As the capo of the Lucesse crime family, Paul Vario was not a man you wanted to cross.
Wikimedia CommonsLucchese 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 don, barking orders in expensive suits; he was the quiet muscle, the one who ran a network of gambling dens, loan sharks, and fences for stolen goods. He operated in 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 – prison bars 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 Luchesse 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 Pileggie, 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 mobster who worked closely with Paul Vario for years.
But that didn’t slow Vario down. He kept at it, eventually moving on to bigger and bigger jobs. He started collecting debts and payments, and it allowed him to eventually weasel his way into the Lucchese’s inner circle.
Unfortunately, Vario’s dark side came out often. According to Anthony M. DeStefano’s The Big Heist, in 1937, he and Anthony Romano were identified by a 16-year-old girl, who accused both men of sexually assaulting her. Both Vario and Romano were found guilty of rape and sentenced to 10 to 20 years in Sing Sing prison — during which, Vario was paroled twice, only to be sent back both times for violating it.
But when 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 was quickly made to be 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 by Henry Hill, 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,” 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.
Later that night, when the restaurant was closing up, Vario sent some of his men — including Hill — to beat the restaurant staff with baseball bats and pipes.
Vario acted as a sort of mentor to guys like Henry Hill. Up-and-coming mobsters. He showed them the ropes, had them run his errands, kept them under his control. He was tough. People were scared 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, Vario repaid all those years of loyalty by having an affair with Hill’s wife, Karen. While that was going on, another associate, Tommy DeSimone, attempted to rape Karen — which, along with several other incidents including the Lufthansa heist, led to Vario having DeSimone killed.
On the Run: A Mafia Childhood
Henry and Karen Hill.
All the while, Vario was running several underworld operations as well as a few legitimate businesses, manipulating union leaders to secure contracts, and seeing to it that certain politicians stayed out of his crew’s way with bribery. But although Vario wasn’t directly involved with the Lufthansa heist — that was all Jimmy Burke — his associates were. Including Henry Hill.
Vario and Burke were each growing paranoid that the FBI would come knocking, and when Henry Hill turned informant, that knocking came swift and loud.
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 him in Goodfellas.
Henry Hill’s arrest in the late 1970s truly marked the beginning of the end for the “real-life Goodfellas.” Burke and Vario had tried to tie up any loose ends, but they didn’t account on Hill talking to the feds.
When he did, he implicated both Vario and Burke — and a few others — in a variety of crimes. Hill went into Witness Protection, and Vario and Burke went to prison. It was ultimately charges of racketeering, gambling, and loan sharking that landed Vario behind bars in 1984.
Wikimedia CommonsJFK Airport in the 1970s, when the Lufthansa heist was pulled off.
During his time in prison, though, Vario’s health 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 and heart problems, 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 and heart failure at the age of 73. A few years later, he was used as inspiration, partly, for the Martin Scorsese film Goodfellas, though his name was changed to Paul 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.
