Sherry refused to sign them. Hill was now going by the name Martin Lewis. It explained a lot, like how her roommate found a mayonnaise jar filled with a white powdery substance that could only be described as an illegal narcotic. I think sometimes my grandparents liked my dad in spite of themselves. Gina flew to Florida, and although Justin was already in a foster home, Gina was able to obtain custody. It took quite a while for the DEA officials to confirm that their target Martin Lewis was actually Henry Hill, and when the news broke, choppers were hovering over the Hill house for weeks. All I knew was that my father was in trouble, and I resented him for it. It was an incident which made the bond she shared with Henry stronger. It seemed like this woman knew who her husband was. Finally, Karen figured out a way to dissolve Hills marriage to Sherry. Hills last major job with his gang was the Lufthansa heist at John F Kennedy airport in New York in December 1978, which netted them a then-record $5.875 million. She said Hill had recently made his peace with his family, but I dont think he ever got over his demons. Jimmy Burke usually tucked a fifty in the guys shirt pocket for his trouble; thats where he got his nickname, The Gent. Associated Press. We are the children of one of the most notorious mobsters turned FBI informants, Henry Hill. 'But I moved in with her for a short period of time; it didn't last long because I kept going home to Karen and the kids. In recent times however he ventured out in public more opening a restaurant called Wiseguys, launching his own brand of spaghetti sauce and appearing on US TV talking about gangster movies. Worse, he behaved like it was some mobster joint back in New York City. Every time Hill was busted by local authorities, he and his family had to relocate so as to keep them off the mafia radar, and within the first year of their time in the program, the Hills had moved from Omaha, Nebraska, to Independence, Kentucky, then to the sleepy town of Redmond, Washington. , updated On the Run is a terrific read, but quite disturbing. She also didnt know that anyone who became close to him was a walking target. http://www.amazon.com/Mobsters-Gangs-Crooks-Creeps-ebook/dp/B006H99D1U/ref=zg_bs_11010_5, I never thought that I could enjoy a book about mob rat Henry Hill, but this one written by his son, Gregg, and his daughter, Gina, kept my interest and gave me a vivid account of two poor kids on the run.. If youre wondering if Janet was Hills wife, she wasnt. She was notorious mobster Henry Hill's girlfriend - the dude from Goodfellas who passed away at age 69 yesterday. I wanted to visit my dad right away. Hills prediction was right: it was a bestseller. Both were in shock over what they were each hearing. But he didnt try hard enough. Gregg, in his early teens, thoroughly hated his father and his fathers deceptive and downright mean machinations, while Gina, a few years younger, was more of a Daddys Girl, until she eventually smartened up too. He even converted to Judaism, got circumcised and everything; my grandma made a little tent for the sheets when he was recuperating so his sore parts would be protected. He started groping her in the front seat and my mom told him to stop but he didnt so she slapped him. I knew it was a bad sign when we needed to be towed up the exit ramp of the parking lot at the Howard Johnsons Motor Lodge. She hugged me and then left me alone. Wed 13 Jun 2012 11.51 EDT 50 Henry Hill has died - of natural causes. The couple had two kids Gregg and Gina. My dad tried to make my grandma happy. What do you mean? With Janets help, Sherry sued Hill for compensation of the money he siphoned off from her when they were married. They were moved to Independence, Kentucky, and were given new identities. Believing that he had slept with Sherry the night before, she went to find her next. Apparently, he had a thing for pistol-whipping. Unlike his father, Gregg adored and took special care of his children. She stormed out of the house as her daughter called out to her, Mom, what are you doing?. Sherry, unwittingly a target, was Janets path to Hill. Soon enough, Sherry received a phone call. He stole everything and from everyone. I cant get married today. She knew nothing about who Martin Lewis really was about his double life, his wife and two teenage kids. Sherry wasnt going to sign anything without an attorney. In 1955, Hill began to warm up to Paul Vario by running some errands for the mafioso at Vario's meat stores,. In On the Run: A Mafia Childhood, Gregg and Gina Hill tell their story of life as the children of Goodfellas mobster Henry Hill. There stood Karen, furious as can be, and she started beating Sherry with the same phone. In Vancouver, Sherry and Samantha went shopping as the guys wrote. So, he became an informant. When Hill showed up to find all of his stuff buried under snow, he raised all hell. Bracco did