Yeah, Tommy had a wife.

So Sean, do you think that Jimmy Burke maybe didn't have so much affection for Tommy and would have given him up?

Jimmy actually had alot of affection for tommy which is funny considering they were both maniacs. In fact henry hill said the only time jimmy shed a tear was when tommy was killed. paul Vario on the other hand hated tommy and when he found out tommy tried to rape karen he gladly gave him up

I thought his name was William Bentvena?
I was also reading a few things about one William Bentvena who was picked up in 1963 with a bunch of heroin from Cotroni.

I read his last name was Bentvena on here, and found this
http://openjurist.org/319/f2d/916/united-states-v-bentvena

Then this with section about them getting arrested.
seems like some sort of timeline of the 50s
http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/puparo-presents-the-roaring-2

Yes. Billy Batts real name was William Bentvena. How the myth of the name "William Devino" was born and created is a mystery. No one seems to know. But the Devino info that can be found on Wikipedia is just plain rubbish. Have people nothing better to do than to write fairy tales on Wiki? It´s a pain in the butt!!!

I´m actually working on receiving a Billy Batts picture. I intensely hope to get a hold of a mugshot or anything showing his face. As soon as I have it, I´ll post it on here. That is if I´m successfull.

Hairy! It would be awesome to see that pic!

Burke had taken over Bentvena's loanshark business while Bentvena was in prison. Henry Hill also cites this as another reason why bentvena was whacked.

DeSimone was murdered because of quite a few things that he did. I'm not sure whether the murder went down as neatly and as smoothly as it happened in the film.

I find it hard to believe Tommy would walk into such an easy trap. I heard he got snatched off the street but then I've heard alot of things.

The truth is Henry Hill probably doesn't know how it really went down and the "getting his button" aspect of the storyline is probably conjecture.

Personally I can't see Tommy walking into a trap like that. He was a stone cold psycopath killer himself and him and Burke knew every trick in the book. Of course it's entirely possible given the egos of guys like Tommy but personally I don't buy it. He knew there was reason he could be killed and it's not as if it was a hit he never would have seen coming.

I heard one story that says Tommy was snatched from the street and went down fighting, put up a hell of a fight in fact and took a lot of overpowering to make him go down.

This was a guy from North Jersey who said he used to live in Queens back in the day etc...

Anyone else hear any different than the version laid down in the movie?

Tommy wasnt the smartest guy in the world. Tommy never knew that he was in any real danger. He had killed Batts 8 years pior and nothing was done about it. I mean he was known for being a psycho but he also wanted to be a made guy badly. I mean one of the reasons why Tommy was so brutal was because his brother was an informant and Tommy felt that he had to prove himself to honor tje Desimone name. I mean i've heard a few things. Obvioudly killing billy batts/foxy was the biggest thing. Also Tommy attempted to rape karen hill who at that time was having a affair with paul vario. Joe Dogs has said that Tommy Agro came up with the being made ruse because he knew Tommy wanted to be made

No, it's possible I guess and it does make sense I suppose. I suppose it's part of the life. Like the junkie who never thinks he's gonna o'd every mob associate or half-assed wiseguy thinks its never gonna happen to them. It's only everyone else that's sitting ducks.

But yeah, just wanted to see if anyone else heard those different versions but as you say, they appear to be well known rumours that have circulated for years already.

Which makes the whole thing sketchy because Henry Hill (WHO IS A FUCKING LIAR ) said Tommy got whacked when he thought he was going to be made..... If he was in the Lucchese Family and was going to be made by them wouldnt he have found suspicion in the fact Tommy Agro from the Gambino's was there? I mean im no genius but if i was being made with the Lucchese Family and a bunch of Gambino wise guys are here with me around me etc etc id feel like something bad was about to happend... hey thats just me though especially after killing bats

tommy wasn't exactly a sharp thinker. I doubt he suspected retribution for batts since they got rid of the body. Also tommy has constantly strung out on coke at that time according to sal polosi

Foxy's Name was Ronald Jerothe just a FYI

We actually don´t know a squat about what really happened to Tommy DeSimone. His body has never been found and all we have is Hill´s and Ianuzzi´s inconsistent words of DeSimone´s demise. Was Agro charged for the murder? I believe he was not, neither was John Gotti.

