Ex-mobster of 'Goodfellas' fame wanted in Calif. for failure to appear

SAN BERNARDINO, Calif. -- A mobster-turned-FBI informant whose life inspired the movie "Goodfellas" is wanted for failing to appear in court on tickets alleging he was drunk in public in San Bernardino.

Henry Hill, 65, faces two $25,000 arrest warrants. He says he wasn't aware he needed to be present in court Wednesday and had asked for a new hearing date because he was having hernia surgery.

"I was hoping the court would understand," Hill told The Press-Enterprise of Riverside from his San Fernando Valley home.

The cases stem from two public intoxication arrests in May 2008. Hill said he was in alcohol rehabilitation at the time.

Hill was again arrested in Los Angeles earlier this year and released before his arraignment because of jail crowding.

"I don't remember much of all that, but I've been sober a month now," he told the newspaper. "I don't want to drink anymore."

The "Goodfellas" movie ends with Hill, played by Ray Liotta, entering federal witness protection after implicating fellow mobsters in murders and the 1978 heist of $5.8 million in cash from a Lufthansa Airlines vault in New York.

Drug arrests led to Hill being removed from the federal program in the early 1990s.