Salvatore Ruggiero

Salvatore Frank Ruggiero Sr. pronounced (roo-JEH-roh; July 20, 1945 – May 1982), also known as "Sal the Sphinx", "Sal Quack Quack" and "Sally", was a Gambino crime family mob associate and drug trafficker who was the younger brother of Angelo Ruggiero and ringleader of "The Pleasant Avenue Connection" which was a precursor to the Pizza Connection Trial drug smuggling operation.

He became a fugitive in the late 1970s.

The vagueness was deliberate, for Salvatore by 1970 was deeply involved in heroin trafficking, and by La Cosa Nostra regulations, that was strictly forbidden.

So the fiction had to be maintained: Ruggiero moved heroin while officially neither his capo Carmine Fatico, nor John Gotti, nor Carlo Gambino knew anything about it.

All the while, Fatico accepted a share of the heroin sales' proceeds from Sal, with the facade further maintained by both men's bland insistence that the money was the result of some successful transport truck hijackings from John F. Kennedy International Airport.

Salvatore later married an airline stewardess named Stephanie who bore him a son, Salvatore Ruggiero Jr., on January 8, 1972, who lives in Marlboro, New Jersey.

The son followed his father and uncle into organized crime.

Salvatore is the paternal uncle of Gambino crime family mob associates Angelo Ruggiero Jr. and John Ruggiero Jr.

His uncle Aniello Dellacroce had an affair with the wife of the Gambino crime family capo Ernest Grillo Jr. She bore Dellacroce two illegitimate children, Shannon Connelly and Sean Connelly.

Ernest Grillo Jr. is the son of Gambino crime family mob associate and DeMeo crew associate, Danny Grillo.

By 1975, resulting from several serious injuries that led to hospitalization in the intensive care unit, Salvatore was cured of his impulse control disorder that was the root cause of his addiction to high speed.

Then, too, he had very little time for such pursuits, for Salvatore was a very busy millionaire "businessman" (as he preferred to call himself).

He was dealing in heroin that made him one of the largest and wealthiest dealers in New York City that included Gerlando Sciascia, Alphonse Indelicato, Cesare Bonventre and others who would later be indicted in the Pizza Connection Trial.

Salvatore was not close to his uncle and remained distant to his younger brother, and strived to be more than a street-level hood which Angelo would later become.

Despite his long friendship with John Gotti, Salvatore did not seem consumed with the ambition to become a major Mafia powerhouse as did his brother, Angelo, and their mutual friend.

He built criminal business relationships with Gene Gotti, John Carneglia, mob criminal attorney Michael Coiro, Joseph Guagliano, Anthony Moscatiello, Oscar Ansourian, Edward Lino, Mark Reiter, William Robert Cestaro, Salvatore Greco, Joseph Lo Presti, Vincent Lore, Anthony Gurino and Caesar Gurino, Instead, he appeared content to stay on the fringes of the Gambino crime family organization and the Bergin crew as some sort of vague associate, although no one seemed quite certain what he did.

He had graduated from street thuggery and became a multimillionaire, selling a range of drugs, from major shipments of marijuana, to heroin and cocaine.

Wanted on several charges, he had become a fugitive, hiding out with his wife, Stephanie under various aliases in New Jersey, Florida, Pennsylvania and Ohio.

Salvatore could afford life on the run.

He secretly owned hideouts in Fort Lauderdale, Florida and the Poconos and traded heavily in stocks and bonds under other names.

He also owned a diner, a greeting card store, and other investment property purchased through a company called Ozone Holding, named after Ozone Park, Queens.

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.

He was a passenger on an aircraft that crashed on May 6, 1982; his body was recovered on May 14.

Salvatore Frank Ruggiero was born in East New York, Brooklyn, to a first generation Italian immigrant John Ruggiero Jr. from Torre de Ruggiero in Catanzaro, Calabria, Italy and an Italian-American woman named Mary Dellacroce who lived in Howard Beach, Queens.

Mary was the biological sister of Gambino crime family underboss Aniello Dellacroce.

It is unknown if his father John Jr. was a member of organized crime and served under Albert Anastasia or Carlo Gambino.

Salvatore became involved in criminal activity at a young age and joined the powerful Fulton-Rockaway Boys (and the girl Elisa) gang member like his older brother Angelo Ruggiero and John Gotti.

Salvatore was once arrested for trying to steal an Avis Rent a Car rental car with Gotti.

He was a sphinx compared to his brother Angelo.

It is suggested by John Volkman and Ernest Cummings that Salvatore remained quiet and subdued because he had no hope of ever getting a word in with his brother Angelo around.

He preferred to invest his energies in a mad quest for speed.

Despite two serious injuries suffered in accidents on stolen motorcycles, Salvatore loved anything that he could propel at great velocity.

Said to be a maniac behind the wheel of an automobile, he taught himself to drive at the age of thirteen, and like to roar around deserted areas of Brooklyn in stolen cars.

Angelo looked up towards his brother in awe at his skill of criminal enterprising, who tried in vain to emulate him.

Unlike his brother Angelo, Salvatore exercised regularly and maintained a muscular physique while his brother chain smoked and had eating binges often.

On May 6, 1982, a Gates Learjet 23 N100TA took off from Teterboro, New Jersey, at 10:28 a.m., which was a good day for flying.

The pilot, George Morton had been told, when he checked conditions earlier in the day, that there was no hazardous weather on the horizon and it looked like clear flying through to Orlando, Florida.