James Burke (gangster)
James Burke, also known as Jimmy the Gent, and The Irishman (July 5, 1931 – April 13, 1996), was an Irish American gangster and Lucchese crime family associate who is believed to have organized the Lufthansa heist in 1978 and also believed to have orchestrated the murder of (or murdered) many of those involved in the months following. He is the father of small-time mobster and Lufthansa heist suspect, Frankie Burke, as well as of Jesse James Burke, Catherine Burke (who married Bonanno crime family member Anthony Indelicato in 1992), and another unidentified daughter.
Burke inspired the character "Jimmy 'The Gent' Conway" in the 1990 movie GoodFellas; he died of lung cancer in prison in 1996.
Read more about James Burke (gangster): Early Life, "Jimmy The Gent", The Lufthansa Heist, Murders That Followed The Lufthansa Heist, Downfall and Death, Children, Popular Media
Famous quotes containing the words james and/or burke:
“We, the lineal representatives of the successful enactors of one scene of slaughter after another, must, whatever more pacific virtues we may also possess, still carry about with us, ready at any moment to burst into flame, the smoldering and sinister traits of character by means of which they lived through so many massacres, harming others, but themselves unharmed.”
—William James (1842–1910)
“We must not always judge of the generality of the opinion by the noise of the acclamation.”
—Edmund Burke (1729–1797)