Angelo Ruggiero was born on July 29, 1940, in Brooklyn and raised in the East New York section of the borough. His father was a first-generation immigrant from Naples who had no connection to organized crime. His mother was Emma Campesano. Several of Angelo’s brothers, including Salvatore and John, would later become associates of the Gambino crime family.
At the age of twelve, Angelo met John Gotti after Gotti’s family moved to East New York from Sheepshead Bay. The two boys were the same age, and both had violent tempers. At sixteen, John dropped out of school and joined the Fulton-Rockaway Boys, a street gang named after an intersection that marked their territory. Unlike most teenage gangs of the era, they were not only concerned with turf.
They stole cars, dealt in stolen merchandise, robbed stores, and mugged drunks leaving betting parlors. John quickly rose to a leadership position, aided by his violent temper and an overbearing manner that forced weaker boys into line. Angelo likewise quit school and shared John’s ambitions. The other gang members gave Angelo the nickname “Quack Quack,” partly because of his odd, duck-like walk, but mostly because his constant chatter reminded them of an agitated duck clacking its bill.
John would occasionally say, “For Christ’s sake, Ange, don’t you ever stop talking? ” Angelo would simply answer no and carry on. As the years passed, Angelo began calling John almost every morning, forming a relationship similar to that of an appointment secretary. Others who joined the group included Richard Gotti, John’s brother; Wilford Johnson, an amateur boxer they called Willy Boy; Michael Paradiso; and Anthony Giorino, an apprentice plumber.
By 1966, John Gotti was an associate of an East New York crew under Carmine Fatico. Fatico later moved his storefront headquarters to Ozone Park, a working-class neighborhood in Queens. By then, John and his crew, which included Angelo, were making their living as hijackers. John’s younger brother Gene and Angelo’s older brother Salvatore eventually joined the gang, as did another pair of brothers, John and Charles Carneglia.
In 1968, Angelo, John, and Gene picked up their first hijacking charge. Impersonating truckers, they drove a rented U-Haul truck into an airport cargo area and loaded it with women’s dresses. The FBI, in the middle of one of its periodic crackdowns on airport thefts, watched the entire operation. While out on bail, they were involved in the hijacking of two trucks on the New Jersey Turnpike.
John, operating by telephone from his bar in Queens, tried to direct the trucks to a warehouse drop near the bar. Police had a wiretap on the phone and were waiting. As John screamed in rage and frustration, the men in the second truck could not get the vehicle into gear or start it. Police arrested ten members of the crew, including Angelo, John Carneglia, and John and Gene Gotti.
John and Angelo spent nearly three years in prison. The second federal case was abandoned after a judge ruled that some evidence had been illegally obtained under a new state wiretap law that was declared unconstitutional. Their lawyer, Michael Coiro, negotiated a deal in a Queens courthouse permitting them to plead guilty and to count their time in Lewisburg as the penalty. Coiro, recommended by Carmine Fatico, would become far closer to John and Angelo than any lawyer should have been.
When they were released, Neil Dellacroce, the underboss of the Gambino family, endorsed Fatico’s designation of John Gotti as acting capo until Fatico’s legal problems were resolved. John now reported regularly to Dellacroce at the Ravenite Social Club in Little Italy. John introduced Angelo and Gene to Dellacroce, who replaced Fatico as John’s mentor. A major opportunity came for Gotti and his crew in early 1973.
A nephew of the Gambino family, Emanuel Gambino, had been abducted and murdered despite the payment of a hundred-thousand-dollar ransom. Carlo Gambino, the family boss, wanted revenge and fingered a stick-up man named James McBratney as the kidnappers’ ringleader. On May 22, 1973, three men impersonating detectives confronted McBratney in Snoopes Bar and Grill in Staten Island. After a brief struggle, they shot him dead.
Two months later, two witnesses picked two of the killers out of a police photo array. One was Angelo Ruggiero; the other was Ralph Galione. In July 1973, both men were arrested and charged with McBratney’s murder. In December, Galione was shot to death in the hallway of his apartment building in Bensonhurst.
Police never identified the third accomplice at the time, but they knew who he was because Willy Boy Johnson had become a secret informant. Johnson had begun talking seven years earlier after Fatico reneged on a promise to help Johnson’s wife and children while he went to prison. Johnson also knew he would never become a made man because his father was part Indian. John Gotti eluded police for nearly a year until the spring of 1974, when Johnson gave the FBI another tip.
Both Angelo and John pleaded guilty to attempted manslaughter and were sentenced in August 1975 to four years, of which they served only two. Carlo Gambino died on October 15, 1976, and named Paul Castellano as the new family boss, with Dellacroce remaining as underboss. In 1977, John Gotti, Angelo Ruggiero, and John Carneglia were initiated as made men in the Gambino family. Angelo moved his family to Howard Beach.
Angelo’s brother Salvatore had become a millionaire through heroin dealing, but he was also a fugitive, wanted in a tax case connected to his trade. While in hiding, he continued dealing, and much of his money was hidden in companies controlled by their childhood friend Anthony Giorino. Angelo and John stayed in regular contact with Salvatore through a constant series of pay phones. By 1981, the evidence of heroin dealing was mounting.
William Batista, a Gotti associate who had also become an informant, grew suspicious when he noticed that Gotti and Angelo always carried rolls of quarters for pay phones. He then observed Mark Reiter, a well-known heroin dealer with ties to the Harlem market, meeting behind closed doors with Gotti and Angelo. Salvatore Ruggiero once slipped into town under the alias Stephen Terry for a covert meeting with them. Despite Gotti’s warnings that crew members played with fire if they dealt drugs, he never punished anyone who did.
