Thomas DeSimone
Thomas Anthony "Two-Gun Tommy" DeSimone (May 24, 1938 – January 14, 1979) was a gangster and associate of the Lucchese crime family in New York. He was also nephew of Los Angeles mob boss Frank DeSimone and related to James DeSimone, Robert DeSimone , Ralph DeSimone, Joseph DeSimone and Frank DeSimone II. Thomas "Two Guns" DeSimone was the basis for the character "Tommy DeVito" played by Joe Pesci in the 1990 movie Goodfellas. Thomas and Anthony had one sister, Dolores.
Family lineage and background
Tommy came from a long Los Angeles mafia family lineage before relocating to the East Coast. One relative, Rosario DeSimone was the boss over Los Angeles, San Diego and Las Vegas from 1931 until his death in 1946. [1] Tommy's brother Vincent became an informant on the Gambino family and was later executed. Tommy's uncle, Frank DeSimone, was a criminal attorney-turned-mobster who was the inspiration for the Robert Duvall character Tom Hagen in the 1972 film The Godfather. "Uncle Frank" (as he was known) replaced Jack Dragna in 1957 after Dragna's death, becoming the second DeSimone family descendant to become Los Angeles don. Frank DeSimone was later disbarred as a lawyer, losing his firm and died of a heart attack on August 4th 1967.
Mafia Associations
Thomas DeSimone worked under Mafia capo Paul Vario with his friends Jimmy Burke and Henry Hill; DeSimone and Hill had known one another since their teens, when Burke took them on as his protégés. Vario used Tommy to steal trucks and perform other crimes for the family, including insurance fraud.
DeSimone's violent temper and callous nature as a hitman were well known. While playing pinochle with mobster-turned-informant Joe Ianuzzi, Tommy Agro and brother Robert DeSimone, Thomas started throwing the darts at the fellow players when he started losing. He was also well known for murdering Burke's best friend at one time, a man named Remo. Remo had allegedly informed on the Burke crew and so Burke and his crew took Remo for an impromptu trip one night. Once in a secluded location, DeSimone, strangled Remo using a garrot wire. Remo allegedly soiled himself in Burke's car with fear and his body was buried in Robert's Lounge, under the boccie court.
Hill described DeSimone and Burke by saying, "It didn't take anything for these guys to kill you. They liked it. They would sit around drinking booze and talk about their favorite hits. They enjoyed talking about them." Hill later described DeSimone as a "psychopath", and suggested that DeSimone had something to prove because his older brother, Vincent, had become an informant and was allegedly murdered by members of the Gambino crime family, and that Tommy felt that he had to prove his loyalty by "overcompensating."
On June 11th 1970, DeSimone killed William "Billy Batts" Devino, a made man who was part of the Gambino crime family. He worked with rising mobster John Gotti. Batts had apparently insulted DeSimone in a bar. In his book Gangsters and Goodfellas, Hill explains that Batts had just gotten out of prison, and while he was incarcerated, Burke had taken over all of his old businesses and illegal enterprises. Batts, who outranked Burke, was attempting to get permission to seize his enterprises back, by force if necessary. The insult, combined with DeSimone's temper and Burke's anger over the possibility of losing money, spurred DeSimone to murder Batts. Jimmy Burke held Batts in place while DeSimone beat his skull in with a .38 revolver. DeSimone, Burke, and an unwitting Hill loaded Batts into the trunk of Hill's 1975 Buick Electra, and were on their way to bury him when Batts woke up; he had to be beaten/stabbed further before he eventually died.
DeSimone's third murder is described by Hill in his book Wiseguy. A teenage boy named Michael "Spider" Gianco was acting as bartender at a card game, and forgot to bring DeSimone his drink. In response, DeSimone took out a handgun, demanded that Gianco dance for him, and started shooting at his feet, eventually shooting Gianco in the foot. A week later, Gianco was again serving drinks; DeSimone told Gianco to dance again and Gianco replied "Go fuck yourself." Even though the other card players expressed admiration for Gianco's standing up for himself, DeSimone was humiliated and furious. Losing his temper once again, DeSimone shot Gianco in the chest, killing him. In Goodfellas, Michael Gianco is portrayed by Michael Imperioli.
His fourth murder, according to Hill, occurred when DeSimone got carried away after being asked to 'rough up' a witness to a robbery, and instead beat the victim to death. The facts were that after a truck heist a man had refused to allow Henry Hill to unload the loot in the factory and made a tremendous fuss because they had no union cards. Burke attempted to reason with the man, but he stood his ground and refused to be threatened, after this Burke, foolishly, sent DeSimone and Angelo Sepe to the man's apartment to threaten him and as is said above, 'rough him up', but DeSimone ended up beating him to death.
