Henry Hill, the former underworld mobster who became an anti-folk hero when he was immortalized in the film Goodfellas, died in Los Angeles yesterday after a long illness at the age of 69, reports TMZ.

Hill, who was born in Brooklyn, NY, and was an associate for the Lucchese crime syndicate, had been accused throughout that “career” of a litany of Mafia-related offenses, including extortion, theft, kidnapping, assault, and drug dealing. He got out of that dangerous existence by testifying against his former cohorts in the mob, leading to lengthy prison sentences for them and a place in the Witness Protection Program for him. As a result, it forced him to live in rural existences deep in the midwest of America.