Anthony Ruggiano Jr Interview (Ed Scarpo)

[johnny_scootch]

The Charley Wagons Days: Anthony Ruggiano Interview, Part One

By Ed Scarpo

Anthony Ruggiano Jr. "was on the verge of becoming a soldier" in the Gambino family, said Assistant U.S. Attorney Brian McCormick.

Who’s the toughest guy you know? Well, we know a few tough guys...

Relax. This isn’t going where you think...

Anthony Ruggiano was a Gambino family associate for many years. Too many, he'd tell you. He was supposed to get his button—then he was supposed to get it again, and then again. Was it Life that kept getting in the way? Fate? We wonder how best to describe it. Of course we could just say, the law certainly kept getting in the way. It kept arresting him. The State, the Feds, Kings and Queens County, they all nabbed him for things like policy and bookmaking (and murder). Just one of the daily hazards faced by guys who get out of bed in the morning, put their shoes on, and go out to rob people….

Anthony had been told, more than once, to get his suit ready because on Saturday night, yada yada yada…. But then at the last minute, Anthony would be en route to the restaurant or the social club, only to suddenly find himself arrested again and put in jail. Anthony is perhaps one of the only people in history for whom the process of getting made by the Mafia became both a simple formality and a running gag.

And as for any tough guys you may know, they’re not nearly as tough as the toughest guy Anthony’s father knew. Fat Andy Ruggiano knew some tough guys. Some very tough guys... The toughest of them all, you could say...How else should we describe Albert Anastasia? The Mad Hatter himself, the Lord High Executioner....

“My father told me Albert Anastasia was the toughest guy he ever met,” Anthony told us recently. “And Carlo Gambino was the smartest.”

Anthony isn’t someone you can simply ask: tell us about the wiseguys you knew, because he knew them all. All of them. As he told us, “I was raised by them. They changed my diapers.”

Any wiseguys he didn’t know, he knew about in great detail, including their strengths and weaknesses, where they liked to go for drinks or dinner, where they played cards. And yes, the best time to kill them. Just in case something went down. Another daily hazard of that life when Anthony was in it. Every day, anyone you knew could try to kill you. Or you them.

In all facets of the game, Anthony had an ace in the hole. He was fortunate enough to be tutored by the best, his father, who gave him a Master’s degree in being a Mafioso. Under Fat Andy’s aegis were some of the most ruthless wiseguys the Mafia has ever produced.

We conducted multiple interviews with Anthony. The story burst out of him in a torrent that had us typing as fast as we could. (We believe we were capturing his words in real-time, after he warmed up enough.) While we had an exhausting list of questions at the ready, we never had to look at it once….

“My father went to Leavenworth during World War II for skipping the army.”

After he was released from Leavenworth, Andy hooked up with a neighborhood guy named Tony Lee (Guerrieri), and the two began doing things together. Mostly they tried to rob as much cash as humanly possible. Fat Andy and Tony Lee liked to rob card games, where the cash was piled on the tables... The only problem was sometimes the guys sitting around those tables were made Mafia members.

It's commonly known that wiseguys don’t like getting robbed, especially when they’re playing cards. (So commonly known that robbing wiseguy card games has become a useful plot device for filmmakers needing to juice up their stories. And The Sopranos used the rob-the-mob-game plot device, at least twice, to stunning effect.)

Some preliminaries first. Those with an interest in historical organized crime may recall the name Happy Maione. Harry "Happy" Maione (born on October 7, 1908, and died February 19, 1942) was a New York mobster gainfully employed by Murder, Inc., the mob’s enforcement arm, during the 1930s. (Maione was called "Happy" because he always scowled. Get it? In those days wiseguys had dry senses of humor.)

Happy Maione’s brother was Albert M, who was friends with a guy named Carmine "Charley Wagons" Fatico. Fatico (born January 19, 1910, died August 1, 1991) was many things, but eventually he was a capo in the Gambino family who’s best known as John Gotti’s early mentor.

We introduce these two for the next part of our story, which has to do with Fat Andy and Tony Lee robbing Charley Wagons while he was playing cards.

Pissed off and wanting his fcking money back, Charley Wagons reached out to Albert M and said, “hey, can you help me get my fcking money back?”

(“Because my father and Tony Lee had robbed him when he was playing cards. They robbed the game Charley Wagons was in.”)

Charley also started asking around about Fat Andy. Who the fck was this kid Fat Andy who robbed me while I’m playing cards? Soon enough, he found someone who knew Fat Andy.

The someone told Charley Wagons he had bad news: He’d never get his money back.

“You have to kill Fat Andy,” Charley Wagons was told. There always was an alternative, of course: “Or you could give him a job.”

That’s how Fat Andy started driving for Charley Wagons Fatico.

He also started hanging around with Fatico.

One day Fatico asked Andy whether he’d be willing to kill someone.

“Yeah,” Fat Andy told Fatico.

“And that’s how my father started with them.”

Couple of years pass and one day in Brooklyn, when Fat Andy was in his 20s, he got into the backseat of a car and sat beside Charley Wagons. Then the car pulled away from the curb.

“My father whispered into the guy’s ear — the guy had been sitting in the front seat next to the driver.”

What?

“My father killed him. That was the first time my father did that.”

Albert Anastasia was the boss of the crime family to which Fatico was a member.

