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Angelo Salvatore Ruggiero Sr. (; July 29, 1940 – December 4, 1989), also known as " Quack Quack", was an American mobster who rose to the position of caporegime in the Gambino crime family. He is best known for his fraternal friendship with John Gotti and was instrumental in the assassination of incumbent boss Paul Castellano which led to the rise of Gotti to official boss of the Gambino family.
Ruggiero grew up with future Gambino boss John Gotti and underboss Sammy Gravano. A high school dropout, Ruggiero was arrested in the 1950s for street fighting, public intoxication, car theft, bookmaking, possession of an illegal firearm, and burglary. Some of these arrests were made while in the company of Gotti.
On May 22, 1973, Ruggiero, Gotti, and a Gambino gunman, Ralph Galione, killed mobster James McBratney in a Staten Island bar. McBratney had recently tried to kidnap a Gambino loanshark for ransom, which led the Gambino leadership to order his assassination. Gotti and Ruggiero were convicted of manslaughter and sent to prison. After their release on parole in July 1977, Ruggiero and Gotti were inducted into the Gambino family as made men in a ceremony officiated by the family boss Paul Castellano, consigliere Joseph N. Gallo, and underboss Dellacroce. Law enforcement later speculated that Dellacroce’s personal affection for Ruggiero and Gotti played a crucial role in their elevation within the organization.
To comply with his parole conditions, Ruggiero was employed from 1977 to 1984 in a no-show job as a salesman for Arc Plumbing and Heating Corporation, which was owned by Gambino associates Anthony and Caesar Gurino.
Ruggiero was suspected in the 1980 disappearance of John Favara, a neighbor of Gotti's who had killed Gotti's 12-year-old son Frank in a car accident. Ruggiero participated in the 1985 slaying of Castellano.
Ruggiero was later the subject of a government undercover investigation. Mobster turned government informant Wilfred Johnson provided investigators with the layout of Ruggerio's home so that they could install four bugs and . Investigators monitored Ruggiero's activities in narcotics. The Rat by Allan May Investigators later recorded conversations between Ruggiero and Gene Gotti that implicated the two men in Castellano's murder.
Although Dellacroce helped Ruggiero during his early years with the family, many observers felt that Dellacroce was actually much closer to Gotti. Dellacroce's relationship with Ruggiero was tested when Peter Tambone, a Ruggiero associate, was arrested for narcotics trafficking. Dellacroce made it clear that he would kill Ruggiero, Gotti, or anyone else he discovered dealing in narcotics. To save Tambone's life, Ruggiero instructed Tambone to claim that he was never involved with the heroin, only the laundering of the drug money.
Sammy Gravano later said:
I don't think if he lived (Dellacroce), he would've let Angelo get murdered. He would have probably put him on a shelf somewhere and appease Paul that way. If he let Paul kill him, there would have been a war. I think he felt, Paul's the boss, so let's 'fess up, this is the truth, this is what happened, here are the tapes. Then, if Paul followed up and said, "Well, I want him dead", Neil would have fought tooth and nail to save him. And if he couldn't, who knows what the fuck would've happened?Peter Maas. Underboss: Sammy the Bull Gravano's Story of Life in the Mafia. p. 309, p.293-294 New York City: HarperCollins, 1996. .
Gravano also later stated:
I don't think John (Gotti) gave a fuck about Angelo or the tapes. I think he was looking to create a situation to capitalize on our other grievances about Paul. There was tension between Aniello Dellacroce and his followers and Paul Castellano, and Frank DeCicco enjoyed their mutual respect. But when Ruggiero tried to convince DeCicco that Dellacroce had real disputes against Castellano, he did not believe him. To Ruggiero's unhappiness, DeCicco said that as far as he was concerned, his uncle was a faithful underboss to Paul Castellano. Angelo would also listen to his uncle's protege and childhood friend, John Gotti, insult Dellacroce about his "La Cosa Nostra bullshit".
When Dellacroce was dying, Ruggiero was a constant visitor to his bedside until his death on December 2, 1985.
Ruggiero frequently complained about the lack of money that he was earning through his illicit criminal enterprises. Authorities later commented that, judging by appearances, however, both Ruggiero and John Gotti seemed blithely unconcerned by a second consequence of the Ravenite Social Club wire tapping operation, a grand jury subpoena calling forth Ruggiero, John Gotti, and ten other habitués of the Ravenite to discuss certain aspects of organized crime, as revealed by the successful Operation Acorn.
Gambino crime family capo John Carneglia often complained about Ruggiero to fellow criminals stating, "Dial any seven numbers, and there's a fifty-fifty chance that Angelo will answer the phone." Every other Sunday, Ruggiero drove to Castellano's house in Todt Hill, Staten Island to report to Castellano about the activities of the Bergin crew and the profits he could expect from the crew's hijacking and gambling operations. At home, Ruggiero would complain about Castellano's high-handed manner. He sneered that Castellano was a "milk drinker" and a "pansy". He put down Castellano's two sons, who were running Dial Poultry, as "the chicken men", and called business advisers that Castellano had around him as "the Jew club." He referred to Thomas Gambino, who oversaw the family's interests in the garment center as a "sissy dressmaker". He also conjured up images of Castellano and Bilotti spending evenings together at Todt Hill, "whacking off."
