For nearly half a century, the reputed wise guy Vincent Asaro has escaped conviction on an array of criminal charges, having been accused — and then acquitted — of, among other things, strangling a man with a dog chain and taking part in the infamous Lufthansa heist in 1978.

On Thursday, however, at age 82, Mr. Asaro was sentenced to eight years in prison for what may be the pettiest allegation he has ever faced: ordering his underlings to set fire to the car of a motorist who cut him off in traffic in Queens.

The sentencing, in Federal District Court in Brooklyn, was almost certainly the final chapter in what the government has slyly described as Mr. Asaro’s “literal life of crime.” Since the 1960s, prosecutors say, Mr. Asaro has held various positions in the Bonanno crime family, and though he is alleged to have engaged not just in murder, but also in bookmaking, loan-sharking, extortion and robbing delivery trucks, he has largely managed to avoid being punished.

That, of course, changed when Judge Allyne R. Ross handed down his sentence on Thursday, telling the court that in deciding on the eight-year term, she had given weight to the very crimes that Mr. Asaro was acquitted of at the Lufthansa trial two years ago. Judge Ross herself presided at the trial and noted that, despite the jury’s verdict, she was “firmly convinced” that the government had proved its case.