Anastasia was born Umberto Anastasio on September 26, 1902, and was killed on October 25, 1957. Anastasia had boss experience by the time he became boss of what had been the Mangano crime family (and what would become the Gambinos).

Fatico was in Tommy Rava’s crew, as were Neil Dellacroce and others.

Of all the crew’s in the family then, Tommy Rava’s was among the toughest. It was the crew that did the work for Anastasia.

It was the only crew Carlo Gambino worried about after Anastasia was gunned down in 1957 at the Park Sheraton barbershop. And wait till you hear about that...

Fat Andy became part of Rava’s crew too and started doing work for Anastasia. The books were closed at the time, meaning no one was getting made. But Anastasia decided he’d make Fat Andy anyway, because of all the good work he’d done for the family.


Getting Made By Anastasia In 1953: Anthony Ruggiano Jr. Interview, Part Two

"There are two more members that are talking," from Joe Valachi's autobiography, as quoted by journalist Jack Anderson in an article published in 1963.

Before Anthony Ruggiano (Senior, aka Fat Andy) could get made in 1953, his name had to go around to the other New York families to solicit any possible objections.

There were objections--two, actually--one of which required then-boss Albert Anastasia to win a sitdown with the Genovese family (or the then-Luciano family).

As noted, Fat Andy and partner Tony Lee met Carmine (Charley Wagons) Fatico after they robbed his card game, but Fatico decided to hire them rather than kill them.
For this, the previous story, and the rest in this series, we are using information provided to us by Anthony Ruggiano Jr.

In the next installment Anthony will address your comments...

Profaci family member John Sonny Franzese put in a claim over Fat Andy, who, Franzese argued, belonged to him. Around then Franzese (still an active mobster in the Colombo family today) was becoming "the fastest growing and most prominent loan shark in the Greater New York area." Franzese also was known for an alleged crafty ability to dodge arrests for murders by making the bodies disappear. Investigators in 2006 recorded him describing his favorite method, which included dismembering the body in a kiddie pool, cooking the parts in a microwave, and then stuffing them in the garbage disposal.

Fat Andy and Sonny were good friends, and Franzese left it up to Ruggiano himself, who decided to stay around Charley Wagons Fatico.


Larry Baccala
Fat Andy and Sonny also had been close with Larry and Junior Abbandando, both sons of the infamous Frank the Dasher, the contract killer with Murder Inc., who was known to stab his victims through the heart with an ice pick. (The Dasher was executed in the electric chair at Sing Sing in February 1942.)

Larry Abbandando, also known as Larry Baccala (his mother owned a store that sold baccala), had been especially close with Fat Andy. Larry wound up with Sonny Franzese and his Profaci family crew. Decades later, in the 1970s, Fat Andy and Gambino underboss Neil Dellacroce sought to get Larry released from Franzese so they could make him with the Gambinos. Franzese, however, refused, and Larry was never made before he died. Fat Andy and Sonny remained close nevertheless.

Sonny's attempt to claim Fat Andy when his name made the rounds enhanced Ruggiano's prestige.

Genovese soldier Anthony Carillo, aka Tony The Sheik, was out for blood, however. He raised a formal beef with Anastasia to stop Fat Andy's induction, if not his life, arguing that Fat Andy didn't deserve to become a member because he and Tony Lee had robbed card games he ran in East New York.

Tony The Sheik was the original owner of Don Peppe's restaurant, not Genovese capo Ciro Perrone, who inherited it.

Carillo's complaint was problematic for Ruggiano, and required the intervention of the Lord High Executioner himself.

"They had a sitdown," Anthony Junior told us.

The sitdown was held in Manhattan. In attendance were Anastasia, Armand (Tommy) Rava, Tony the Sheik, Charley Wagons, Tony Lee, and others.

Fat Andy sat at a table near the table where Anastasia and Tony the Sheik sat. He overheard the discussion.

"He's an animal," Carillo said of Fat Andy, and an animal shouldn't become an amico nostra.

Anastasia, not missing beat, shut down Carillo by arguing: "Who do you want me to straighten out? Priests?"

Later, Anthony Junior and his family often went into Manhattan for dinner at Don Peppe's. Tony the Sheik would always come over and greet the Ruggiano family at their table. "He's my best friend," Carillo would tell Fat Andy's family as the two shook hands. Then when the restaurateur walked away to greet someone else, Fat Andy would dismiss him with a wave of his hand saying, "Sure, he's my best friend now, but years ago he tried to get me killed."

Anastasia
Shortly before Fat Andy and Tony Lee had robbed his game, Fatico had been bumped up in his crime family and was charged with overseeing the family's operations in Brooklyn’s East New York section.

The neighborhood was a blend of one- and two-family row houses, apartment buildings, and factories for light industry. East New York was thriving territory for the New York families, with illegal bookmaking openly conducted in storefront clubs and pool rooms. (John Gotti's family moved there when he was 12.) Those days, in places like East New York, Cosa Nostra had a relatively free hand owing to the general ineffectiveness of the FBI and the corruption of the local police.

Fatico wa s promoted by Albert Anastasia, who became boss in 1951 after Vincent Mangano was made to disappear and his brother-consiglieri Philip was shot three times in the head and dumped near Jamaica Bay in the Bergen Beach section of Brooklyn, where he was found on April 19, 1951. (An Ozone Park social club was later named for Bergen Beach, Brooklyn, though it was misspelled as the Bergin Hunt and Fish Club.)