On December 16, 1985, two weeks after Dellacroce's death, Castellano and his new underboss Thomas Bilotti were murdered outside Sparks Steak House in Manhattan, and John Gotti assumed the role of Gambino family boss.
Ruggiero frequently insulted Gotti behind his back, which was recorded on FBI wiretaps. He considered Gotti a "sick motherfucker" whose "fucking mouth goes a mile a minute." He also complained that Gotti was always "abusing" and "talking about people", and was "wrong on a lot of things." Even so, he spoke of a love for Gotti, whom he equated to a "brother".
Ruggiero was considered John Gotti's biggest ego booster among his close associates, despite the behind-the-back barbs. He later became a father figure to John Gotti Jr., who considered him an "uncle" although they were not related by marriage or blood.
Although the Ruggiero and Gotti families have close, long-lasting ties, when Peter Gotti and Gotti Jr. were promoted to boss of the Gambino crime family, Ruggiero's son, Angelo Ruggiero Jr., and nephew, Salvatore Ruggiero Jr., were not inducted into the family, as Ruggiero's uncle Dellacroce had done for Junior's father, John Gotti. This was possibly caused by the legal troubles Angelo Ruggiero Sr. brought upon John Gotti and the Gambino crime family after having his house tapped by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the United States Department of Justice.
Ruggiero later helped in the disappearance and murder of family soldier Anthony Pilate, with John Gotti and Wilfred Johnson, for his uncle Dellacroce in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
In its initial request to wiretap the telephone, the FBI listed Peter Gotti and Richard Gotti as loanshark collectors, and stated that Ruggiero was a "known murderer who would, without question, seek physical retribution and possibly murder a shylock victim who is unable to pay his debts." Somehow Ruggiero found out that agents had been listening to him and went into hiding. The affidavit caused panic and deception within the Dellacroce–Gotti faction regime and the Paul Castellano loyalists in the Gambino crime family, whose titular boss had imposed a death penalty on family members engaged in drug dealing.
On December 1, 1984, the Ruggiero wiretap was removed because he moved from Howard Beach, Queens to Cedarhurst, New York, to a house he was having renovated. Ruggiero told informants it was a good move for him and that the FBI would not know where he lived. In fact, pen registers at the Our Friends Social Club had disclosed several calls to his home in Cedarhurst, and FBI agents were watching on the day Ruggiero moved in. The agents had increased physical surveillance of Ruggiero and John Gotti, suspecting they might be dealing drugs. Despite Ruggiero's growing uneasiness and his efforts to discuss matters in code, evidence of narcotics trafficking began to grow around him mostly from his tape recorded telephone conversations with drug traffickers Alphonse Sisca and Arnold Squitieri.
On April 17, 1984, Ruggiero met with Jack Conroy. Conroy was an associate who said he had a source who worked at the telephone company, which is notified when phones are being legally tapped, and he could find out who authorized the taps. A week later, he told Ruggiero this would cost $800- $1,000 for his telephone company source and $200 each for his partner and him. Ruggiero agreed.
In a few days, Conroy delivered a bill of goods. He said the taps were legal because of a March 18 federal court order in the Southern District of New York, which is Manhattan and the Bronx. This invention caused Ruggiero to speculate that he was only peripherally involved in an investigation aimed at someone else. Just in case, however, he told Conroy, who had just suckered Ruggiero out of $1,000, that he would get some other telephone numbers for him to check. Conroy agreed to this. Jack Conroy was really an undercover FBI agent who was posing as a telephone repairman.
Ruggiero at the time the indictments were being prepared seemed to not be worried about the outcome of the trial. He spent $40,000 on remodeling his home in Cedarhurst and was overheard saying, "the bugs in this house were a bunch of bullshit, and nothing is coming." His confidence later seemed ridiculous, even to his confederates.
In late June 1985, the Bergin crew finally demonstrated it could get accurate information. Ruggiero obtained a pasted-together version of the last of the FBI's six Ruggiero electronic-surveillance affidavits. The notes revealed Conroy to be a Federal agent and that attorney Michael Coiro was not wired into the Eastern District as he imagined. Critically, the FBI working papers confirmed the depth of the probe and the fact that it was supported by a three-bug invasion of Ruggiero's home. Sources advised Ruggiero became scared to death because he had been lying systematically to Paul Castellano and his uncle Aniello Dellacroce, insofar as he had constantly told them that he had not been dealing in drugs by himself, but merely cleaning up loose ends of his brother Salvatore's narcotics operation.
After Castellano was arrested for racketeering and other crimes, he learned for the first time that his home had been bugged by the FBI, and that the Ruggiero tapes were the legal basis for it. Castellano went to Ruggiero's uncle, Aniello Dellacroce, and demanded he give over the tapes. Dellacroce tried to placate Castellano, saying that there were many personally embarrassing moments on the tapes that Ruggiero did not want anyone to hear. He said that he wanted the tapes not to justify murdering him, but for his lawyers who were trying to suppress the introduction of his own tapes in the upcoming 1985 Mafia Commission Trial. In ensuing sessions between Ruggiero, Gotti and Dellacroce, Ruggiero remained adamant about not giving up the tapes. He accused his uncle of betrayal for even entertaining the thought. He told his lawyers he would kill them if they gave up the tapes.
