Why wasn't Henry Hill whacked right after he was busted? He was busted April 27th 1980 and he turned state's evidence on May 27th. Why didn't Paul Vario or Jimmy Burke whack him as soon as he got out on bail?

Read Wiseguy. He hid out and continued to make small moves to gather drug money. He wasn't running too closely with Vario or even Burke at that present moment in time.

The story truthfully reads closer to him being a low tier mid level drug dealer than anything else at that point in his career arch on the streets. He was supplying a handful of lower level drug dealers if I recall around the Long Island area. Oddly enough Hill was supplying to Bobby Germaine who was operating under an assumed identity while on the lam and as well in unrelated circumstances to Bobby Germaine Jr.

Jimmy Burke through Angelo Sepe Killed Germaine Jr. who informed on essentially everyone in question on this thread. It was through arresting Germaine Jr. on a small time drug charge that the government was able to set up and bring down Henry Hill on a slightly greater drug charge.

In the grand scheme I'm sure Vario and Burke thought Hill would stand tall to some extent, failing to realize that (A)he had no reason to at that point. He was on the outside of Vario's bookmaking operation and Burke's loansharking operation. He was primarily in narcotics at that point and as a grander (B) point, he was simply put a junkie. I don't say that to demean Hill or demean drug addiction, that is solely to indicate that Hill was perceived to be something he was not and as a result Burke and Vario misjudged his integrity. Another fair point to make is how truly removed from the streets Vario was at this point in his life, dealing with many street level guys through Henry in many instances. I think both men failed to judge how swiftly Hill would inform and as result could not act fast enough.

According to the book "Wiseguy", after he made bail on the narcotics charge,there were at least two attempts by Jimmy to set Henry up to get killed. One was where Jimmy asked Henry to meet him at a bar in Queens which was owned by a guy named "Charlie the Jap". Hill said that he had never been to this particular bar and all of a sudden Burke wants to meet up there. Hill also said that it was the type of place that would be perfect for a hit (enclosed rear courtyard-easy to take a body out without being seen,among other features),and the second attempt was when Jimmy tried to get Henry to go to Florida with one of his crew members to kill Bobby Germaine's son. Hill said that he knew that if he went to Florida,he wasn't coming back.

Had Henry stayed on the streets,sooner or later he would have gotten hit. That's why the head of the Strike Force,(McDonald) had Henry arrested again,this time as a material witness in the Lufthansa heist. That's when Henry weighed his options and knew he had no out,except to turn informant.

@Lou

Strong points on all accounts. The Florida trip was without question a death sentence, I've always wondered why not just take Henry out in NY during that conversation...

The reality of Goodfellas is that Hill wasn't operating at the level people are led to believe that he was. While this was all happening, there was no Wiseguys novel yet, there was no Goodfellas film. I'm not sure Hill was honestly observed to be the iconic gangster the film has left his depicted as. My point being that I never got the sense that killing Hill was high priority while he was on bail, b/c Hill wasn't necessarily high priority himself. As stated earlier, Hill was earning primarily on his own through drugs at this point, as his bar did not generate realistic income. He wasn't closely aligned in the business of others.

There wasn't a ton of time to isolate him and murder him between him ducking meetings and doing everything he could while on bail to scavenge any money he felt he could get his hands on. Half ass attempts were made, whole ass attempts would have been had Henry been seen for what/who he was sooner.

I think that the main reason why Jimmy (and by extension,Paulie) wanted to whack Henry was that even though Hill was a small timer
as far as the drug business,it was still the drug business. If you remember, in the film,and the book as well,Paulie was obsessed with not going to prison on a drug conspiracy charge,like his buddy Gribbs.

I think a case could be made that precisely because Henry was a nobody in the Mob,he wouldn't have a whole lot of leverage with the Feds. In Paulie's mind,implicating Paulie and Jimmy in the drug trade could have given Henry a bargaining chip. And even though Paulie had no knowledge of Henry's dealing,and would have never condoned it,Paulie's got to figure,why take the risk?

I think admittedly you're reading too deeply into a line from a film. It was fictional and added for context. Gribbs was being used as a timestamp to mark to most recent major drug arrest in that time period to be used an an example. Also worth noting is that Paulie was having an affair with Karen while Henry was in prison. This is largely the point of contention for his issue with Henry IMO.

Nearly every single member of Paulie by extension was involved in drugs in one way or another. Either financing or outright trafficking. Paulie loaned a LOT of money on the streets but at this point in time had few other rackets going. If his guys couldn't earn on their own, they weren't making any "real" money. I also restate my point of how disconnected Paulie was from the streets. There wasn't some oversight committee to judge the mobsters who were privately dealing drugs. Paulie logically wouldn't have known until it was too late, because he was too far removed from the street level and as well seemingly slightly out of tough with the modernizing rackets as the book seemed to have framed him as an aging paranoid.

Literally every member of Jimmy and his crew were dealing. Jimmy with Henry. Then afterwards with Tommy D, then with Angelo Sepe and others. It's not that they didn't want to kill Henry, as I stated earlier, I simply feel they acted too late.

A few other points:

Paulie Vario was himself a cocaine dealer according to Al D'Arco's book. Paulie offered to cut him in on a coke deal. So as we all know, the ban on drugs was a farce. Vario and Burke would have hit Hill just to avoid getting caught.

Henry Hill was snorting heroin for 7 or 8 months around the time of his drug arrest according to his book Gangsters and Goodfellas. So whoever said above that Henry was a junkie was correct.