Anastasia has grown into an almost mythological figure, a super-villain who killed tens of thousands, as NYPD detective Ralph Salerno seriously argued. To calculate Anastasia's rightful place in the underworld, read Thomas Hunt's King of the Brooklyn Docks, which notes: "Though history has focused on his explosive brutality and his short fuse, Anastasia was arguably a criminal visionary. With his Brooklyn friends Joe Adonis and Vincent Mangano, Anastasia brought a never-before-seen level of organization to waterfront labor racketeering."

Anastasia was first and foremost a human being who put his pants on one leg at a time. He also seemed to be fair-minded, as per Joe Valachi, who provides a detailed description of how Anastasia officiated at a sitdown involving Joe Cargo and wiseguy Frank Luciano.

In 1947, Valachi, a member of what became the Genovese family, and Frank Luciano, a soldier with the Mangano family (later the Gambino family) argued, and Valachi knocked Luciano out.

"He was robbing me blind," Valachi would say of the brawl.

Valachi hurriedly took a trip to Greenwich Village to see Tony Bender.

“Well, you are on the carpet,” Bender told Valachi. “There is going to be a table. Frank has reported that you beat him. It will be at Duke’s. I’ll let you know the date.”

Valachi was terrified because he knew attending the sitdown for Frank would be Mangano family underboss Albert Anastasia, who had the reputation of being a hot head with a quick trigger finger.

“Now, I got to worry,” Valachi said. “And who can blame me. Everybody knows that Albert is a mad hatter. With him it’s always kill, kill, kill, if somebody came up and told Albert something about somebody. He would say, ‘Hit him! Hit him!’ At the table there was no telling how he would be.”

When Valachi arrived at Duke’s, Tony Bender met him at the bar. "Remember one thing, don’t talk at the sit-down while Albert is talking. You know how he is, so hold your tongue.”

Bender led Valachi to a large table in the back. Sitting there was Luciano and Anastasia. Valachi did not like the look on Anastasia’s face.

As soon as Valachi sat in the chair, Anastasia laced into him. “What the fuck’s the matter with you?” Anastasia said. “You’ve been in this business of ours for over twenty years. There is no excuse for you.”

Valachi opened his mouth to say something in his defense, but he remembered what Bender had told him, so he held his tongue. Anastasia saw Valachi was about to say something, and he banged his hand on the table. “Now shut up, I tell you!” Anastasia said. “Like I said, you should know better. You know you can’t take the law into your own hands. You know you could start a war with the kind of shit you just pulled.” Anastasia paused, and then he nodded his head. “Okay, now what do you have to say for yourself?”

“Albert, this guy was clipping me bad,” Valachi said. “He put the place in the hole for over $18,000.”

“That’s what I’m trying to tell you,” Anastasia said. “From being right, you wind up being wrong.”

After some more back and forth, Anastasia got to the point he was waiting to make.

“Okay, I’ve already looked into this myself,” Anastasia said. He told Frank “I know what’s been going on. You’ve been robbing your partner, Frank. And that ain’t no good.”

Then, as Valachi looked on in amazement, Anastasia decreed that Luciano would have to turn the place entirely over to Valachi.


When Fat Andy was made in 1953, the ceremony took place in a restaurant located over the 59th Street Bridge in Manhattan. The Patch was owned by Charley Wagons Fatico.

Fat Andy was made the same year Anthony Junior was born.

Anthony (Tony Lee) Guerrieri -- the same Tony Lee who went on trial in 1990 with John Gotti for recruiting The Westies to shoot union official John O'Connor in the ass in 1986 -- was made three years later, in 1956. (Anthony Junior, who was in the process of getting a divorce from his first wife, was staying with Tony Lee when he was arrested for the John O'Connor shooting.)

He had had a choice, Tony Lee, as the Genovese family wanted to recruit him also. But he chose the Gambino family in order to remain close to Fat Andy, his partner. (Thinking we'll just stick with current names for the crime families, as it might be less confusing to read.)

Also, Anthony told us that Tony Lee was among the last members of that family to be made by Anastasia before he was gunned down in 1957 in the Park-Sheraton barbershop.

During his time in the mob, Fat Andy had involvement in seven murders.

"He did a lot of work for the family," Anthony Jr. said in testimony once.

"He killed somebody with a fellow named Joe. He killed a florist in Brooklyn. He killed three people in a warehouse that was robbing crap games.

"He killed somebody with me . . . and they had this guy Irish Danny killed behind the Skyway Motel on Conduit Blvd."

Of those murders, we focus on the florist, who, working with Anthony Junior, we believe we have identified as Alfredo "Freddie the Sidge" Santantonio, who had a long rap sheet with arrests in Florida and New York for narcotics, armed robbery and assault.

"On July 11, 1963, two men wearing makeup disguises entered the Flowers By Charm flower store in Brooklyn, New York, and fired five bullets at the owner before fleeing. Lying dead on the floor was forty-year-old Gambino Crime Family member Alfredo Santantonio," wrote Edmond Valin on The American Mafia website.

Santantonio had been a major informant for the FBI, as revealed in files released in 2013, as Valin wrote in Two Gambino Family informants had very different fates.

