A Brooklyn family. A father running with Jimmy Burke and the Lucchese crime family. A boy who found the stolen DMV plates in the wrong drawer at the wrong age — and the faith that finally pulled them all out alive.
Everyone has seen Goodfellas. Almost no one has heard what it was like to be the kid in the kitchen while it was happening.
Park Slope, Brooklyn. A working-class family with three older siblings, parents named Larry and Vicky, and a kitchen drawer that should have been ordinary. It wasn't. Inside were stolen DMV registrations — and the first proof that the author's father had a line into Jimmy Burke and the Lucchese crime family.
The story unfolds the way these stories always do: piece by piece. The author learns about the cars, the chop work, the printing plates that finally pushed everything past the point of no return. The family disappears — first to Long Island, then west, fleeing a moment of brutality from Tommy DeSimone that nearly cost them everything.
In Los Angeles, the father opens a garage on the Strip. Elvis Presley's Cadillac rolls in. A new life begins to take shape under California sun — but it isn't the new address that saves them. It's a moment of faith in Jesus Christ that reorients everything: the past, the guilt, the half-buried relationships back east.
What follows is the part the movies never get to: seeking forgiveness. Reconnecting with Jimmy Burke. Making peace inside the family. Building a ministry. Leaving behind something different than what was inherited — a legacy that isn't measured in plates.
The Lucchese associate immortalized as "Jimmy Conway" in Goodfellas. In these pages, not a character — a contact.
The basis for Joe Pesci's "Tommy DeVito." One brutal act forces the family's escape from New York entirely.
A father running cars for the crew. A mother holding a family together while the floor falls out from under it.
The youngest child. The one who found the plates. The one who eventually told the story.
Signed-copy giveaways, behind-the-book interviews, deleted scenes, and early word on the next title from Rev. Stoddard — straight to your inbox. No spam, ever.
Yes. Stolen Plates is a memoir — the author's own first-hand account of growing up in a family connected to Jimmy Burke, the Lucchese crime family, and the world dramatized in Goodfellas.
No. The first three quarters of the book read like a noir family memoir — Brooklyn, the crew, the cars, the flight to LA. The faith dimension enters as part of the story, the way it actually happened. Readers from Goodfellas, true-crime, and Christian-testimony audiences all find their entry point.
100 pages. Tight, paced, finishable in a single sitting.
An Audible edition is in the works. Join the email list above to be notified when it drops.
Currently exclusive to Amazon (paperback & Kindle). Additional retailers will be announced via the newsletter.
Read the memoir behind the era everyone thinks they already know.
Buy on Amazon →