The son of legendary mobster 'Quack Quack' won’t be walking free — a judge denied his bail in the explosive NBA gambling scandal, fearing he’d fall right back into witness-tampering.
At his Brooklyn bail hearing, lawyers for Angelo Ruggiero Jr., 53 — the reputed Gambino mobster — pleaded for a $5 million bond, vouchsafed by family and friends ready to stake their fortunes on him.
Judge Joseph Marutollo wasn’t buying it — he agreed with prosecutors that Ruggiero’s past says it all: if he walks, he meddles.
The feds say Ruggiero wasn’t just playing cards — he was part of crooked poker crews running games out of a plush Greenwich Village spot at 80 Washington Ave. Donna Dotan
The ritzy Manhattan townhouse once home to rapper Travis Scott — Kylie Jenner’s baby daddy — became the backdrop for high-stakes, crooked poker games run by mobsters and NBA stars, according to federal agents. Donna Dotan
Judge Marutollo reminded the court that Ruggiero once threatened to kill a witness while locked up in an earlier case. “He made his hand in the shape of a gun and said, ‘You know how we take care of rats up close and personal,’” the judge said of the son of infamous mobster Angelo Ruggiero Sr., whose loud, constant chatter earned him the nickname “Quack Quack.”
Dressed in a tan prison jumpsuit, a sullen Ruggiero stared ahead as Judge Marutollo shot down his $5 million bail bid.
Moments later, co-defendant Curtis Meeks, 41, pleaded not guilty to wire fraud and money-laundering charges tied to the same high-stakes scheme.
Meeks — a former boxer who allegedly provided the tech behind the crooked poker games — walked away with a $250,000 bond.
The feds want to keep Meeks away from the tables — a major setback for the professional gambler.
The alleged scheme even enlisted NBA stars: Hall of Famer Chauncey Billups (left) and former player Damon Jones, 49, served as “face cards” to draw high rollers into the crooked high-stakes poker games. Obtained
“I play in the World Series of Poker. If [the government] doesn’t want me to play, that’s fine,” Meeks said in court.
The judge made it clear: Meeks has to report any gambling and travel to pretrial services.
The consecutive hearings follow last week’s bombshell federal indictments exposing alleged Mafia sports gambling and rigged poker operations tied to NBA players.
The feds say Ruggiero was part of crooked poker crews running games out of a swanky Greenwich Village pad at 80 Washington Ave.
The townhouse was reportedly one of two Manhattan spots where the city’s top crime families — including the Gambinos — ran high-stakes poker games, according to federal authorities.
The alleged scheme even enlisted NBA stars: Hall of Famer Chauncey Billups, 49, and ex-player Damon Jones, 49, served as “face cards” to lure high rollers into the crooked high-stakes poker games.
A purported victim, who says he and his poker friends lost $1 million, claimed a former NFL player served as the front man in his rigged game.
The feds allege that “Quack Quack”’s son didn’t just take his father’s name — he also assumed his Mafia mantle.
The elder Ruggiero, a close friend of notorious Gambino boss John Gotti, accidentally became a federal informant in the 1980s when wiretaps recorded him endlessly blabbing incriminating secrets.
Angelo Ruggiero Jr., a made man in the Gambino family, boasts a mobbed-up rap sheet — including a conviction for threatening a witness from behind bars, according to federal court filings last week.
“Ultimately, while together with the witness in their cell, the defendant made his hand into the shape of a gun, pointed it at the witness’s head, and stated, in sum and substance: ‘you know how we take care of rats, we get up-close and personal,’” court papers state.
Ruggiero’s lawyer, James Frocarro, argued that his client should be granted bail, noting that all the other alleged mobsters in the NBA scheme had been released — despite facing similarly serious charges.
“Did I offer too much to secure his release?” Frocarro said. “He has five million reasons to comply.”
Pressed about Ruggiero’s gun-finger gesture, his lawyer Frocarro claimed the feds intentionally put the cooperating witness in his cell to rile him up.
“Did they expect him to give him a kiss? He didn’t lay a hand on him!” Frocarro said.