Santantonio gave the FBI extensive details on the Anastasia shooting and its aftermath, as well as how the killing was handled internally by the top bosses of the New York families:

The murder of Anastasia was orchestrated by Gambino Crime Family members Joseph Riccobono, Joseph Biondo and Charles Dongarra, after they were warned by a snitch in the Anastasia camp that he intended to kill them.

The trio along with Gambino Crime Family members Joseph Gallo and Andrew Alberti decided to act first in self-defence.

Dongarra told Santantonio the actual shooters were Gambino Crime Family member Stephen "Stevie Coogan" Grammauta and his associate, Joseph Cahill. Grammauta was a heroin dealer in the crew of Steve Armone.

(Michael (Mikie Scars) DiLeonardo has told us: "The shooters on the (Anastasia) hit team were Steve Armone, Stephen "Stevie Coogan" Grammuata and another guy; I don't know his name."

(Gang Land News reported that Gambino ordered Joseph "Joe the Blonde" Biondo and Stephen Armone to murder Anastasia. Armone reportedly chose his brother Joseph to join them. But he'd been arrested on drug charges and was being held, so Grammauta joined the hit team.)


Riccobono, Biondo, Dongarra, Gallo, Alberti and Armone were all originally from the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Santantonio said the killers targeted Anastasia at the hotel because they knew he frequented the hotel barbershop. The guns used in the murder were hidden in the hotel room of boxer Johnny Russo, the nephew of Gambino Crime Family member John "Johnny Connecticut" Russo.

After the shooting, Grammauta and Cahill took the subway home.

After the murder, Riccobono, the ringleader, reached out to Gambino Crime Family caporegime Domenico Arcuri to declare that he represented the group that killed Albert Anastasia. Riccobono didn't divulge the names of anyone else in the group. He asked Arcuri to alert the other caporegimes in the crime family.

Riccobono also contacted New York bosses Thomas Lucchese and Vito Genovese to request a meeting to explain the reasoning for the murder.

Riccobono had to appear before an underworld "trial" at the estate of Genovese Crime Family caporegime Richard Boiardo in New Jersey. Representatives from all the New York City crime families were there including Carmine Galante, Thomas Lucchese, Vito Genovese, Tommy Rava, Johnny Robbilotto, Joseph Biondo and many others. Riccobono spoke on behalf of the group. He explained the reasons for the murder and said he would take full responsibility if the group was out of order. Santantonio said Riccobono was able to persuade the bosses that the group acted in self-defense and was cleared of any wrongdoing. Everyone in the group was pardoned, including the shooters, Grammauta and Cahill. (From Two Gambino Family informants had very different fates.)

Santantonio also provided details about what happened to Tommy Rava. The Anastasia loyalist disappeared sometime after Anastasia was killed. (We previously wrote about Rava, but at the time we hadn't known about Santantonio or his information.)

Anthony Junior related to us that "on the day Albert got killed my father and Tony Lee were driving into the city to meet him. They heard about the shooting on the car radio and they pulled over and called Neil Dellacroce.

"Tony and Neil and my father — they all went on the lam because they thought Gambino would kill them. That whole crew with Tommy Rava was scattered," Anthony told us. Other crew members who went on the lam included Mike Tali, John Riboloto, and Frankie Martin.

Then a meeting was set up between the Rava faction and the man who became the new boss, Carlo Gambino. It was slated to take place at Grand Central Station.

"They all figured they would be safe there in such a public place," Anthony told us.

The Rava faction planned to execute Gambino at that meeting at Grand Central Station.

Certain armed members from the Rava crew arrived at the station and waited for Gambino to show up so they could kill him. ("It was a suicide mission," Anthony said.)

Gambino never showed up.

Instead, an old timer who was close to Neil Dellacroce arrived in Gambino's place. (Anthony Junior didn't know his name; he was known only as the old timer in stories told to him by his father and Dellacroce over the years.)

The old timer told the Rava faction at Grand Central Station that they all had to come in.

Arrangements were made for each member of Rava's crew to meet personally, one at a time, with Carlo Gambino at his home in Brooklyn.

"They thought they would all be killed," Anthony said, but they went anyway.

"They went in one at a time to the basement. Gambino told them he understood and would take them all in with him – he explained that he knew that they were just soldiers following orders from Albert, and that they had done what they needed to do. And now they were with him, Carlo."

Carlo also made Neil a captain. Later, Dellacroce became underboss.

"Their captain Tommy Rava got invited to go to Florida and was never seen again," Anthony told us.

What? Rava went to Florida?

News to us... We adjusted our research efforts accordingly and found Santantonio.

The florist who may have been killed by Fat Andy had "cleared up the mystery of former Gambino Crime Family member Tommy Rava, who disappeared sometime after Anastasia was murdered."

From Two Gambino Family informants had very different fates:

"Rava had competed with Carlo Gambino to replace Anastasia. According to Santantonio, Joseph Indelicato and Thomas Altamura murdered Rava at a funeral parlor in Florida. They put Rava in a body bag, stuck him numerous times with an icepick and dumped his body in the ocean."

[B.]

Some good information in there.