not meet with Hill prior to filming. Sherrys next move was breaking the bad news to her mother, who adored her son-in-law, and to her son, Kris, who was heartbroken. Most girls would have been terrified at a similar situation if they had to find their man covered in blood and holding a gun. My dad owned a restaurant called The Suite, and he must have been doing pretty well because we could afford to live in a place like the Fairview. Gina also got married and started her own family. Finally, after Hill, against the governments rules, decided to let writer Nick Pileggi pen his autobiography, the government dropped Hill and his family from the Witness Protection Program. First things first: she had to get her husbands marriage to Sherry dissolved. Against his fathers wishes Hill got in with the mafia crowd aged 11 when he started hanging around with the infamous Lucchese family. Lets get married today, he told her. But I definitely remember the Fairview. They started double dating (with Vivian and her husband) and Hill always made an impression with his 100-dollar tips. I just married him. But Karen repeated herself: No, hes my husband. Thats when Sherry said, We need to talk. Sherry followed the car to the familys ranch-style home. It is not known where she is now. I am a Teacher who started creating online content for my students from 2016 so that they can get access to free knowledge online. Initially after their marriage, Karen and Henry moved in with Karen's parents at their home in Lawrence, New York. But the family were still taken out of the witness protection program 'based upon continued arrests and breaches of security'. Karen first met her future husband, Henry through mutual friends. And again, Sherry escaped. While Tony wasnt a member of any crime family, he refused to turn states evidence on any of his friends and associates, even when staring jail time square in the face. Late gangster Henry Hill - who was portrayed by Liotta in Martin Scorcese's hit 1990 movie - was taken into the FBI's witness protection program with his wife Karen and their two children, Gail and Michael, in 1980 after helping to jail members of his infamous mafia gang. Karen Friedman Hill (born January 16, 1946) [1] is an American woman known for her involvement in the American Mafia through her husband Henry Hill, who was an associate of the Lucchese crime family. His notorious smile kept the girls from asking any further questions. I was already used to my dad being away. Both our design and construction staff have a proven . Along the way he peddled cookbooks, travel guides, posters anything for a buck, anything to relive, just for an instant, his days of glittering infamy. The marshals in charge of keeping Hill alive were constantly shaking their heads, but Hill was a tad delusional. She knew that she will go places and can lead an extravagant life if she married him. The testimony led to 50 convictions and meant that Hill, his wife Karen, and their two children had to be put in the US Marshals Witness Protection Program in 1980. She has two sisters, Ellen and Cheryl. At the same time Hill was being followed by a private investigator called Janet. Hill went so far as to threaten Sherry with her life if she didnt sign the divorce papers. Hill later did a 180, claiming that Sherry was never pregnant, and they were never even married. Lorraine Bracco depicted Karen Hill in the film Goodfellas, which was directed by Martin Scorsese. It began to snow and soon enough, all of his stuff was buried under the white. Karen today continues to use an alias to protect her identity, as do her two children, Gregg and Gina. In Gangsters and Goodfellas, Hill conceded that his 'attempt at bigamy' had been 'a complete failure', not least because he kept returning to the home that he also shared with first wife Karen and their children. Thats who my dad was to me then, a wonderful man who brought me dolls and called me Princess. Nobody said anything to him, Gregg wrote. It was about ten years after their wedding that Sherry got a call. Of particular interest to Janet, was Sherrys recent marriage to Martin. He told me once that the wiseguys were the only people who were nice to him. My sister and I had to empty our pockets, and my mother had to hand over her purse to get searched. He wasnt the kind of man they wanted their oldest daughter to end up with, but he could be awfully charming. But Karen thought it was a sexy thing to do. Hes a married man! Gram would scream. Henry worked his way up, became an earner, and proved himself worthy of playing a key role in the notorious heist of Lufthansa Airlines in 1978. Their dad was Henry Hill - immortalised in the book Wiseguy and the Martin Scorsese film. It's cable reimagined No. Wed leave at eleven oclock, sometimes even later, and drive west into Pennsylvania. Theyd get a tip from one of the guys on the loading docks at Kennedy Airport whenever a good