As the capo of the Lucesse crime family, Paul Vario was not a man you wanted to cross.
Wikimedia CommonsLucchese crime family capo Paul Vario.
Brooklyn’s streets held a different kind of allure for Paul Vario. Forget the corner hotdog stands and bustling markets. Vario carved his own path, one paved with whispers, muscle, and the glint of easy money. From a young age, trouble seemed to follow him like a stray dog. A stint in prison for a brutal crime left a mark, but it also introduced him to a darker world – the Lucchese crime family.
Vario quickly rose within the ranks, thanks in no small part to his imposing size and simmering temper. Vario wasn’t a flashy leader, barking orders in expensive suits; he was the muscle, the one who ran a network of illegal gambling, loan-sharking, and fencing stolen goods. He often avoided the spotlight and operated from the shadows, but everyone knew who called the shots.
But empires, especially those built on fear and money, have a way of crumbling. A trusted associate, Henry Hill, flipped when the law finally caught up to him. Hill became an informant, and when he started spilling, Vario’s carefully constructed world came crashing down. His reign ended with a whimper, not a bang – a prison cell replacing the backrooms where he held court. And Vario ultimately died behind bars, a cautionary tale for those who sought power in the underworld.
Paul Vario’s Early Life And Introduction To The Lucchese Crime Family
Brooklyn in the early 20th century was a place where opportunities were scarce, and the streets were tough. Born on July 10, 1914, Paul “Paulie” Vario, grew up in this harsh reality. From a young age, Vario understood that to make it in this world, one had to be resourceful, cunning, and unafraid to get their hands dirty.
He started small, running errands for local gangsters and earning a reputation as a reliable kid who knew when to keep his mouth shut. According to Henry Hill and author Nicholas Pileggi, who wrote Wiseguy about Hill’s life, Vario was sentenced to seven months in juvenile detention for truancy when he was just 11 years old — too busy doing small jobs for mobsters to go to school, it seemed.
Public DomainHenry Hill, the mob associate who worked closely with Paul Vario for years.
But juvenile detention didn’t deter Vario from a life of crime. He remained in contact with numerous gangsters and mobsters and eventually became closely associated with the Lucchese crime family in particular.
Unfortunately, Vario’s dark side came out often. According to Anthony M. DeStefano’s The Big Heist, in 1937, Vario was identified by a 16-year-old girl as one of a group of men who sexually assaulter her. Then in his early 20s, Vario was found guilty of rape and sentenced to 10 to 20 years in Sing Sing prison. He was paroled twice, but was ultimately sent back both times for violating parole.
But every time Vario emerged from prison, the Lucchese family was waiting for him with open arms. And Vario was found to be so effective at getting the job done, he became a made man — and a capo.
Paul Vario’s Temperamental Time As A Capo
There are two stories that paint a clear picture of the kind of man Paul Vario was.
The first, recounted in Wiseguy, involved Vario and his wife Phyllis out one night on a dinner date. Vario was frustrated that the maître d’ at Don Pepe’s Vesuvio kept seating other people before him. He complained loudly, and though he and his wife were eventually seated, the maître d’ was clearly annoyed with him.
“When Paulie ordered some wine, the maître d’ came to pour and, maybe by accident, spilled it all over Phyllis,” Henry Hill recalled. “By now Paulie’s coming out of his skin. But when the maître d’ pulled out a dirty rag and started putting his hands all over Phyllis’ dress, Paulie turned over the table, and he started to slap the guy around. Paulie only managed to get one or two swings at the guy before he ran into the kitchen. When Paulie told him to come out, a half dozen waiters with heavy pans and knives blocked the kitchen door.”
New York Daily News/Newspapers.comA 1972 newspaper headline about Paul Vario’s arrest for tampering with a witness. Vario spent much of his life in and out of prison for various crimes, including rape, tax evasion, and burglary.