Should mention there was another CI report that explained in detail that Rava and an unidentified associate of his were tracked down in Florida by future captain Toddo Aurello, gunned down, and buried.

https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.htm ... lPageId=19

This account seems to come from someone who was there or who heard the story directly from someone who was, if it's true. Both stories agree that Rava was murdered in Florida and his body disposed of. It's possible that Altamura, Indelicato, and Aurello were all involved in the murder in different capacities, too... i.e. he could have been tracked down and shot by Aurello's team, then disposed of by Indelicato and Altamura who both lived in Florida and would have had more knowledge and local resources to dispose of the body.

[johnny_scootch]

This is the part that stood out to me the most

"The murder of Anastasia was orchestrated by Gambino Crime Family members Joseph Riccobono, Joseph Biondo and Charles Dongarra, after they were warned by a snitch in the Anastasia camp that he intended to kill them.

The trio along with Gambino Crime Family members Joseph Gallo and Andrew Alberti decided to act first in self-defense."

Every scenario I've ever come across puts the blame squarely on Gambino.

[Eline2015]

That snitch from Anastasia’s camp was a Arthur Leo

[B.]

Johnny -- that part comes verbatim from Ed's article on CIs Alfred Santantonio and Carmine Lombardozzi:
http://mafiahistory.us/rattrap/gambinoinf.html

Carlo Gambino was Anastasia's consigliere according to the Magaddino office tapes (another source has Gambino as consigliere under Anastasia too) and the family basically split in two after the Anastasia murder. The Commission appointed Gambino as acting boss to keep the family together, as Magaddino says the family was at risk of breaking apart, and later Gambino was voted in as the official boss.

Whether Gambino was involved in the plot, who knows, but reliable sources give no indication that the Anastasia murder was some kind of Gambino-led takeover the way many books and documentaries do. Another great example of something getting repeated to the point that it's taken as fact by almost everyone.

That snitch from Anastasia’s camp was a Arthur Leo

I've got no insight into it, but Ed's article says it was Joe Franco, Lombardozzi's captain:

29 The source of the information was Joseph Franco, a caporegime and a close associate of Anastasia. Why he would betray Anastasia is unclear. Santantonio never stated the reason Anastasia wanted them dead. Interestingly, Franco died soon after he ratted out Anastasia, so the veracity of his statement could never be verified.

51 Lombardozzi was the junior member of this group. Rava had battled for top spot in the Gambino Crime Family while Riccobono was a long-time caporegime and future consigliere. Castellano was cousin and right-hand to Gambino. Lombardozzi may have attended as an aide-de-camp or a chauffeur. Or perhaps he was there to corroborate (the late) Joseph Franco's claim that Anastasia was plotting to kill Riccobono and the others.

[johnny_scootch]

Whether Gambino was involved in the plot, who knows, but reliable sources give no indication that the Anastasia murder was some kind of Gambino-led takeover the way many books and documentaries do. Another great example of something getting repeated to the point that it's taken as fact by almost everyone.

Yeah they definitely got me too but didn't Bonanno blame Genovese-Lucchese-Gambino in his book also?? I don't have the time to check now but I do remember something to that effect coming from him.

[bert]

The murder of Anastasia was orchestrated by Gambino Crime Family members Joseph Riccobono, Joseph Biondo and Charles Dongarra, after they were warned by a snitch in the Anastasia camp that he intended to kill them.

I think this is wrong info. Gambino and Armone along with almost every captain in the Gambinos were against Anastasia by the time the plan was set. They were backed by the Genovese and other families. Joe Bonnano claimed he had no idea it was going to happen, which is possible. But think about it: If Bonnano had said in his book that he knew it was going to happen, or had an idea it was going to happen, he would have been confessing to murder conspiracy.

[johnny_scootch]

In The Street Robbing, Pillaging, Plundering: Anthony Ruggiano Jr. Interview, Part Three

By Ed Scarpo

"I’d like find out what he says about John Alite. I just don't know what to think as there's so many contradictory opinions on him; it'd be nice hear his thoughts and input."

This story focuses on Anthony Ruggiano Jr., John Alite, and John Junior....The next installment will address multiple comments....

When John Alite played Little League, his coach was Albert Ruggiano, the younger brother of Anthony Junior, though the Ruggiano-Alite relationship went back another generation, Anthony Junior recently told us.

Anthony Junior, 66, didn't pop up out of nowhere, actually. A longtime Gambino associate (he came close, so damn close to being made!), he defected in 2006 and testified in several trials against mobsters including Gambino capo Dominick (Skinny Dom) Pizzonia and powerful Gambino boss Bartolomeo (Bobby Glasses) Vernace, and Gambino wiseguy Charles Carneglia. He also gave testimony against Bonanno capo Vincent Asaro. Anthony Ruggiano Junior's charges included murder and a number of murder conspiracies.

We refer to him as Anthony Junior here to distinguish him from his father, Gambino soldier Anthony (Fat Andy) Ruggiano who ran a crew out of the Café Liberty social club in Ozone Park, Queens. Fat Andy died in 1999.

Fat Andy knew John Alite's father, Matthew, from when they (and nearly every single wiseguy in the tri-state area who wasn’t locked up) idled away their days betting their hard-earned dollars at the racetrack.

"John Alite’s father was at the racetrack every day and he knew all the wiseguys, and they all knew him," Anthony Junior said. (John Alite talks about the Ruggianos in George Anastasia's Gotti Rules, too.)