load was going out, and theyd follow the driver until he stopped at a red light. She knew something wasnt right. Just like with the witness program, Hill assumed hed get away with it. In 1980, Hill became an FBI informant, and his testimony helped secure 50 Conviction (s), including those of mob capo (captain) Paul Vario and James . Martin moved into the apartment Sherry was sharing with her roommate and lifelong friend, Samantha, who had a son of her own. LOS ANGELES - Henry Hill spent much of his life as a "goodfella," believing his last moment would come with a bullet to the back of his head. Goodfellas saw Henry Hill doing all types of criminal activities, but one his mob boss, Paul Cicero, wasn't on board with was drug trafficking - and here's why. Dont worry about it, one of them told Gram. The day before he went to Lewisburg, the same day my mother was telling my little sister that he was going away for a while, he went out drinking with his friends. Years later, she admitted, It was so devastating I wanted to kill myself, to be quite honest. Slowly but surely, she moved on and started doing hair and makeup for movies and TV shows. Karen is initially troubled by Henry's criminal activities, but she is eventually drawn to the glamorous lifestyle that comes with being a mobster's wife. Sherry was in the shower, and just like the scene from Psycho, the curtains were viciously pulled back. Lisa, of Italian-American descent, shared a Malibu home with Hill (who was portrayed . This is me and my brother, Gregg Hill. On the way home in a blinding snowstorm, the wheels slipped on a curve and threw the Duster into a spin, bouncing one side off the guardrail, then whipping around so the other side smashed it too. Gina also got married and started her own family. He had a better ride through the Pennsylvania farmlands than I ever did. Back in Washington, Sherry had to get back to work. And then wed get to the prison. He called her his Sherry Amour (My Cherie Amour) and told her she was the love of his life. Despite the obvious cons of being married to a con, she still loved him and had false hope that it would work out. I was the best Mob informant [theyd] ever get, he later boasted. Hill was even making collect phone calls from Omaha to New York. The small and striking brunette, 31, was a beautician who grew up around horses and knew her way around the track. My father was one of them. He was always on the phone, walking around the house, dragging the long spiral cord behind him. In another jaw-on-the-floor moment, Hill drank himself dumb as he watched his wives have a hell of a night on the dance floor. How a man could do so much harm to his own family is shocking; even sickening. Finally, through a religious loophole Karen was able to get the marriage annulled. GREGG: Wed be up all night, I would be, anyway, riding in the front seat to help my mother stay awake. Throughout his time spent working for the infamous Lucchese crime family, Hill, who wed his first wife Karen in 1965, was known to have had multiple mistresses. Sherry may have been nave, but she was no aggressor. Twice Karen is said to have attacked Anders, who told Pearl and Nichols: 'I was never so scared in my life.'. According to Gregg Hill, his father constantly cheated on his wife, Karan, and he even got married again to one of his drug buddies while he was still married to Karen. They poked through everything with their batons, and they glared at us, like we were the criminals instead of the men inside. See Photos. Henry Hill. Janet, who thought Hill was a Shmuck, noticed the terror in Sherrys eyes when they met. Even though born to a middle-class family, Karen was ambitious about life, and she enjoyed the perks of marrying Henry Hill. Youre too good for me, he told her one night, drunk. Hed say, Whaddya want, Princess? and Id say, Barbies swimming pool! or something like that, and the next day or the day after, hed bring it home. In On the Run we discover that in 1980, after being shuttled from one hotel to another for several months while the Feds got as much information as they could from Hill, the family ended up on the outskirts of Omaha, Neb. The script for the film was based on the book Wise guy written by Nicholas Pileggi. Kaylen Martin would frequently get into her old Ford Pinto and drive, just to get away from it all. But while their attraction to one another may well have been authentic, it was one of the only aspects of their fiery romance that was. Gram was always tough on Dad. She knew she had to get out of Redmond her life there was poisoned. It helps, but is not necessary, to have read Wiseguy (I haven't) or seen Goodfellas (I have, multiple times). The man who Anders knew as the charming and charismatic Martin was in fact a married mafia informant with a large target on his back, who had a wife and two children living just a few miles from where he and his second spouse met. Before