William Bentvena (Billy Batts)

Any solid info on this guy or pics? Looks like he was running drugs for/with Galante and was busted around 1966...

Made guy with the Bergin crew (Gambino family) ive never seen a pic of him if I recall correctly...

I'll say it for you... "You're a real wise ass, Mark!"

i thought it was DeVino. William DeVino,no?

The Devino name is more than likely an internet invention by a wikipedia writer with a rich imagination. According to a report, dated back in the 1970s, a CI informed the FBI that a William Bentvena AKA Billy Batts, who operated in the same neighborhood as Henry Hill and a known drug trafficker who had served time in Lewisburg, was rumored to have been murdered. According to this CI, the rumor on the street was that his murder was over a drug deal.

William Bentvena was caught in 1959, in the same heroin network investigation that netted Galante and Ormento (among others) and later dubbed "The French Connection" by the press. But Bentvena was just a minor player, charged "only" for heroin possession. Another one arrested was the Gambino soldier JoJo Manfredi, who had married the day before and who was packing for his honey moon when FBN agents seized him.

There is a thread on here, "The French Connection trials of 1960 and 1963" describing the chaotic trials that followed. Can´t remember who posted it, but the thread is excellent!
Bentvena is mentioned briefly in there.
The first trial ended in a mistrial. In the second one, which started in April of 1963, Bentvena was convicted. Because he already had a prior conviction for violations of the narcotics law and a likelihood of him fleeing, the judge ruled that Bentvena would continue his incarceration while pending appeal. The appeal was unsuccessful and Bentvena was sent off to Lewisburg.

For months now, I and others have tried to locate a mug shot or a picture of Bentvena showing his face. We have been looking in basically all the online newspaper articles available that covered the bust and the trials. But to no avail. There doesn´t seem to be any pictures of him in those clippings. However, there might be something of interest in New York City Archives, which have DA file cases at the court building. If Bentvena´s case is filed there, I figure a mug shot of him is more than likely to be found. A friend of mine, who is living in NY, will check it out.
I´d love to see how Bentvena looked like!

this is the real picture of the real Billy Batts

{DELETED DEAD LINK}

When I copied & pasted the link to NOTEPAD then clicked on it WORKED FOR ME
The first pic right?

The link works only using the red letters in it. All the rest of the letters do is screw up the sizing on the page. DO NOT COPY THE LINK AGAIN IN A POST

Yeah, really. There's nothing more annoying than a picture that re-sizes the page.

Sorry boss I didn't know it would do that

https://www.google.com/search?q=William+Bentvena&newwindow=1&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=

It's OK.. it's no catastrophe. Just annoying to see the page stretch out like that.

Even still, all it does is bring up a hundred different images of people associated with Henry Hill and "Goodfellas."

Hairy Knuckles has been searching for a certified picture of Batts for years. And if he can't find one, no one can.

One thing that goes into the Henry Hill bullshit storage file (and it´s a thick one) is his claim that Billy Batts was made. Hill either was wrong about it (which is understandable), or deliberately lied to create a more dramatical effect to the story.

I have to agree, I never though he was made, either..certainly not in the bergin crew..and Henery Hill just pisses me off

To believe Henry Hill, he was just an innocent guy along for the ride with those bad guys Jimmy Burke and Tommy D...Hill was a master manipulator then and remained so until his death...his own brother said he was always angling and sizing people up in order to manipulate them...having said that, he was pretty funny.

And this is exactly why he pisses me off so badly.. he knew full well who these guys were and willingly associated and worked closely with them. Then the shit hit the fan and..he acts like the victim.. going on tv and radio shows?? lol Not very cosa nostra.

Is the Billy Batts story in Pileggi's book Wiseguy?

Yes. But it's a bit contradictory to other versions of the story that Hill told over the years. What else is new?

yea the reason batts got whacked is becouse jimmy had taken over his drug bidness while he was in lewisburg for drug charges when he got out he was complaining to every1 dat he wanted it bk so they fuckin whacked him out through pure greed also it didnt help pissing tommy d off also lol