December 15, 2009 9:27 AM
FAIRVIEW HEIGHTS, Ill. -- A mobster-turned-FBI informant whose life inspired the movie "Goodfellas" has been charged with disorderly conduct and resisting arrest in downstate Illinois.Police in Fairview Heights, near St. Louis, arrested 66-year-old Henry P. Hill just after 9 p.m. Sunday at a hotel while he was in the area for a showing of his artwork.
Hill tells the Belleville News-Democrat he had "one too many" drinks in a hotel lobby and things "got pretty foggy after that."
"I don't drink every day," he added. "Sometimes I have one too many. I know I shouldn't drink this much, but they give you free drinks. I had a few and it got pretty foggy after that. The lady I was with doesn't drink, so I had six drinks and I ended up at the county jail."
Hill is free in lieu of $1,000 bail set Monday by St. Clair County Judge Zina Cruse on charges of disorderly conduct and resisting arrest, police said in a release.
The FBI leveraged a drug trafficking bust to get Hill to testify about New York mob murders and crime rings in 1980. He was initially in the federal witness protection program but was removed in the 1990s because of drug arrests.Hill was played by Ray Liotta in the 1990 Martin Scorcese film "Goodfellas."
-- Staff, Associated Press