The accused mobster, son of a legendary Mafioso named “Quack Quack” was denied bail Tuesday within the sensational case involving NBA-tied rigged card video games — over issues he’d return to his witness-tampering methods.
Attorneys for Anthony Ruggiero Jr., 53, had pushed for a $5 million bond insured by his household and associates in the course of the reputed Gambino mobster’s bail listening to in Brooklyn federal court docket.
However Decide Joseph Marutollo agreed with prosecutors that Ruggiero’s historical past foreshadows what he’d do if launched: tamper with a witness.
Donna Dotan
Marutollo famous that Ruggiero, when incarcerated in a previous case, had threatened to kill a witness.
“He made his hand within the form of a gun and stated, ‘You understand how we care for rats up shut and private,” the choose stated of the son of infamous late mobster Angelo Ruggiero Sr., whose motor-mouthed honking earned him the nickname “Quack Quack.”
Ruggiero sat glum in a tan jail outfit as Marutollo denied the bail bundle.
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The listening to was the most recent stemming from explosive federal indictments final week that uncovered alleged Mafia sports activities playing and poker-rigging schemes intertwined with NBA gamers.
Ruggiero performed on dishonest poker groups inside 80 Washington Ave., a luxe Greenwich Village pad, the feds alleged.
The townhouse was certainly one of two Manhattan places the place high-stakes poker video games have been held by 4 of town’s strongest crime households, together with the Gambinos, the feds alleged.
The crooks allegedly used NBA Corridor of Famer Chauncey Billups, the pinnacle coach of the Portland Path Blazers, and former NBA participant Damon Jones, 49, to behave as “face playing cards” to draw excessive rollers to the rigged big-money video games.
One purported sufferer who, alongside together with his poker buddies, was allegedly scammed out of $1 million claimed a former NFL participant additionally had acted because the entrance man throughout his shedding recreation.
The feds have stated the son of “Quack Quack” not solely took his dad’s full Ruggiero title but additionally his Mafia mantle.
The elder Ruggiero was an in depth pal famed Gambino boss John Gotti and ended up an unwitting stool pigeon within the feds’ Eighties probe into the mob household when he was caught on wiretaps characteristically blabbing incriminating filth.
Angelo Ruggiero Jr. is a made man within the Gambino household, with a mobbed-up rap sheet that features a conviction for threatening to kill a witness whereas nonetheless in jail, the feds detailed in a court docket submitting final week.
“In the end, whereas along with the witness of their cell, the defendant made his hand into the form of a gun, pointed it on the witness’s head, and said, in sum and substance: ‘you know the way we care for rats, we get up-close and private,’” court docket papers state.
Ruggiero’s lawyer, James Frocarro, argued that his shopper ought to be out on bail as a result of the entire different alleged mobsters accused within the NBA scheme have been allowed out and that they, too, have been accused of getting dedicated critical offenses.
“Did I provide an excessive amount of to safe his launch?” Frocarro stated. “He has 5 million causes to conform.”
When pressed by the choose about Ruggiero’s gun-finger transfer, Frocarro accused the federal government of purposely placing the cooperating witness in his cell to make Ruggiero mad.
“Did they count on him to offer him a kiss? He didn’t lay a hand on him!” Frocarro stated.