he could properly get kicked out of Sherrys house, he passed out. Easy money wasnt the only thing that wet his whistle. Now that the secret was out, Janet no longer had to tiptoe around. Lured by power and money, Hill gradually became more entrenched with the family and while his half-Sicilian genes his father was Irish meant he could never be a fully-fledged member of the family, he was able to be an associate. Seven weeks after that fateful night in the Mexican restaurant, Hill/Marty just came out with it. She then dragged him out of the bed by the crotch and beat him with a telephone. Tony also probes Hill on the ultimate, moral penalty of terrorizing another human being, beyond the consequences of the law. On the Run: A Mafia Childhood book by Gina Hill True Crime Books > Organized Crime Books ISBN: 1728732247 ISBN13: 9781728732244 The Devil to Pay (Shayne Davies) (Book #1 in the Shayne Davies Series) by Gina Hill and Gregg Hill See Customer Reviews Select Format Hardcover $5.59 - $6.29 Paperback -- Mass Market Paperback $6.49 - $6.79 She wiped the tears from her eyes and streaks of mascara from her cheeks. My dad was always buying me dolls. Nick was around so often that he struck up a romance with Samantha, the roommate. When I was five, my mother made a left turn into a gas station in Island Park in front of a drunk driver who was speeding. Hill, who died in LA in 2012, was taken into witness protection with his wife Karen and their two children, Gina and Gregg, in 1980, after helping the FBI to arrest several of his fellow gangsters. She recounted how, just seven weeks after they met for the first time, Hill suggested that they 'get married today'. Oct. 14, 2004, 4:51 AM PDT Few areas of. All rights reserved. He saw Ted in the driveway, grabbed him by the hair, pulled a gun out of his pocket, and pistol-whipped him. It was titled, On The Run: A Mafia Childhood. With each move, came new identities. She was, however, a private detective. Henry Hill's business partner, Jimmy Burke has whacked every person who could possibly implicate him in the infamous Lufthansa robbery at JFK airport. See Photos. Then one of them would stick a gun in his face. The guards made her take everything out and then they searched the bag with a baton and a miniature flashlight. Although he had converted to Judaism for Karen, he was a born Catholic. In 1989, Henry and Karen divorced after 25 years of marriage. Whereas Hill was doing all the wrong things, Karen went into survival mode. Hed been running with mobsters for more than half his life, since he was eleven years old and started cutting school to hang out at Uncle Paulies cabstand in the Brownsville East section of Brooklyn. They knew Hill was going to go to a dance club, so Sherry and Karen walked in arm and arm. 'I'm Marty Lewis, and this is my first wife. His first arrest came when he was 16 years old and he carried out the Lufthansa raid after serving a six-year prison sentence in the Seventies. They patted me on the back, they took me in, they gave me money. Im not making excuses for him, only trying to explain it the way he explained it to me. At the house, Sherry went upstairs and tossed all of Hills stuff out the window his expensive pots, his Armani suits all of it. But Janet was a professional (albeit only 25 years old) and had a job to do. Im not sure exactly what my mother told me hed been convicted of, but I know it wasnt the truth. Under the witness protection program, they and their. Things took a nasty turn when Henry received a ten-year sentence for extortion in 1974. Usually, though, we were in our beat-up Oldsmobile Toronado, the car we got after my father accidentally dropped a lit cigarette in the front seat of our 1969 Chrysler Newport, causing it to go up in flames. To Sherry, she looked like a young Katharine Hepburn. To make it worse, the son, Michael, was busing tables at El Toreador, where he saw his dad with his drinking buddies. He was put behind bars in 1987 and later claimed he dodged at least two attempts by Vario and Burke goons who were in the same prison to have him killed. They had a son named Justin, but in 1997, Hill and Dawn, now living in California, became totally out of control with their drug use. Im done with Sherry, she said in an interview. Following his arrest for the robbery on April 27, 1980, detectives played him wire taps of other mob members threatening to kill him but he refused to talk, at least for a while. Hill had already beenarrested for getting into a fight with a presumed mistress when they were hidden inIndependence, Kentucky. Henry Hill died in 2012, but Karen is alive and well, according to her husband's former manager, says ABC News. He went out every night dressed in sharp suits and stayed out until dawn if he came home at all, and he always had money to throw around, twenty for the doorman, fifty for the waiter. 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