James Burke (gangster) - "Jimmy The Gent"

"Jimmy The Gent"

While not a Mafia member, Burke had one made man as friend and associate, Paul Vario.

During the 1950s, Burke was involved in various illegal activities, such as distributing untaxed cigarettes and liquor. He fathered two daughters, one named Catherine Burke, and two sons: Frank James Burke and Jesse James Burke (named after the famous outlaw brothers of the Old West). Jesse James stuttered and was largely ignored by Jimmy, who left him to play in their home's basement filled with stolen toys.

Burke was a mentor of Thomas DeSimone, Henry Hill and Angelo Sepe, who were all young men in the 1960s. They carried out jobs for Burke, such as selling stolen merchandise. They eventually became part of Jimmy's crew and worked out of South Ozone Park, Queens and East New York, Brooklyn. The pair helped Burke with the hijacking of delivery trucks. According to Hill, Burke would take the drivers' licenses and would usually give fifty dollars to the drivers of the trucks they stole, as if he were tipping them for the inconvenience, which led to his nickname "Jimmy the Gent".

Corrupt law enforcement officers, bribed by Burke, would tell him about any potential witnesses or informants. As many as 12 or 13 dead bodies a year would be found tied, strangled, and shot in the trunks of stolen vehicles abandoned in the parking lots surrounding JFK Airport. Burke told Henry Hill, bribing cops was like feeding elephants at the zoo. "All you need is peanuts." Said Hill about Burke: "Jimmy could plant you just as fast as shake your hand. It didn’t matter to him. At dinner he could be the nicest guy in the world, but then he could blow you away for dessert."

Burke owned a bar in South Ozone Park, Queens called Robert's Lounge. It was a favorite hang-out of Burke and his crew, and many other mobsters, bookmakers, loan sharks, and other assorted criminals. Henry Hill claimed the bar was also Burke's private cemetery, and over a dozen people were buried in and out of Robert's Lounge. Burke ran a loan sharking and bookmaking operation that was based at the bar, and high stakes poker games in the basement, of which he would receive a cut. Burke also owned a dress factory in South Ozone Park, Queens, called Moo Moo Vedda's, which kept him awash in laundered money.

In 1972, Burke and Henry Hill were arrested for beating up Gaspar Ciaccio in Tampa, Florida; Ciaccio allegedly owed a large gambling debt to their friend, union boss Casey Rosado. They were charged with extortion, convicted, and sentenced to 10 years in federal prison.

Burke was paroled after six years, then went straight back to crime, as did Hill, who was released around the same time. Afterwards, Burke once again partnered with Hill, and introduced him to Greg Bucceroni, whom Burke mentored. Hill shortly began trafficking in drugs; Burke was soon involved in this new enterprise, even though the Lucchese crime family — with whom they were associated — did not authorize any of its members to deal in drugs. This Lucchese ban was made because the prison sentences imposed on anyone convicted of drug trafficking were so lengthy that the accused would often become informants in exchange for a lighter sentence. This is exactly what Henry Hill would eventually do.

Burke is allegeded to have committed a number of murders, but no victims were ever named. He supposedly killed nine people following the Lufthansa Heist.

He also ordered the murder of his best friend, Dominick "Remo" Cersani, who became an informant and was going to set Burke up in a cigarette hijack for Burke to get arrested. Burke got suspicious about Cersani and later found out from one of his friends in a Queens, New York D.A.'s office that Cersani was talking to the New York City Police Department and that they were going to arrest Burke on a truck hijacking charge. Remo was killed within a week. At Robert's Lounge Burke told Remo, "Let's take a ride." Tommy DeSimone strangled Remo with a piano wire. Henry Hill said "Remo put up some fight. He kicked and swung and shit all over himself before he died." Burke had Remo buried next to the bocce court behind Robert's Lounge. It was said that whenever Burke and Tommy DeSimone played bocce there with friends, they would jokingly say "Hi Remo, how ya doing?"

Burke frequently liked to lock his victims, notably the young children of his victims, in refrigerators. When Burke had a problem collecting money he was owed, and the unfortunate debtor had children, he would pick the child up in his huge arm, open the refrigerator with the other, and say, "If you don't do whatcha supposed to, I'm gonna lock your kid inside the fuckin' refrigerator".

After Jimmy Breslin had written a disparaging and accusative article about Paul Vario, Burke strangled the journalist almost to death in front of a bar full of witnesses.