In the early 1980s, Alite started hanging around John Junior Gotti.

"When my father was in jail with Zeke (former Gambino acting boss Arnold Squiteri) and Funzi (soldier Alphonse Sisca), John Alite’s name kept coming up. People would visit and he’d hear about Alite, who he was with and what he was doing. That's how my father heard about John Alite."

"Then I remember later on, I told my father John Alite was making a lot of money and he said, he is? Then what the fck is he doing around John Junior?"

"My brother also told him to stay away from Junior," Anthony Jr. said. "At the Finish Line bar, I think, my brother told him to stay the fuck away from Junior."

Why the caution about hanging around Junior?

"Even even though I am Andy's son, I was still a criminal. John Alite was a criminal. We were on the street. My father made me go to work in crap games. I took numbers, I sold swag, I got arrested and went to jail all the way back in the 1970s. I was out in the trenches because I was Andy’s son and I wanted my own respect," he said.

"John Junior was no criminal. While guys like me and John Alite were in the street robbing and pillaging and plundering, Junior was in military school. We were street guys. I stole credit cards and had chop shops.

"Junior never did any of that. Maybe he had people around him that did that, but he didn't do it himself. People were up Junior’s ass because he was John’s son. I spent 14 years in prison -- I was running around in the street.

"I am not saying Junior was a bad kid but he wasn't who he made himself out to be.

"Yeah, Junior killed people. Those jurors (in Junior's various mistrials) should be ashamed of themselves.

"Junior really killed that kid in the bar. There were people there who saw him do it. But then when they were talking to the FBI later, they were too scared to say anything, so they said that they didn’t see anything.

"One person came to me right after it happened. He told me what he saw (at the Silver Fox) that night. I told him not to tell anyone anything about anything that happened or he’d get killed. They were ready to kill the witnesses, they did kill a witness.

"John Alite was a criminal. He gave Junior a ton of money and he did all the work.

"Junior, well, Junior gave me a lot of Yankee tickets. We all loved the Yankees."

Testimony touched on the incident Ruggiano is referring to, but it wasn't enough to sway all the jurors, who in the end consolidated into distinct factions.

In 2009, at Gotti's fourth racketeering trial in five years, one witness testified that Gotti had done an exultant “Porky Pig imitation” over the body of the man who Junior allegedly had just stabbed in the Silver Fox Bar in Ozone Park in 1983. Witness Kenneth Seidel said that while he hadn't seen Gotti actually stab Danny Silva during a melee that prosecutors alleged happened prior to the murder, he remembered the hush that had fallen over all the bar's patrons when Gotti re-entered the bar a few minutes later while Silva lay bleeding to death on the floor.

“‘Th-th-th-th! That’s all folks!’ “ Gotti allegedly said, waving his hand over his head in a circle before whirling out again and into a waiting car. “It was like from a cartoon,” the man said. “Porky Pig or Elmer Fudd used to say that at the end of the show."

Another witness, Kevin Bonner, testified that he was once a member of Gotti’s crew in Ozone Park, dealing drugs and giving the former Gambino crime family boss $500 a week in payments. Bonner said Gotti stabbed and killed Silva, 24, during a fight in the bar.

Bonner testified that Silva was pestering Gotti on the night of March 12, 1983.

“I knew what was coming,” Bonner told the jury.

He said Gotti “went to work on” Silva.

“He beat him up,” said Bonner.

That’s when Bonner said he “could see the kid get stabbed.”

Bonner said Gotti cleaned up at a friend’s house and then went into hiding. He said another member of Gotti’s crew, Johnny Gebbert, told him that Gotti’s father, Gambino boss John Gotti, had paid a detective $10,000 to end the investigation.

During trial, prosecutors described the son of John Gotti as a career thug who made a fortune off drug dealing, murder, and rackets, while the defense argued that Gotti withdrew from the mob in the late 1990s. In 2009 Gotti faced a wide-ranging racketeering conspiracy that included two narcotics-related Queens slayings, in 1988 and 1991. He used the same withdrawal defense that he'd previously used in three earlier racketeering trials that ended in hung juries in 2005 and 2006, arguing again that his mob activities stopped before the five-year statute of limitations on racketeering.

Gotti walked free in December 2009 after a deeply divided jury failed to reach a verdict at his fourth racketeering trial, and the Feds threw in the towel.

[Super]

Certain articles say fat Andy was a capo not a lot about him and gotti doing stuff together even though they was both under carmine fatico sure I read somewhere they didn't get on little bit about fat Andy in joe dogs book .

[Fughedaboutit]

Bottom of the barrel interview by a bottom of the barrel mob reporter. Scarpo is beyond terrible.

[gohnjotti]

Bottom of the barrel interview by a bottom of the barrel mob reporter. Scarpo is beyond terrible.

I've been speaking with him recently. Obviously, he gets a lot of flack by posters, myself included, for posting false information, and he could probably do with vetting his sources a little more. At the end of the day though, I can tell he puts a lot of work into his site. I have enough trouble writing about one, tiny mob family, so I can only imagine how hard it would be to report on every family across the country, and come up with new and exclusive stories. If he posts something that is dubious, or flat-out incorrect, chances are he will correct it if you send him a message and let him know. In fact, I corrected him about an earlier article, written by a guest-writer, where it said that a half-Jewish man was a Colombo captain. Scarpo was quick to correct it.

