Robert McMahon, also known as Frenchy and Bobby McMahon (Wantagh, New York July 24, 1936 May 16, 1979 Flatlands, Brooklyn, Mill Basin, Brooklyn), was the night-shift Air France cargo handling supervisor at John F. Kennedy International Airport from 1957 to his death in 1979. He helped orchestrate the 1967 Air France Robbery, and is a suspect in the 1978 Lufthansa heist.Robert McMahon was an Anglo Irish-American who had the stereotypical appearance of an accountant or a Wall Street banker. He stood at 5'7 and had a thin physique with naturally curly black hair. He suffered from poor vision and wore prescription glasses. Robert had earned the comical nickname Frenchy from working at the Air France terminal at JFK airport. McMahon's alliance with the La Cosa Nostra was always tenuous. He had inherited the relationship from his former boss, Thomas Lucchese, who had himself inherited a tradition going all the way to Charles Luciano. When consorting with criminals Robert was always seen wearing expensive thousand-dollar business suits. He was a middle-aged bachelor with the remnants of a playboy image. Among members of the Vario Crew he was considered part of the upper-crust, known as the lace curtain Irish, and looked upon the shanty Irish like Burke and associates as a hopeless and disdainful breed, but never spoke publicly about his thoughts. He was born in Wantagh, New York to immigrants of Kildare, Ireland. He belonged to an old Irish family who had been land owners, physicians, lawyers, businessmen and local politicians for generations when settling in Bethayres, Pennsylvania, a small village in Lower Moreland Township, Pennsylvania. By the time Robert was born his family was financially secure and lived very prosperously, as McMahon's surviving relatives do to this very day off the family's mass fortune. Robert grew up under financially secure circumstances from this inherited wealth. One of Robert's ancestors, Thomas McMahon served as supervisor of Abington Township, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania for thirteen consecutive years.Robert attended Hofstra University in Hempstead, Long Island, New York and earned a bachelor's degree and a keen business sense. While at Hofstra Robert also learned how to fluently speak the French language and read it, which he used when calling to the airline's head offices located at Charles de Gaulle International Airport situated in Paris, France. He first was a freight supervisor at Air France before he was promoted to cargo foreman. As a grown man and airport executive, he was a womanizer, having romantic trysts with Air France airplane stewardesses and prostitutes and was a recreational drug user. The McMahon family's inherited wealth cushioned McMahon from financial hardship and his life was far from a struggle. He was a large man with a love for fine cuisine, alcohol, boisterous in nature and very humorous. In 1979 Robert was involved in a relationship with his third wife and was raising several children that he had fathered from his two previous marriages. He lived in Hempstead, Long Island which members of the Vario Crew were envious of. Fellow hijacker friend Henry Hill admired and commended Robert for shielding his family from police scrutiny for his involvement in the major hijacking operations at the airport.Robert wasn't a gangster and he didn't understand being a gangster. Coming from a wealthy family he didn't understand what it was like to be broke, to have to go out and steal or hijack trucks for a living. He didn't understand gangsters like Paul Vario, Jimmy Burke, Henry Hill or Thomas DeSimone, anyone who dedicated his life to crime. Robert was the one responsible for obtaining the keys for the storage room that helped Henry Hill and Tommy DeSimone pull off the 1967 Air France Robbery. Jimmy Burke's Queens, New York bar Robert's Lounge was not named after McMahon nor was he a partner. Even with Robert's wealth he was neglectful of paying child support and alimony payments to his two ex-wives. He was able to form as a figure of Long Island society, enjoying trips overseas through Air France to Paris, France and generally made the most of his life. Robert was not a mobster, or a career criminal, but idolized the lifestyle and enjoyed associating with the likes of Jimmy Burke, Henry Hill and Tommy DeSimone. He was one of the many employees of the airport who needed little urging to toss an expensive looking suitcase or a crate of television sets onto a passing truck heading off the runway. Special Agent Arthur Stiffel, in charge of U.S. Customs at the airport later said, The people assisting in thefts around here are often just squaring a $2,000 or $3,000 debt to a loan shark. Because of Robert's criminal association with the Lucchese crime family, Casey Rosado who was the President of the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees Union at John F. Kennedy Airport with backing from the Lucchese crime family and Johnny Dio, protected McMahon from being terminated from his key position at Air France by threatening his employers with a union strike. McMahon was one of the Robert's Lounge crew who organized the Lufthansa Heist. Even after his murder, his friend Joe Manri was revealed to have been identified by police as an associate of Jimmy Burke , but McMahon was not largely considered a suspect. Within hours following the Lufthansa heist his fellow employees had both named McMahon and his friend Manri as likely inside men that had motive and means to help pull of the Lufthansa heist. Through his work at the airport Robert and Joe Manri became close and inseparable friends. They had many things in common, both used their positions at the airport to commit crimes, and both were constant womanizers. Around May 1979, having successfully pulled off the Lufthansa heist, Robert fell into marital problems with his third wife, ultimately facing an impending divorce, and became estranged from her and his children. His friend Joe dutifully allowed him to sublet an apartment in South Ozone Park, Queens with him.McMahon was killed along with twelve others allegedly on the orders of Jimmy Burke, who either didn't wish to give McMahon a fair share of the estimated $68 million loot or was afraid that he would become an FBI informant. It is also in the book Wiseguy by Henry Hill that McMahon was very talkative and had a boisterous nature about him. His close friendship with co-worker Joe Manri also caused a worry with both Henry Hill and Jimmy Burke from the very beginning of the robbery, while still in planning, that McMahon might unintentionally tell or brag about his involvement in such a large robbery as the Lufthansa heist. He also could implicate Burke in the 1967 Air France Robbery, which at that time was still unsolved. On May 16, 1979, a school boy walking to school passed a brown four-door 1975 Buick LeSabre parked along Schenectady Street in the Flatlands section of Brooklyn, New York; inside were two men who looked to be sleeping. When he peered closer he saw the blood and realized that the two had both been shot through the back of the head - one was McMahon and the other was his best friend Joe Manri. Henry Hill suspected that Jimmy Burke paid fellow Lufthansa heist suspect Paolo LiCastri $50,000 to murder the two airport employees. Paolo LiCastri would later be found murdered, most likely at the hands of his benefactor Jimmy Burke. The two Lufthansa employees were not shot and dumped in a dumpster to be discovered by sanitation workers, as portrayed in the movie Goodfellas. During the initial investigation conducted by police upon discovery of the bodies, one of the onlookers in the crowd was rising mobster Sammy Gravano who would briefly mention seeing the slain corpses of McMahon and Manri in their Buick Riviera in his biography. Show less «