Later that night, when the restaurant was closing up, Vario sent some of his men — including Hill — to beat the restaurant staff members with baseball bats and pipes. And none of the men hesitated. As Hill put it: “It was so easy. Lump them up. Whack them out. Nobody ever thought, Why? What for? Nobody thought about business.”
Vario acted as a sort of mentor to guys like Henry Hill. Up-and-coming mobsters and mob associates. He showed them the ropes, had them run his errands, kept them under his control. He was tough. People were afraid to make him angry. That kind of relationship built trust, albeit a trust based on fear, but not a trust that went both ways.
When Henry Hill went to prison on extortion charges, Vario repaid all those years of loyalty by having an affair with Hill’s wife, Karen Friedman Hill. While that was going on, another Lucchese crime family associate, Tommy DeSimone, attempted to rape Karen — which, along with several other incidents (including an unauthorized murder of a made man), led to DeSimone being killed. It’s widely believed that Vario was the one who revealed DeSimone’s wrongdoings to the people who executed him.
On the Run: A Mafia ChildhoodHenry Hill and his wife Karen Friedman Hill, who Paul Vario had an affair with.
All the while, Vario was running several underworld operations as well as a few legitimate businesses (he often described himself as a “florist” since one of his businesses was a flower shop). He used bribes and manipulation to keep authority figures out of his crew’s way, but became increasingly concerned about his operation falling apart. This was especially true after the infamous Lufthansa heist of 1978 — which involved stealing nearly $6 million in cash and jewels from the Lufthansa terminal at the JFK Airport in New York City.
Though Vario wasn’t directly involved in this robbery — the mastermind of this operation was the gangster Jimmy Burke — many of Vario’s associates were. Henry Hill’s involvement was relatively minimal compared to Burke’s, but he was well informed about the robbery and what the mobsters had planned.
And when an associate involved in the heist, Parnell “Stacks” Edwards, foolishly left behind a getaway car — and fingerprints — in a no-parking zone, Vario and Burke both became increasingly paranoid that authorities would come knocking. Because of this, Edwards and many other associates involved in the crime were killed.
But Hill was still alive — and he was about to turn informant.
Henry Hill’s Testimony Lands Paul Vario In Jail For The Rest Of His Life
Public Domain/Warner Bros. PicturesThe real-life Paul Vario (left) and Paul Sorvino, the actor who portrayed a fictionalized version of him — Paulie Cicero — in Goodfellas.
Henry Hill’s arrest in 1980 on drug-trafficking charges truly marked the beginning of the end for the “real-life Goodfellas.” Burke and Vario had tried to tie up any loose ends, but taking out Hill was lower on their priority list. Unbeknownst to them, authorities had secretly recorded them discussing the possibility of “whacking” Hill — and played the conversation for Hill while he was in custody.
Understanding that his loyalty to the mob no longer meant anything to Vario or Burke, Hill implicated both of them — and a number of other mobsters — in a variety of crimes. Hill later entered the Witness Protection Program, and Vario and Burke went to prison (though strangely, Burke was never charged with any crimes related to the Lufthansa heist). In 1984, Vario was found guilty of defrauding the government, and the following year, he was convicted of extortion.
Wikimedia CommonsJFK Airport in the 1970s, when the Lufthansa heist was pulled off.
During his time in prison, Vario’s health soon began to decline. The harsh realities of prison life, combined with his advancing age, took a toll on his physical well-being. He suffered from respiratory issues, which worsened over time. Despite the efforts of his lawyers to secure early release on medical grounds, Vario remained incarcerated. His attempts to appeal his conviction or reduce his sentence were unsuccessful, as the weight of the evidence against him and his long history of criminal activity left little room for leniency.
Then, on May 3, 1988, Paul Vario died in prison from respiratory arrest resulting from chronic obstructive lung disease at the age of 73. Just a couple of later, he was used as inspiration, partly, for the Martin Scorsese film Goodfellas, though his name was changed to Paulie Cicero, played by the late Paul Sorvino.
After learning about Paul Vario, read the story of Karen Hill, wife of Henry Hill. Then, check out the story of Billy Batts.
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