While Goodfellas is one of the greatest movies ever, it fictionalizes a lot of the mafia elements and leaves out a lot of important facts in the books.

Henry Hill seemed to be too small time to bother killing. I think his ties to Paul Vario were played up by him and Pileggi to build up his story. He must have known him, and they took a photo together once, but I believe Burke may have been closer to Vario. If they won't kill a Gravano or a Michael Franzese, they will not bother with a small timer like Henry Hill.

The Trumanti line referred to a case in which an agent testified that Trumanti shaking hands when saying hello to a man in a restaurant was a signal that the man could proceed with a drug deal.

Actually in Hill's book he describes growing up very close to the Varios. He says he stood as best man at more than one of Vario's sons' weddings. The scene in the movie where Hill first meets his wife was true except he was actually playing wingman for one of Vario's sons. In Al D'Arco's book Mob Boss, D'Arco says that one of the reasons Hill got away with so much is because Vario liked him so much. So I think they were extremely close on a personal level.

You guys ever see when Henry was shitfaced on Howard stern and said he killed three people on pauly’s orders?

He got indicted for waving to GiGi Inglese at a restaurant. This was mentioned in the film to illustrate context. If we're being honest, narcotics was a large part of the sphere of general enterprise for Luchhese Members in the 70s & 80s. Those connected and not involved in the Garment Center or labor rackets where usually involved in Drugs and some combination of Auto/Book/Loans. Those seemed to have been largely the trades that leant themselves to those crews given the areas they operated during that time period.

The keyword being, "growing" up. This was nearly two decades later at that point in time. Hill was no longer a teenager and 20 something growing up with Vario's sons within the same age range. They were now grown men with children and families and while yes, they largely ran around with Henry and that Burke/Vario crew of hard drinking partiers, Hill was the extreme case as a legitimate drug addict and full time narcotics trafficker.

If you're going to cite his book, that's fair and I agree with your statements that he was initially very close with Petey and Babe Vario and Lenny I believe as well, however, in that same book it illustrates a very clear depiction of Hill all but totally recoiled from mafia live, living as a lower tier debatably mid level cocaine dealer in the suburbs of Long Island. He has no other action on the street but drugs at this time and is devoted to getting drugs to Pittsburgh and Atlanta, not running with Jimmy or doing scores for the crew. Food for thought, do you think Henry was really kicking up regularly at this point? I'm not saying he needed to or was expected to given his close friendship with his Capo's. That being said, my point is, out of sight, out of mind. Henry was left to do his thing at this point.

I'm pretty sure Henry was close to a lot of Varios when he was young.I think he was with Pete Vario not Tommy when he met Karen.By the late 70s early 80 he was pretty much a junkie drug dealer and I don't think he really hung out with them much anymore.
Henery said he was working with Jimmy on the point shaving and drug deals .Ater he got busted Henery said Jimmy wanted him dead mostly so that Paul wouldn't find out about Jimmys involvement in drugs.
Henery also said that he was giving bags of $ to Paul the whole time .He "knew"where the $ came from but didn't care. Although he didn't have any problem killing him when he got caught.
I think Henery got very lucky.These guys killed for a lot less.If there's a threat that someone could put you in prison in their eyes that's a great reason.
Henry also may not seem to brite but he did grow up on the streets and had street smarts.He also knew these people very well.I think Henry was supposed to pick up the plane tickets for the FL trip at a bar, he knew it was a set up and didn't go.Im sure there were never any tickets
I don't remember did Paul or Jimmy get charged with any drug offensiv?Doesn't seem like it.
I though Paul got off with a relatively light sentence(I don't remember what charge) but then got charged in a big racketeering can at JFK. I don't think Henry had much of anything to do with that case.
Jimmy got a pretty big sentence for the point shaving cause it was a federal case and then Henry helped a little with Jimmys conviction of the Eaton murder

A question:
While he didn't really have a relationship with Burke and Vario as of 1980 - you say he was mostly a (freelance?) coke pusher - was he as close with Burke as the film depicts in the 1960s and 1970s?

Basically my question is, how much of the film would you say is true to life and how much is bullshit as far as Hill's involvement in things went?

Fair enough. He was once very close to them and later grew apart. I was replying to the claim that his ties to the Varios were "played up" in the book or movie.

Anthony Colombo called bullshit on Henry Hill:

AliceCooper - fuck yes I used to love when Hendry would come on and Artie would do lines from the movie and Henry would laugh with that smokers weeze and Howard would get nauseous....I remember Spiders sister called in back in the early 90s on one of his first appearances and was grilling henry on where her brother was buried and callin him a piece of shit and Henry was def sullen and sounded remorseful, but who knows

Also, I remember Henry getting into with a caller named Paulie who claimed he was from Leffertz Blvd in queens, knew Jimmy and Tommy and said henry was nothing more than a gopher and that he hung around with Frankie the Fag lol...Him and Henry used to get into pissing matches threatening each other via telephone..

When henry was drunk was the best, just a total shit show...one time Artie was grilling him about mob stories and even then Henry said John Gotti whacked Tommy DeSimone b/c of his killing of Foxy Jerothe

For anyone who hasnt heard Henry Hill on Howard Stern show, I highly recommend it, he was on maybe 10 times and they were always very entertaining. Henry was a funny drunken mess, but he did occasionally have good stories too....Side note, but Stern is fuckin awful now, I cant listen since Artie Lange left, he was the man and the only one who actually made me laugh