Late in 1981, the FBI launched an electronic assault against Angelo. Because Angelo had told Willy Boy Johnson that his home telephone in Howard Beach was safe, agents knew he was likely using it for illegal business. With Angelo’s phones tapped and his house bugged, the investigation gathered steam. Agents overheard Angelo’s daughter mention that a man named Mark had left a package.
Agents in Florida learned that a Salvatore Ruggiero courier had traveled from New York with thirteen kilos of heroin. Agents in New Jersey surveilled Angelo and John Carneglia as they met with two dealers from Canada. In another conversation, Gene Gotti told Angelo that Castellano was against drugs only because he never had to struggle for a quarter in his life. After two soldiers accused another of dealing heroin, Castellano summoned John Gotti to Staten Island in April 1982 and gave him the contract to kill Peter “Little Pete” Tambone.
Dellacroce persuaded Castellano to put the matter before the Commission, the governing body of Cosa Nostra. The Commission deadlocked, and Little Pete was allowed to live. As punishment, he was barred from family business for six months and had to apologize to Castellano. On May 6, 1982, Salvatore Ruggiero, who had been hiding in Florida for six years, hired a private plane for himself, his wife, and two pilots.
All four were killed when the plane crashed. Michael Coiro came up from semi-retirement in Florida to help Angelo untangle his brother’s assets. But Coiro also dug himself a grave, because while Angelo tried to sort out Salvatore’s hidden property and companies, he also tried to sell Salvatore’s heroin for several more months. The bugs in Angelo’s house picked up dozens of highly incriminating conversations.
In August 1983, Angelo, Gene Gotti, John Carneglia, Mark Reiter, Michael Coiro, and several go-betweens and runners were arrested and accused of dealing multiple kilos of heroin. Willy Boy Johnson skated free, and Batista, unaware that Johnson was a double agent, told the FBI he was surprised Johnson was not arrested. The arrests of Angelo, Gene, and Carneglia, key men under the Dellacroce wing, were seen as an assault on Castellano’s credibility and foreshadowed a showdown. Law enforcement began targeting Cosa Nostra bosses under the new RICO law, which made bosses as vulnerable to prosecution as their soldiers.
Castellano felt the pressure immediately. He was indicted twice and warned that a third case was on the way. He knew he could not simply eliminate core members of John Gotti’s crew without an aggressive response. Dellacroce managed to delay Castellano’s reaction to Angelo’s situation until Castellano could personally review the tapes.
Castellano then ordered John Gotti to hand the tapes over once prosecutors turned them to the defense. Several pretrial delays worked in Dellacroce’s favor. But Castellano’s situation worsened when the investigation of Roy DeMeo and the bugs in Angelo’s house established probable cause for law enforcement to place bugs in Castellano’s own mansion. Those bugs recorded many damaging conversations.
By the summer of 1984, Castellano was still demanding the tapes, and Dellacroce, now stricken with cancer and undergoing chemotherapy, continued to run interference. In 1985, John Gotti faced his own federal RICO case. In February 1985, the federal hammer raised by the Angelo bugs slammed down. In March, Neil Dellacroce, Armond Dellacroce, and eight others were indicted under RICO on charges ranging from murder to loan sharking.
In the spring of 1985, as Castellano’s first trial was about to begin, the dispute over Angelo’s tapes remained unresolved. But excerpts that appeared in pretrial legal papers told Castellano that the FBI had overheard Angelo discussing Little Pete Tambone and the Commission with unauthorized parties. Again Castellano demanded the tapes, and again Dellacroce encouraged delay. A bug placed in Dellacroce’s home recorded Angelo fabricating a story to explain his refusal to hand over the transcripts.
Angelo told Sammy Gravano he had good reason to believe that once Dellacroce died, Castellano would try to kill him. John Gotti and Angelo told Dellacroce the same thing. Dellacroce was weary of telling lies and looking for a way to end the crisis without bloodshed. He told John and Angelo that he had told Castellano Angelo could not give the tapes because his family was on them.
“I’ve been trying to make you get away with these tapes,” Dellacroce said, “but Jesus Christ Almighty, I can’t stop the guy from always bringing it up. ”
On December 2, 1985, the day the Dellacroce-Gotti trial was scheduled to begin, Dellacroce died. Castellano never appeared at the wake. Instead, he summoned the caporegimes and announced that he was closing the Ravenite and assigning John Gotti and his soldiers, in what he pointedly called the Fatico crew, to other capos.
He was demoting Dellacroce’s protégé and eliminating the Bergen crew. Worse, Castellano added that there was a rumor Dellacroce had been a rat, referring to a newspaper report that he had been a longtime FBI informant. John Gotti flew into a rage, with Frank DeCicco and Tommy Gambino trying to calm him. What Castellano did not know was that a plot against him was already in motion, involving John Gotti, Sammy Gravano, Joseph Armone, Frank DeCicco, and Robert DiBernardo.
The conspirators, given the Angelo tapes dispute, decided Angelo should not be a major player. On Monday, December 16, 1985, Thomas Bilotti drove Paul Castellano to an early evening meeting at Sparks Steakhouse in Midtown Manhattan. As Castellano was exiting the car at around 5:26 p. m.
, gunmen ran up and shot him several times. Bilotti was shot as he exited from the driver’s door. John Gotti drove over to view the bodies. After John Gotti became boss of the Gambino family, he made Frank DeCicco his underboss, elevated Sammy Gravano to capo, and Angelo Ruggiero became the capo of the Bergen crew.
The wiretaps and bugs that Angelo had once believed were safe had brought down a boss and remade the leadership of the most powerful crime family in America.