I know Scarpo was on this forum before but I really think it would be good if came on here and talked with guys like Pogo, Wiseguy, or B. about his upcoming articles before posting them.

[bert]

Is Rugggiano exagerating on how much he knows? It sounds like he is. I'm wondering who is putting guys like Gravano, Alite, and Ruggiano together. Gravano knows a lot, Alite knew almost nothing, aside form hanging with Junior for a couple of years he was a nobody.

[Fughedaboutit]

Bottom of the barrel interview by a bottom of the barrel mob reporter. Scarpo is beyond terrible.

I've been speaking with him recently. Obviously, he gets a lot of flack by posters, myself included, for posting false information, and he could probably do with vetting his sources a little more. At the end of the day though, I can tell he puts a lot of work into his site. I have enough trouble writing about one, tiny mob family, so I can only imagine how hard it would be to report on every family across the country, and come up with new and exclusive stories. If he posts something that is dubious, or flat-out incorrect, chances are he will correct it if you send him a message and let him know. In fact, I corrected him about an earlier article, written by a guest-writer, where it said that a half-Jewish man was a Colombo captain. Scarpo was quick to correct it.

I know Scarpo was on this forum before but I really think it would be good if came on here and talked with guys like Pogo, Wiseguy, or B. about his upcoming articles before posting them.

I don't know, just one mans opinion. What sealed the deal for me was when he implied that he had a mob guy after him in some restaurant or something, I can't recall the details but come on. Guy was acting like he had a hit out on him lol. He isn't as bad as that weirdo with the fake accent that follows Merlino and writes articles but still.

[machinegunfunk]

Bottom of the barrel interview by a bottom of the barrel mob reporter. Scarpo is beyond terrible.

I've been speaking with him recently. Obviously, he gets a lot of flack by posters, myself included, for posting false information, and he could probably do with vetting his sources a little more. At the end of the day though, I can tell he puts a lot of work into his site. I have enough trouble writing about one, tiny mob family, so I can only imagine how hard it would be to report on every family across the country, and come up with new and exclusive stories. If he posts something that is dubious, or flat-out incorrect, chances are he will correct it if you send him a message and let him know. In fact, I corrected him about an earlier article, written by a guest-writer, where it said that a half-Jewish man was a Colombo captain. Scarpo was quick to correct it.

I know Scarpo was on this forum before but I really think it would be good if came on here and talked with guys like Pogo, Wiseguy, or B. about his upcoming articles before posting them.

I don't know, just one mans opinion. What sealed the deal for me was when he implied that he had a mob guy after him in some restaurant or something, I can't recall the details but come on. Guy was acting like he had a hit out on him lol. He isn't as bad as that weirdo with the fake accent that follows Merlino and writes articles but still.

Mike Russell?

[johnny_scootch]

Who Fat Andy Loved; John Gotti's Other Side: Anthony Ruggiano Junior, Part FOUR

By Ed Scarpo

In the 1960s and 1970s, Anthony (Fat Andy) Ruggiano had one of the biggest crews in the Gambino family, and he wanted to keep it that way.
He had had around 70-75 guys in his crew, and out of all of them, Andy wanted to straighten out only one, Nicky Corozzo.

Fat Andy "didn’t want to make anybody his equal at one point," said Anthony Junior. "He had a big crew with him and he liked it that way. He wound up being right."

Andy and Anthony (Tony Lee) Guerrieri even got into an argument over Fat Andy's reluctance to make any of his guys.

Tony Lee had wanted to put Anthony (Tony Pep) Trentacosta up to be straightened out with Nicky. Fat Andy prevailed, however, and they both decided that only Nicky would get made.

Once Andy proposed Nicky, Nicky went out of his way to express his gratitude to Ruggiano.

"After my father proposed Nicky, Nicky went to my father's house to see him every day."

So Fat Andy wasn't pleased to learn that Gene Gotti had been straightened out first, before Nicky. Anthony Junior pegged late 1976 as when Gene had been straightened out.

“Gene got straightened out before all of them,” Anthony Junior recalled.

After learning about Gene, “(m)y father made a remark to Neil (Dellacroce) at the Ravenite, saying something like, what happened to my guy that Gene went in first?'"

About a week later, at a wedding, Dellacroce replied to Fat Andy, telling him that they would straighten out Nicky, in a week, meaning one week after the wedding.

Then, Neil told Andy that, as a favor to him, meaning Ruggiano, they would also straighten out Lenny DiMaria, too, with Corozzo.

“Nicky was my father’s guy. My father loved Nicky. He loved Lenny, too, but Nicky was his heart.”

DiMaria didn’t have a crew in Florida. Other members of the crew included Ralph (The Fly) Davino Jr., Salvatore (Sally Botz) Pecchio, and Robert Engel.

John Gotti and Angelo Ruggiero were straightened out while on a prison furlough in 1978, Anthony Junior said.

"John and Angelo were with Charley Wagons."

Other members who Fat Andy straightened out were Mikey Gal, Tony Lee’s brother; Anthony (Tony Pep) Trentacosta; and Sonny, Tony Lee’s cousin.

Charley Wagons Fatico straightened out a lot of guys, but he had a rule: everyone he straightened out had to be involved in or directly commit a murder.

