Hostage Describes Terrifying Reality Of 'Goodfellas' Heist

Selim Algar is covering the trial off New York mobster Vincent Asaro for the New York Post.

In harrowing detail, a former Lufthansa Airlines worker on Tuesday described the night in 1978 when mafia bandits descended on a cargo area and subdued staffers at gunpoint before pillaging a vault packed with more than $6 million in cash and jewels.

Rolf Rebmann told jurors at accused Lufthansa heist mobster Vincent Asaro’s Brooklyn federal court trial Tuesday that he was toiling in the wee morning hours at the Kennedy Airport terminal when he heard a commotion.

“I heard a noise, someone hollering at the back,” Rebmann recalled. “I went over to investigate. I opened the other door and there was a van parked there and a guy standing next to the van.”

Not knowing that he was about to become a reluctant witness to one of the biggest robberies in history — one that would come to be immortalized in Martin Scorsese’s 1990 mob classic “Goodfellas” — Rebmann made a polite inquiry of one of the intruders.

“I asked if I could help him,” Rebmann said. “He said , ‘No’ and stuck a gun in my face and told me to get into the van face-down.”

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

http://nypost.com/2015/10/27/hostage-describes-terrifying-reality-of-goodfellas-heist/