Sammy Gravano stated, "I didn't know till later that the bug on him gave the government the OK, the right legally, to bug Paul Castellano's house. It was Angie's big mouth. I mean, he's caught on tape all over the fucking place. His tapes, the tape with Gennaro Langella (Gennaro Langella) and Donnie Shacks (Dominick Martomorano). You name it and Angie's on tape. And always talking about stuff that he ain't supposed to be even mentioning to anybody. We find out about the tapes on Angie when he was arrested. And they eventually would become a major fucking problem. Ultimately, people would say these tapes and what was on them probably led to Paul's downfall. But what really led to it was also a lot of things he was doing that people in the family were against, and when the time came, when it came down the wire, this was why me and Frank DeCicco and the other guys went along with it. Right then though, Angie's tapes had nothing to do with me whatsoever. I was never at Angie's house. I'm not on any of his tapes in any way, shape or form. That was all Angie's problem. John Gotti's problem. And Paul's."
After the botched murder of Lucchese crime family mobster Anthony Casso, he openly called Ruggiero an "idiot". Insulted, Ruggiero decided to have Casso murdered, a task entrusted to Michael Paradiso, one of John Gotti's oldest friends. Paradiso, in turn, assigned the actual task of killing to three hoodlums, including a Staten Island thug named James Hydell, a nephew of Gambino crime family capo Daniel Marino. Hydell shot Casso five times, but failed to kill him, a mistake that proved costly: kidnapped by Stephen Caracappa and Louis Eppolito, Hydell was hideously tortured by Anthony Casso for twelve hours, then killed, all as a warning to Ruggiero.
The incident further rattled Gotti's faith in Ruggiero's abilities as a capo, and created a major managerial problem: as family boss, Gotti was being ushered into the great riches of the upper-level rackets, ones that required captains with some intelligence and business sense who could help him run the organization. Ruggiero proved to have none of these attributes. After the attempted shooting of Anthony Casso, John Gotti Jr. later stated that Ruggiero was placed on the "shelf" for ordering the attack. Despite orders from his father, John Jr. continued his friendship with his father's old friend and spoke to him regularly.
Ruggiero was known as a constant chatter-box, providing a running commentary on everything going on around him, hence his nickname "quack quack". Everyone who visited him had to endure endless gossip, complaints and general indiscretions. The death of his brother Salvatore hit Ruggiero hard, and he was often overheard on FBI wiretaps in his Cedarhurst home wistfully speaking of his brother to Gerlando Sciascia and Joseph LoPresti, his two drug-trafficking partners. Unlike his brother Salvatore, who became a multi-millionaire from his successful large scale drug trafficking operation, Ruggiero would never rise above a wealthy street-level mobster. He later told Joseph LoPresti, "You know I lost my brother. I said to myself: 'I'll have to get drunk.' I had two vodkas ... I went in my room, I closed the door and I cried..." The bugs also overheard Angelo saying how difficult it was accepting his brother's death because the body was in "fuckin pieces." He added: "If he would have been shot in the head and they found him in the streets- that's part of our life, I could accept that.".
After the first heroin-trafficking case against Ruggiero, Gene Gotti and John Carneglia ended in a mistrial, because of jury tampering, Ruggiero remained in federal detention, his bail still revoked, for the second trial. This also resulted in a mistrial, again for suspected jury tampering. For the third trial, in 1989, Ruggiero was finally released on bail and served as a defendant in the case. He had terminal lung cancer. Later, his drug-trafficking partners Gene Gotti and John Carneglia were both convicted and sentenced to 50 years. Sammy Gravano then heard that John wanted to have Ruggiero murdered for allowing himself to be recorded by the FBI. Gravano convinced Gotti that because Ruggiero was dying of cancer that it was not even worth it to carry out the execution. Instead, John stripped Ruggiero of his rank as caporegime of the Bergin crew and shelved him as a member of the Gambino family.
After turning state's evidence to avoid prosecution, former underboss Gravano reported that during the last months of Ruggiero's life both he and Gene Gotti urged John to visit his near-death childhood friend. Gotti refused to see his once loyal soldier and friend because he was still angry over Ruggiero's criminal activities being recorded on wire taps.
On Monday, December 4, 1989, Angelo Ruggiero died of cancer in Howard Beach, Queens, at the age of 49 years."Reputed Mob Chief Ruggiero Dies at 49," by Jerry Capeci, Daily News, December 6, 1989.
His son and namesake, Angelo Ruggiero Jr., and Ruggiero Sr.'s paternal nephew Salvatore Ruggiero Jr. would later follow their fathers into an organized crime "career". Angelo Jr. was convicted of grand larceny in May 1998, and sent to prison for one to three years. He was arrested on October 23, 2025 for getting money from illegal poker games in NYC.
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