https://twitter.com/ESPNRittenberg/status/1465368446347194374?s=20
He died as a fugitive from the law, but apparently he was the guy in the crew who was the big kingpin. He had the connections in Canada (remember Angelo on the tape said "the ones from Canada weren't good")...Apparently he died early in the 80s, but was reputed to be a millionaire..Angelo wanted to be like him, and the reason the FBI discovered the drug dealing angle was because Gene Gotti told Angelo on the bug "I found the heroin in your brother's stash"..There was a huge stash they were looking for when he died. He was muscular, into fitness, and the opposite of Angelo. Only known photos are from the 70s. His name was Salvatore Ruggiero.
Any info on him? He died in 1982 in a plane crash.
"He owned four cars including a Mercedes Benz and ten watches worth $12,000 each. He was living in a leased home in New Jersey while another mansion on Tortoise Lane in Franklin Lakes, New Jersey was being built for him through a company run by Anthony and Caesar Gurino, owners of Arc Plumbing Corporation, the mobsters who gave John Gotti and Angelo Ruggiero no-show jobs. His prime heroin supplier was Gerlando Sciascia. He secretly controlled a Liberia based corporation, Vimi Steamship Limited in 1981. "
https://preview.redd.it/wqqr5bv0vov71.jpg?width=191&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=182c1ef87d260a1a66ec2a7962c4009be1ddbe73
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=aQXFsJGDlak
Apparently they filmed it so many times bc they couldnβt get it right that they remembered it for a long time π
Castellano knew the wiretapping was compromising and that Quack-Quack mentioned his name + talked about drugs. I mean, just putting the boss' name on a tape and talking about drug trafficking was enough to kill an idiot like Ruggiero. So why? I don't think the reason was that Ruggiero was Dellacroce's nephew.
I don't think I've ever empathized with a gangster in a movie as I did with Al Pacino's Lefty in Donnie Brasco.
I know that even tho the movie suggests in the end that Lefty gets whacked by his mob family because he was the one to guarantee for Donnie aka Pistone, that's not factually right, that it was actually Sonny Black who was killed and that Lefty got "saved" by the FBI who wanted him to cooperate and then served some years and died of cancer.
Despite all this, I'm still gonna use the fictionalized ending of this beautiful character.
I went in Donnie Brasco completely blind, only two things Iknew were that Pacino and Depp were in it, so I naively expected Pacino to be the boss, the big guy in the room, and Depp his son maybe, something like that. Boy could I not be more wrong.
What I found was this second hand mobster, an ambitious and highly committed to the "family" man that wanted to climb the ranks and rise as the new boss, but couldn't, and not for the same reason Henry Hill and Jimmy Conway couldn't, not for a blood matter, but because he wasn't respected.
Around Donnie alone, Lefty played like a big shot, taught him everything he needed to know in order to enter in the family, mentored him, because he wanted to feel important, while he really wasn't.
One scene that broke my heart was when they were on the boat in Florida and Lefty wanted to hand an envelope with a funny pun and 100$ in it as a sign of respect, but couldn't reach Santo Trafficante's attention, he wasn't big enough, he didn't matter, and then he saw Sonnie Black introduce Donnie to Santo and act friendly, and he felt betrayed, he felt stepped on, so he shredded the envelope, threw it in the sea and got depressed.
I couldn't help but feel anguish for him, because I knew that he would suffer the consequences of Donnie's real identity when it would have come to light. I didn't want it to, I genuinely wished the best to him because I felt for him, but I also knew it was inevitable, and when the moment came, he knew, and the scene was simply heartbreaking.
He didn't freak out because he knew he couldn't outrun this, he was completely calm, stood up, kissed his wife, leaves his jewelry and the car's keys in the house, and then delivered the final line that broke me:
"And listen to me, if Donnie calls... , tell him... if it was gonna be anyone, I'm glad it was him. All right?"
... Then leaves and goes to die. Such a bittersweet ending.
Al Pacino is my favourite acto
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