Since his divorce in 2005, he had been on bad terms with his only son, Jerome, a Bonanno captain. His jewelry had been in hock for two years. He still went to Fat Andy’s, where he had celebrated the Lufthansa robbery, but “people hate me in there: I don’t pay my dues,” he told Mr. Valenti, his cousin, in a conversation Mr. Valenti recorded.

He tried to look sharp, though his idea of sharp by then was fresh sneakers and a jacket from Kohl’s. As other organized crime was getting ever more sophisticated — hacking into bank accounts, stealing identities — Mr. Asaro was still talking about small robberies and little shakedowns.

He worried he was so irrelevant he would be kicked out of the Mafia altogether. “They’re going to take my badge away. You’re going to see, it’s going to happen,” he told Mr. Valenti in 2011, according to a recording played in court. By 2012, the group’s waning membership was such that he told Mr. Valenti that he was promoted to captain again. It did not change his fortunes. “I ain’t got a penny. I swear to God. No gas. Twenty dollars can you lend me?” he told Mr. Valenti.