Undercover FBI agent Joe Pistone, known by the alias Donnie Brasco, documented that Bonanno crime family soldier Benjamin “Lefty” Ruggiero bragged about being involved in 26 murders. But of all those alleged hits, can any of them actually be confirmed? The claim that Ruggiero had “26 hits under his belt” was famously echoed in the film Donnie Brasco, but the real-life source of that line was Pistone himself, who heard it directly from Ruggiero during his undercover work. Although Ruggiero spoke openly about the number of killings he claimed to have been part of, he never told Pistone who his victims were.
In Pistone’s book, Donnie Brasco: Unfinished Business, he recalled that Ruggiero never discussed his specific hits, but did explain the technique he preferred. “Two shots from a . 22 in the back of the head,” Ruggiero reportedly told him. “The bullets rattle around in the skull.
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Pistone also noted the unsettling attitude Ruggiero and other mobsters had toward killing. “I got the impression from all these guys that killing was something instilled in them when they were small,” Pistone wrote. “You kill a guy, he’s gone. He’s dead.
Where are we going to eat tonight? ”
Ruggiero further described the difference between killing in anger and carrying out a contract hit, as recalled by Pistone in his book Donnie Brasco: My Undercover Life in the Mafia. “On a beef, you got a rage about the guy, but on a contract, you might have no feeling one way or another about the guy,” Ruggiero told him. “You got to be able to do it just like a professional job with no emotion at all.
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Ruggiero was inducted into the Bonanno crime family around October 1977 at the age of 51. According to his own admission, he had not been made earlier, even after the mafia membership books reopened in January 1976, because he still had gambling debts to settle. He initially served as a soldier in the crew of longtime Bonanno captain Mike Sabella. After Carmine Galante was murdered in 1979, Sabella was demoted, and Dominic “Sonny Black” Napolitano became captain of the crew.
Ruggiero served under him during the period when Pistone was operating undercover. One killing attributed to Ruggiero stands out in FBI records. A 1978 FBI file states that Ruggiero reportedly handled the contract on Joseph “Cowboy” Lucignano, a Bonanno-connected figure. The file alleges that Lucignano was killed because he misappropriated a large sum of money belonging to Joseph “Joe Bananas” Bonanno, a powerful New Jersey-based Bonanno family captain.
The murder of Lucignano is considered one of the few killings that can be reasonably attributed to Ruggiero with any degree of documentation. There are other cases where speculation has placed Ruggiero at the scene, though the evidence is far thinner. One such case is the murder of mob-connected bookmaker Philip Aruri in Brooklyn around April 29, 1980. According to FBI files, the murder was allegedly ordered by Napolitano, then a captain in the Bonanno family.
The file stated that a source heard the murder had been directed by “Sonny Black,” though the source was unable to determine a motive. The identity of the shooters was never established. Ruggiero’s earlier history also includes an arrest that tied him to gun violence, though not to a killing. In 1960, he was arrested after two men were shot following a barroom fight in Brooklyn.
Newspaper reports at the time said four men were arraigned on felony assault charges. Police identified Joseph Mastricola, 44, as the gunman. Arraigned alongside him were Frank Armanante, 52, Benny Ruggiero, 34, and Dominic LaMonica, 35. The argument reportedly started inside a bar at 455 Pearl Street over a woman.
The fight moved outside, where Richard Barrett and Jeremiah P. Donohue were shot in the legs. The men then tried to flee in a car, but it crashed into a school fence. Mastricola was freed on $10,000 bail, LaMonica was held without bail, and the other two were released on $2,500 bail each.
Despite the fact that Pistone documented Ruggiero’s boast of 26 hits, confirming any specific murder as his work has proven difficult. Mafia killings were often arranged through hierarchies, carried out in secret, and rarely solved. The murder of Joseph “Cowboy” Lucignano remains the most notable killing with a documented link to Ruggiero in FBI records.
The Aruri hit remains unsolved, leaving Ruggiero’s potential involvement open to speculation rather than confirmation.