[1] Following the testimony of Henry Hill, Burke was convicted in 1982, of conspiracy charges related to his involvement in the 1978–79 Boston College basketball point-shaving scandal, and sentenced to 12 years in prison.

[7][8] As Burke was of Irish descent, he was ineligible to become a "made man" in the Italian-American Mafia, so he was limited to being an associate under capo Paul Vario.

They started to hear sounds from the trunk, and when they realized that Bentvena was still alive, DeSimone and Burke stopped the car and beat him to death with the shovel and a tire iron.

However, on the commentary for the film Goodfellas, he states that Bentvena's body was buried in the basement of Robert's Lounge, a bar and restaurant owned by Burke, and only later was put into the car crusher.

The plot began when bookmaker Martin Krugman told Burke's associate Henry Hill that Lufthansa flew in currency to its cargo terminal at John F. Kennedy International Airport.

[12] The information had originally come from Louis Werner, a worker at the airport who owed Krugman $20,000 for gambling debts (equivalent to $101,000 in 2023) and from his co-worker Peter Gruenwald.

[5] Burke decided on Tommy DeSimone, Angelo Sepe, Louis Cafora, Joe Manri, Paolo LiCastri and Robert McMahon as the robbers.

[17] In 1982, Burke was convicted of conspiracy and sentenced to 12 years in prison[18] for his involvement with the 1978–79 Boston College basketball point-shaving scandal, based primarily on the testimony of former mob associate Henry Hill.

Hill's testimony in federal court resulted in a total of fifty convictions in this and other cases, including those of Burke and their boss, capo Paul Vario.

[20] James Burke was portrayed by Robert De Niro in the 1990 Martin Scorsese film Goodfellas, renamed Jimmy Conway.

Burke was played by John Mahoney in the 1991 television film The 10 Million Dollar Getaway, which details the events of the Lufthansa Heist.

[26] In October 2014, Burke's involvement in the Boston College Point Shaving Scandal was discussed in the ESPN 30 for 30 episode "Playing for the Mob."