If you ask me, I´d say Tommy DeSimone was a Lucchese problem. Even if DeSimone was guilty of Billy Batts murder (which I´m not disputing), the most likely triggerman was a Lucchese.

Keep in mind guys, just because DeSimone´s murder was described in a certain way (in one of the best Mafia movies ever done I must add) you shouldn´t take it as gospel.

I totally agree with everything you've said here well said Hairy

In the Jimmy Burke episode of Mobsters, Joe Coffey said that Tommy was beaten and chopped up in the basement of the ravenite. That's the first time I heard that version but its believable if you believe the Tommy Argo/John Gotti version.

If he was killed in the Bergin basement with a chainsaw, it was not Tommy Agro. TA was based in Florida and hardly knew Gotti and never would do a hit with him, why would he?

I believe Coffey is right. Likely killers? Take your pick, Lino, Boreillo, Johnson. Gotti wouldn't have done it though

Agro was probably talking tough. Also Billy Batts was not close to Gotti, he was a friend though of Carmine Fatico. Gotti wanted Simone, because Foxy had been much a closer friend to Gotti than Desimone ever was. Gotti's kids even loved Foxy and Gotti probably didn't like Desimone much. Why would he?

So truth of it is, he was killed by one of Gotti's gang in the Bergin bar. But Agro had nothing to do with it and neither did anyone else

The hit was planned...we can probably all agree on that? I would also imagine it was carried out by the gambino crew otherwise Jimmy Burke would have got wind of it if it was Lucchese. Im not convinced it would take place in any HQ-probably more likely some non-descript basement apartment - is this not the usual location for a ceremony if we accept the rouse? We'll simply never know who carried out the hit unless some wiseguy spills the beans-but its pushing nearly 35 years ago so its unlikely! Who was made around that time? Maybe as a reward? Good to guess and hear everyones thoughts!

I don't know why, but it is pretty interesting to me.

And I agree, well said HairyKnuckles.

I read somewhere that bruno facciola was in on the desimone hit

Now we are getting somewhere. Sounds extremely interesting. Facciolo was a Lucchese guy and member of Vario´s crew. TommyKarate, do you remember where you read that?

I believe it says that in Henry Hill's book Gangsters and Goodfellas, Bruno Facciolo and Peter Vario.

I think John Gotti was at Grenhaven at this point, not Lewisburg. I may be wrong though.

At The Sinatra Club (2012), (Sal Polisi) pp. 347-8:

"I was shocked by John's timing. After four years of expecting him to whack Tommy, he decides to do it when I least expect it, after a heist so big all the Families including the Gambinos were sure to get a taste.

"There was a lot I wanted to say to John, but you didn't explain yourself in the Mob. I had to give him a yes or no on the spot. I told him no. He didn't say another word. He just got in his car and drove away.

"I would have liked to tell John that I loved Fox as much as he did and that I hated Tommy for what he did, but a lot had changed since then. I wasn't interested in becoming a made guy anymore. But more than that, I no longer really held Tommy responsible. A lot of time had passed, and I felt like it was the life that killed Fox. If it hadn't been Tommy, it would have been some cop or an armed guard on a truck or a hothead Colombian drug dealer whose girlfriend Fox was f-----g. I always more or less liked Tommy. So did Fox, up until Tommy messed with his sister. Killing Tommy now seemed to me like another f-----g waste, just like him killing Fox was a waste.

1979

"In January, a month after Johnny paid me that visit and offered me a chance to avenge Fox's death and get in on a hit that would have earned me my button, Tommy "Two Guns" DeSimone disappeared.

"For a long time I didn't know how it went down for Tommy. There were a lot of conflicting stories at the time, and the Goodfellas movie fudged the details and didn't make it clear what exactly happened or who did it.

"The full story comes from Henry Hill, who was good friends with Tommy, and he made it a point to find out what happened as best he could.

