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 pals in the course of the reputed Gambino mobster’s bail listening to in Brooklyn federal courtroom.
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 mentioned, ‘You understand how we handle rats up shut and private,” the choose mentioned 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 package deal.
The listening to was the newest 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 one in all two Manhattan places the place high-stakes poker video games had 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 top 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.
Observe The Publish’s newest on the playing scandal rocking the NBA:
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 dropping sport.
The feds have mentioned the son of “Quack Quack” not solely took his dad’s full Ruggiero identify but in addition 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 courtroom 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 acknowledged, in sum and substance: ‘you understand how we handle rats, we get up-close and private,’” courtroom papers state.
Ruggiero’s lawyer, James Frocarro, argued that his shopper must be out on bail as a result of all the different alleged mobsters accused within the NBA scheme had been allowed out and that they, too, have been accused of getting dedicated critical offenses.
“Did I supply an excessive amount of to safe his launch?” Frocarro mentioned. “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 anticipate him to present him a kiss? He didn’t lay a hand on him!” Frocarro mentioned.