DeSimone's fifth murder was of John Gotti's protégé, a young gangster named Ronald "Foxy" Jerothe. DeSimone had dated Jerothe's sister and then beaten her up, prompting Jerothe to threaten to kill DeSimone. When DeSimone heard about the threat, he went to Jerothe's apartment and knocked on the door; Jerothe opened the door, punched DeSimone in the face, and then DeSimone shot Jerothe between the eyes, killing him.
DeSimone was alleged to have taken part in the December 1978 Lufthansa heist from JFK International Airport, the largest robbery in U.S. history at the time, with the loot reputed to be almost $6,000,000, only a fraction of which was recovered. He was picked out by having very well polished shoes from an employee.
Henry Hill claims that during the week after Christmas 1978, after murdering Lufthansa robber lackee Parnell Stevens Edwards, DeSimone was going to become a "made" member of the Lucchese Family, but due to a heavy snowfall, the event was called off. A few weeks later, DeSimone disappeared.
In Gangsters and GoodFellas Henry Hill mentioned that DeSimone had killed around 4 people whilst in prison, so that brings the total to around 10. Hill commented that Tommy would murder someone just because he wanted to try out a new gun and wouldn't hesitate to use someone as a human target for practice.
It is highly likely that aside from knowing murder was a necessity in his trade that DeSimone received a real sense of empowerment and a thrill when he killed someone, he had even begun carrying two pistols to distinguishe himself from others.
DeSimone's infamy rests on the depiction of him given by actor Joe Pesci in the movie Goodfellas, a role for which Pesci won an Academy Award. Not surprisingly, the movie took some artistic liberties with a few facts: DeSimone/DeVito was shown ramming an ice pick into Martin Krugman's head; Henry Hill claimed that DeSimone was dead by the time Krugman was killed. At various points in the film, for the purpose of making the story flow better, DeSimone/DeVito was substituted (such as the double date scene, where Hill met his future wife, Tommy substituted for Paul Vario's son, Lenny who actually went on the date), this happened in other scenes throughout the movie. Hill, nonetheless, calls Pesci's portrayal "95% accurate," mentioning only that Pesci did not physically resemble the character he portrayed (the real Tommy DeSimone was tall, muscular, always wore a mustache, and was only in his twenties during the events depicted in Goodfellas).
Disappearance and death
On January 14, 1979, DeSimone's wife Cookie reported him missing. Teressa Ferrara, Martin Krugman, Frenchy McMahon, Joe Manri, Parnell Steven Edwards and Paolo LiCastri had all been murdered following the Lufthansa Heist by Jimmy Burke, who wanted to avoid paying them their share of the loot. For years, the New York Police and FBI believed that DeSimone had either been murdered by Burke, or that he was in hiding to avoid being killed.
It was not until Henry Hill became an FBI informant in 1980 that the authorities found out 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." Two men picked him up and took him to a house, where he was executed. His brother Vincent's capo, Tommy "Tommy Ambrosio" Agro lured Thomas DeSimone back to New York and assassinated him on the orders of John Gotti. He also admitted to murdering his brother Vincent after Vince turned informant. He admitted this to turncoat-soldier Joe "Joe Dogs" Ianuzzi. Tommy Agro also at times suggested murdering Robert DeSimone
In October 2004, based on the testimony of Joe Massino, the FBI dug out John Gotti's old graveyard "The Hole" in Queens, where they found the corpses of Sonny Black (who was executed two months after the Donnie Brasco investigation), DeSimone, Phillip "Lucky Philly" Giaccone and Domonick "Big Trin" Trinchera that were murdered ironically by Benjamin Ruggiero, Domonick Napolitano, John "Boobie" Cersani, George Sciasca, Louis Giongetti, Vito Rizzuto, and Tommy's Uncle Joseph DeSimone including John Favara a furniture salesman and backyard next door neighbor of John Gotti, a man who was chainsawed to death after running over John Gotti's 12-year-old son, Frank.
External links and references/sources cited
- International Mafia Boss List
- Biography and Pictures
- Wiseguy, by Nicholas Pileggi and Henry Hill
- Gangsters and Goodfellas, by Henry Hill
- Joe Dogs: The Life and Times of a Mobster by Joseph Ianuzzi