"The way Henry tells the story: Tommy was whacked by Gotti's crew for killing Billy Batts, a made Gambino guy, back in 1970, and for Fox, who wasn't made but was with John and the crew at the Bergin. Henry says that it was Paul Vario-who always hated Tommy himself but protected him because he was with Jimmy Burke, and Jimmy was his biggest earner-who gave Tommy to the Gambinos.

"Henry's explanation of why Paulie gave Tommy up has to be believed. He says Paulie was having an affair with Henry's wife Karen while Henry was in prison. At the same time, Tommy got wasted on coke and put the moves on Karen too. She told him to f--- off and he beat the s--- out of her. That enraged Paulie, who not only gave Tommy up to Gotti, he also drove Tommy to the fake induction ceremony himself.

"The part in the movie where Jimmy bangs down the phone and cries when he finds out what happened was true, Henry says. Only he and Burke were in Florida when they made the call, not outside a diner in New York.

"When Tommy got to the house where he thought he was going to be made, there really was a ceremony planned-only it wasn't the one he hoped for. John was there. And instead of me, so was Tommy Argo, the Gambino guy who owned Sebastian's. Argo also whacked one of Tommy's brothers, the one who was the rat and who was the reason Gotti always hated Tommy.

"One thing Henry says makes me glad I turned down John's offer to lend a hand in avenging Fox's death: Gotti and Argo didn't just whack Tommy. They tortured him and killed him slowly. Henry says that John made sure Tommy's death 'took a long time.'

"That was just one of the sickening things that happened back then. And there was more yet to come."

That moron Polisi couldn't even get Tommy AGRO's name right.

But that is what Polisi has in his book on Desimone's murder. It's on page 348.

http://books.google.com/books?id=QsuLKxDtHbUC&pg=PA348

Saw this on some music forum but the poster didn't say where he got it from. Hill never tells the same story twice. He was a fucking degenerate idiot.

"When Henry Hill became an FBI informant in 1980, he told authorities that DeSimone had been murdered by the Gambino Crime Family. The full details were unknown until 1994, when Hill, in his book Gangsters and Goodfellas, gave the whole story of the events leading up to DeSimone's death. Hill's wife, Karen, had been having an affair with Hill's boss, Mafia Capo Paul Vario. When Hill was sentenced to prison, DeSimone approached Karen Hill for sex; when she turned him down, DeSimone attempted to rape her. In retaliation, Paul Vario approached the Gambino crew and revealed that DeSimone had murdered Foxy and Billy Batts without first seeking permission from the Gambino family, violating mafia protocol. Sometime in January 1979, DeSimone was contacted and told that he was going to be "made." Peter Varýo and Bruno Facciolo took him to a house, where he was executed."

The same paragraph is on DeSimones wiki page so thats probably where this other guy got it from.

Well, I hear what you are saying, and maybe Polisi was/is a moron and maybe Hill was a lying degenerate, and maybe not. But I am pretty sure they know/knew a lot more about it than we do.

Their testimony has to count for something. After all they knew these jokers personally.

Well sure they know more then i or we do. I never said i knew anything about it. But that doesn't mean what he does say is the truth.

I'm really not trying to start an arguement with you over Hill, all i'm saying is don't believe everything that clown said was the truth.

Hill wasn't there when they killed DeSimone, so how can he be 100% sure about who was there and who wasn't? I doubt anyone told Hill the real details. I'm sure he heard rumors that were going around though, but who really knows. With that lying sack of shit Hill i don't believe anything he said as a fact unless it's backed up with a second source. But maybe thats just me, i don't know. Over the years, after each interview he did i found him less credible each time he talked. I really did.

And Polisi is just saying what Hill said, he wasn't offering any new info on it. But he did say he believed Henry.

Ok? Take care.

I believe vario and the luchesses were responsible. Bruno was under Paul vario it makes sense he'd be in on it.and I've never read that book I read this jus scourn the internet 1day but who knows really

I got you bro, and I am not trying to argue either. And Hill was full of garbage a lot of the time. I just think what Hill (and Polisi) said has to have a little merit.