“Charley used to say, ‘The guys I straightened out got it the right way.' Everyone he straightened out, he made sure they did work."

“My father got straightened out after he committed a murder," Anthony Junior said.

"Today it’s about who’s making the most money."

In addition to Fat Andy, Fatico also made: his brother, Danny the Head; John Gotti; Angelo Ruggiero; John Carniglia; and Gene Gotti.

We asked Anthony Junior if he was aware of anyone who John Gotti had directly killed "with his own hands," a ridiculous question in our opinion, but one that has been asked.

"That's a gray area," Anthony said, saying he doesn't know.

Nevertheless, he said "John was a killer, whether he personally killed someone or was just standing there. Sammy the Bull said the same thing, John was a killer. You could see it in his eyes. John had shark's eyes."

In the early 1980s, before John Gotti killed Paul Castellano and took over as boss of the Gambino family, "John and my father used to drink in Richie Gotti’s cafe, which was right near the Bergin Hunt and Fish Club. It was a private club, not open to the public. They'd sit there in the winter with a fire in the fireplace and have fireside chats about how many people they killed."

"He loved me, John Gotti," Anthony Junior said. "He was good to me. We were good friends, me and his kid brother Vinny. John loved my wife and my son - he used to write us all the time when he was away. He always wrote and sent Christmas cards, until he died. And when my father died, John wrote us a beautiful letter."

At one point in the 1980s, Anthony Junior told us, "For a while I had a bit of a cocaine problem. Tony Lee told me that the guys won't put up with me. Then I went into treatment (he's been clean 31 years today)."

Anthony got out of treatment in 1988, when John Gotti was boss and on the street.

Anthony went to see John Gotti at his office next door to the Bergin Hunt and Fish Club. (The Gambino family abandoned the Bergin Hunt and Fish Club in Ozone Park in January 2005, after about 40 years as a base of operations for John, then Peter Gotti.)

The two of them, Anthony Junior and John Gotti, went for a walk-talk, and John asked him how he was.

"He asked me if there was anything he could do for me, and I told him that I was broke and that I needed a car. He pulled out $2,000 and counted it and handed it to me and said, here’s $2,000, bring me $100 a week and don’t disappoint me.

"We went back to his office next to the Bergin. He had a desk there and he'd get haircuts. He made a call and then gave me directions to get to a car lot on 84th Street and Atlantic, where he told me to ask for Anthony; 'he’ll give you a car.'"

"Tony Lee drove me and I went to the lot and asked for Anthony and I got a white four-door Bonneville."

Anthony Junior began showing up at the Bergin every Saturday to have lunch with John Gotti and the crew.

"Every Saturday John Gotti and his guys had lunch. John had a guy cooking pasta and everything."

The first week, Anthony handed over $100, as he'd been told. The next week, he handed John another $100. The third week, John told him, "let's go for a walk."

"We went around the block again and that time John held my arm. He asked me, 'think you got it beat?'" referring to the cocaine.

"I said that I wanted to be around him and my father, that I wanted to progress in the life. John asked how much I owed him."

Anthony Junior told him that he still owed him $1,700.

"He said, 'keep it as a gift.' John was always good to me."

John Gotti would reprimand Anthony Junior when he believed Anthony deserved it, but he always did so "calmly and compassionately, " Anthony Junior told us.

And "he always gave me money. I even told the FBI that too. John Gotti was always good to me and my family. Oh my god, he loved my mother, even though my father and him had had beefs when they were younger. In adulthood, they let that go. And John never took any of that stuff out on me."

We asked him to explain one of the beefs between John Gotti and his father.

"My father had to take Nicky back, and John understood that.

"My experience with John was, what was right was right, and what was wrong was wrong."

We asked him to tell us about when John Gotti reprimanded him.

"We had a big numbers business me and my father's crew, a big numbers business out of Jamaica, Queens."

"The numbers business brought in about $90,000 a day. We needed a bank so I went to (Genovese wiseguy Federico) Fritzy Giovanelli, who was a banker. We brought him the business and John found out about it. It was my idea to go to Fritzy. John found out about it.

"He was blasting Tony Lee, why you giving Fritzy all our fcking business? Why’d you go to him?

"Fritzy was very good friends with my father and Tony Lee. But John was boss. Everybody got yelled at but me."

Another time Anthony saw Gotti truly furious, in a "kill that motherfucker" mode, was when he found out that Lou Albano had gotten his girlfriend pregnant. The problem was that at the same time he'd gotten his cumare pregnant, Lou Albano was married -- to John Gotti's daughter Angel. Lou Albano also was Tony Lee's cousin.

"Lou had cheated on Angel and had baby with another girl, and John wanted to kill him. Tony Lee saved his life."

"John said he was going to kill Lou, his brother Anthony, and their father Sammy -- kill the three of them and then bury them all on top of each other.

"'I'm gonna make a fckin triple-decker sandwich!' John said. 'This kid is a fcking idiot! Why didn’t he get a girl in Florida? I would have paid him to! Why does he do this shit in Howard fcking Beach?! That's my daughter!'"

"Tony Lee was like, c'mon that's my cousin, you ain't gonna kill my cousin."

"Sammy had been one of biggest fireworks dealers in New York and they broke him. Lou and his brother went to Los Angeles and opened up a pizzeria."