Anthony “Junior” Ruggiano Jr. is setting the record straight about his life inside the Gambino crime family, but he stops short of confirming one of the most notorious hits in mob history. In a recent interview promoting his upcoming book, Ruggiano, the son of the late Gambino captain Anthony “Fat Andy” Ruggiano Sr. , discussed his father’s role in the criminal underworld, particularly his relationship with the family’s top leadership.
Ruggiano recalled a story his father told him about Albert Anastasia, a former boss of the family. After Anastasia was murdered, a violent power struggle known as the “Castellammarese War” faction broke out, and his father ended up on the run. “They all went on the lam,” Ruggiano said, explaining that the crew that had worked for Anastasia feared for their lives. When his father finally surfaced, he had to answer to the new boss, Carlo Gambino, who agreed to take him back and made him a captain.
However, Ruggiano was more guarded when asked directly whether his father ever participated in hits. “He never told me their names,” he said, noting that his father did significant work for Gambino but refused to reveal the identities of his targets. He hinted at a possible connection to the 1975 murder of Gambino captain Paul Castellano, but the details he shared were vague and steeped in family lore, not courtroom testimony. “There’s an article in the newspaper about it,” he said of one incident, referring to a story his father told him about a bold hit that went down in a club.
Ruggiano claimed his father was present but not the shooter, and that his father had escaped to Atlantic City until things cooled down. He also recounted a tense moment when his father, who resembled the killer, was pulled over by police shortly after the shooting. “They let him go, and we all know the Chin did the shooting,” Ruggiano said, referring to Vincent “the Chin” Gigante. Ruggiano’s father once explained why he was never suspected of that particular murder.
“Because if I did it, he would have been dead,” Ruggiano quoted him as saying of the victim. He added that his father never left a hit without shooting the person in the head once before leaving—a grisly detail he claimed to have inherited. The interview also shed light on the tense relationships within the family. Ruggiano said his father never liked Carmine “the Beast” Tramunti, who later became boss, nor did he care for Dom DeCicco.
He did, however, have a close bond with Paul Castellano, who developed a friendship with him before his own death. Ruggiano recalled that his father, while still a soldier under captain Mike Tally, was one of the first people Castellano promoted to captain when he took over. “He never really liked him, but he did it out of respect,” Ruggiano said, noting that Castellano had “made” many of the crew’s members as made men. Despite his father’s own legal troubles and his devotion to the life, Ruggiano says the book is more than just a mob story.
Titled “Reform Gangsters: Life Inside the Gambino Crime Family, Born into the Life, Lived to Tell It,” the memoir aims to show the reality of living inside a mob family. “Hollywood glamorizes the mob,” he said. “I’m telling you what really goes on inside a mob family—inside the immediate family. ” It’s a perspective he says comes from a “real somebody that was in it,” not a screenplay.
Ruggiano is now pushing the book and plans to share more stories from his past. His father passed away after a long career in the family, and the son kept the details of his most violent work to himself. “He never gave me names,” Ruggiano repeated. “But he gave me the story.
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