Henry Hill has been waiting to get whacked for 30 years, says Nick Allen in the London Sunday Telegraph. Hill, the model for the Ray Liotta character in the 1990 mobster film Goodfellas, entered the FBI’s witness protection program in the late 1970s and ratted out most of his associates from the Lucchese crime family. Though most of the mobsters he helped put in jail are dead, he fears he could still be killed by “some young buck trying to make a name for himself,” and his head whips around every time someone comes through the door of a restaurant. “I never thought I’d reach this wonderful age,” says Hill, 67. “It’s surreal, totally surreal, to be here.” He has no regrets for sending his old associates to jail, even though they once helped him make $40,000 a week through hijacking, drug-dealing, gambling, and murder. “The whole f---ing crew were homicidal maniacs. Every day I was scared. I knew I was going to get whacked. So it was either me or them.” Today he lives under his own name, but in an undisclosed location, and gives talks to “knuckle-headed kids” who might be tempted to choose a life of crime over honest work. His advice to them? “Forget about it. Stay in school.”
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