Tommy DeSimone: The Lucchese Soldier Who Was Too Violent Even for Goodfellas
Joe Pesci’s portrayal of Tommy DeVito in Goodfellas remains one of the most terrifying performances in film history. The character’s hair-trigger violence, his murder of Billy Batts in a bar, and his eventual execution by the mob are all drawn from a real person — Thomas “Tommy” DeSimone, a Lucchese crime family associate who operated out of Queens and Brooklyn in the 1960s and 1970s. But the real DeSimone was, by every documented account, significantly more dangerous than the version Martin Scorsese put on screen. The film toned him down.
A Family Built on Violence
Tommy DeSimone came from deep mob lineage. His brother Angelo was a made member of the Gambino family. His uncle Rosario was a known associate. Tommy grew up around organized crime and began building a reputation for extreme violence while still a teenager. By the time he joined Henry Hill’s crew under Paul Vario in the Lucchese family, he had already established himself as someone who used brutality not as a last resort but as a first response. Unlike the film version, where Tommy’s violence occasionally seems spontaneous or impulsive, the real DeSimone’s documented pattern shows someone who used murder strategically to build status within the organization.
The Murders Goodfellas Showed — and the Ones It Didn’t
Goodfellas depicts Tommy killing Billy Batts and Spider — both based on real events. The murder of William “Billy Batts” Bentvena in 1970 did happen at a bar, though the circumstances were even more drawn out than the film suggests. DeSimone also killed Theresa Ferrara, a young woman associated with the crew, whose dismembered remains were found on a Rockaway beach in 1979. This murder is entirely absent from the film. Prosecutors and FBI informants connected DeSimone to multiple additional homicides that Scorsese chose not to include, partly because Henry Hill himself did not witness all of them and the film maintained Hill’s point of view. The body count attributed to DeSimone by law enforcement exceeded what the film depicted.
The Lufthansa Connection
DeSimone was a key participant in the December 1978 Lufthansa heist at John F. Kennedy Airport — the largest cash robbery in American history at that time, netting approximately $5 million in cash and $875,000 in jewelry. His role in the heist made him a liability. Jimmy Burke, who organized the robbery, systematically eliminated anyone who might connect him to the crime. But DeSimone’s fate was sealed by more than just the Lufthansa job. His unauthorized murder of Billy Batts — a made member of the Gambino family — had created a blood debt that the Gambinos never forgot.
The Disappearance
On January 14, 1979, Tommy DeSimone vanished. He was reportedly told he was being taken to a ceremony to become a made member of the Lucchese family — the same setup depicted in Goodfellas. Instead, he was executed. His body has never been found. The film portrays this scene with devastating efficiency: Tommy walks into a room expecting celebration and is met with a bullet. The documented reality is consistent with this account, though the exact participants and location remain matters of law enforcement speculation. Multiple informants confirmed the general outline, but the details — who pulled the trigger, where the body was disposed of — have never been established with certainty. Tommy DeSimone was 28 years old. His disappearance was reported to the NYPD, but the case went nowhere. In the world he inhabited, people simply ceased to exist.