Thanks for posting this and the link, scarface.
I read Henry Hill's full account of the Tommy DiSimone story in his book, "Gangsters and Goodfellas." It confuses, rather than clarifies, the story. Please bear with me--it's complicated:
Hill describes Batts and his murder exactly as portrayed in "Goodfellas." He says Tommy, although an unmade associate of the Lucchese family under Paul Vario, also hung with a Gambino crew that included John Gotti. He did jobs with Foxy, an unmade, non-Italian associate who Hill describes as Gotti's "protege." Foxy became enraged when Tommy bedded Foxy's sister. He banged on Tommy's door and when he opened it, decked Tommy. Tommy drew a hidden gun, killed Foxy, "got up and walked out, just like that," apparently making no attempt to hide Foxy's body.
Tommy was out on $100k bail on a hijacking charge at the time. Paulie, Henry and Johnny Dio were in the Federal pen in Lewisberg, PA. Hill writes that Tommy became paranoid that the Gambinos would whack him in the street because his protector, Vario, was in the can. So he asked his bail bondsman to revoke his bail and was sent to Lewisberg, where he surfaced on Mob Row. According to Hill, Mob Row had dorms (like the one shown in "Goodfellas") for each of the Five Families. There, Tommy hung out with Angelo Ruggiero, Gotti's right-hand man, who was in the "Gambino Dorm." All of this happened in '74.
Tommy next appears in Hill's story in 1979, after the Lufthansa job was pulled. He writes that Jimmy Burke "had the entire Lufthansa heist crew whacked out of desperation. He knew it was only a matter of time before the Feds flipped one of them. The first two to go were Stacks Edwards and Marty Krugman. Tommy DiSimone was the third to get whacked..."
Now, you'd get the impression that Jimmy whacked Tommy. But no! Hill next says that Paulie ordered it: Paulie "despised" Tommy "but put up with him because Jimmy loved him and he was such a good earner and whacker...They probably had a big meeting with Paul Castellano...The crews got together on this hit because Tommy was Burke's gut, and Burke was so powerful that he could've been the capo if he was Italian. So Paulie needed an alliance to take out Jimmy's guy." Hill then recounts the story of the phony ceremony to "make" Tommy, and says that Gotti was the triggerman

Right away, you can see that this story is absurd. First, if Tommy was out on bail in a hijacking case, it'd mean that he hadn't been convicted or lost an appeal yet. If his bail were revoked, he'd be sent to the Rikers Island lockup (if it were a state charge), or the Manhattan House of Detention (if it was a Federal rap)-- not Lewisberg, which is a prison for those convicted of Federal crimes. Second, if he was afraid that Gotti's crew would whack him in revenge for Foxy (and presumably Batts), why on earth would he maneuver to get to Lewisberg's Mafia Row and hang out with Angelo Ruggiero--Gotti's best friend? Third, why would it take five years after he killed Batts and Foxy for Tommy to be whacked? And fourth, why would Paul Vario (who Don Cardi described, in an excellent bio here, as the most powerful capo in the Lucchese Family) need permission from Castellano to whack a guy in his outfit who wasn't made? And when did Jimmy Burke, another unmade guy in Vario's crew who wasn't even Italian, get so powerful that the mighty Vario dared not move against his pal Tommy without permission from Castellano?

This thread points up the difficulty of doing serious research on Mob stuff. I like a good story, and it doesn't necessarily have to be true for me to like it. And Henry Hill is a great storyteller. But I take everything he says with a ton of salt. To give another example: Hill says he met and became pals with Joe Namath, the Jets' famous playboy quarterback. Namath told him to "bet the ranch" on the Jets in the '69 Superbowl, when the Jets were big underdogs. Hill brags that he made $100k--and not only didn't tell Vario, but made the money from Vario's bookies. He constantly brags about how he lied to and cheated Vario. Do you think that Vario, one of the most powerful Mob guys in New York, got that way by being hoodwinked and ripped off by an unmade pissant like Hill?