but did not rat out on his friends, and kept his mouth shut, the "two rules in life" told to him by Conway after the court case. Hill was released later on, and by 1963, was hanging out at The Bamboo Lounge with the rest of the Cicero Crew. One day, Hill and DeVito were ordered to torch the business after it failed to make money.
That year, he met his future wife Karen Hill on a double-date with Tommy, whose girlfriend never felt comfortable being alone with an Italian. He pistol-whipped his neighbor for feeling up Karen Hill while she was at home, making her aroused, and after months of dating, they were married. Hill usually hung around with his friends, barely spending home time with Karen, much to her mother's displeasure. He also was hooked up with Janice Rossi, who was his mistress, and he always went to the Copacabana with either Karen or his various girlfriends.
In 1967, Hill assisted Robert MacMahon and Jimmy Conway with the Air France Robbery, taking the money without firing a shot, since MacMahon was the security manager at the airport. They took hundreds of thousands of dollars from the robbery, and Hill got a large profit. He bought expensive clothing for Karen and treated her to dinner and to the Copa every Friday.
Hill, Conway, and DeVito got in trouble in 1970, when on June 11, DeVito beat up Billy Batts, who was a made member of the Gambino crime family, meaning that he could not be touched without his boss' consent. In Upstate New York, while on the highway, they heard a bumping in the trunk, and pulled over to the forest on the side of the road, where DeVito stabbed Batts seven times with a knife and Conway shot him five times. They buried the body there, but six months later, had to dig the nasty-smelling corpse up and re-bury it since there were condominiums scheduled to be built there. Hill denied that he was involved in the incident to Cicero, mentioning that Batts had "disappeared" in Queens' The Suite Lounge, but nothing more.
Hill's greatest time was in 1978, when the Cicero Crew committed the Lufthansa Heist, stealing over $5,000,000 in cash and in jewels from the JFK International Airport. He was wise, not spending any of the money he had been given like Conway had said, while all of the other crew members were spending it away and becoming hot. Conway ordered all of them to be executed, and only DeVito, Conway, and Hill remained in the crew. DeVito was also scheduled to become an initiated member of the Lucchese family, brought to a bar for the ceremony, where he was shot by Tuddy Cicero to appease the Gambinos. He was shot in the forehead so that there could be no open-casket funeral for him.
Soon, Henry Hill became involved in the drug dealing business, with connections in Pittsburgh, at the time of the Lufthansa Heist. He made lots of money out of his drug empire, shared with Conway, disobeying Cicero's orders to not use drugs. Hill became addicted to drugs, and was arrested in 1980 for drug possession, and while in prison, developed an addiction for sleeping pills. He suffered from insomnia and paranoia, and when his family was going to go on vacation to Florida, he was busted by Narcs, who sent him to prison again. By the time he was released a few months later, his wife flushed $60,000-worth of cocaine down the toilet to prevent the FBI from finding it in their home, and he was left penniless. Cicero paid him $3,200 and ended his association, feeling betrayed. Soon, Jimmy Conway wanted Hill to be murdered because of his liability. He attempted to have Karen murdered by telling her to go into a building where he had some dresses, but hitmen would shoot her there; she got what he meant and drove away. Hill was ordered to go to Florida for a hit with Anthony Stabile, but Stabile would be ordered to kill Hill instead of Hill murdering a snitch. Hill did not go, and became a part of the witness protection program, living the rest of his life like a schnook. He testified against Cicero and Conway, and both of them were sentenced to prison, where both of them died of natural causes. Hill died in Los Angeles in 2012.