to store stolen goods. When law enforcement raided the warehouse, Asaro and Burke immediately suspected Katz of being a government informant. The two men allegedly killed Katz with a dog chain and buried his remains under a vacant house. When the NYPD reopened the Katz case, Asaro and Burke allegedly moved the remains to the house of Burke's daughter and reburied them there. In 2013, a police search uncovered the remains. Asaro was also arrested and tried for the murder of Paul Katz, but was acquitted of all charges on November 12, 2015. Arson order In March 2017, Asaro was indicted and charged in an arson case. In June 2017, Asaro pleaded guilty in a case of ordering car arson against a motorist who had cut him off in Howard Beach, Queens in April 2012. Prosecutors allege that Asaro enlisted a Bonanno crime family associate to execute the crime however the associate engaged the grandson of former Gambino crime family boss John Gotti, John J. Gotti (who also pleaded guilty in the case) to instead perform the order. The next day after the incident, Asaro apparently contacted a Gambino crime family associate who had access to a local police department database. The database linked the car plate to the home address of the driver. Prosecutors also alleged that Gotti was the getaway driver during a $6,000 bank robbery in 2012; he and another man pleaded guilty. Asaro was incarcerated at the Metropolitan Detention Center, Brooklyn while awaiting sentencing. He faced the possibility of up to 20 years in prison meanwhile prosecutors were seeking 15 years in prison. The Brooklyn prosecutors said that although Asaro has "participated in racketeering, murder, robbery, extortion, loansharking, gambling and other illegal conduct, he has served less than eight years in jail." In late December 2017, Asaro was sentenced to eight years in prison. Initially scheduled to be released from the United States Medical Center for Federal Prisoners in 2022, he was granted a compassionate release on April 14, 2020, and released six days later, due to his age and health vulnerability (he had a stroke the year prior) because of the risk of COVID-19 amid the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States. References Further reading DeStefano, Anthony M., The Big Heist, Pinnacle Books, 2017. 1935 births Living people American gangsters of Italian descent Bonanno crime family People from Ozone Park, Queens Criminals from Queens, New