At least one particular person indicted in Operation Royal Flush—the federal case in opposition to dozens accused of fixing mob-run poker video games, together with NBA head coach Chauncey Billups—will not be seeing the skin anytime quickly: reported Gambino member of the family Angelo Ruggiero Jr. was denied bail regardless of providing up a package deal value $5 million.
The resolution passed off throughout a bail listening to in federal court docket in Brooklyn on Tuesday (Oct. 28). Ruggiero, dressed in a tan jail jumpsuit, appeared in entrance of a small courtroom stuffed with family and friends, together with a number of relations keen to ensure the seven-figure package deal detailed by his lawyer, James Froccaro.
Assistant US Attorney Michael Gibaldi argued that Ruggiero’s launch, even below residence confinement, offered an “ongoing risk” of obstruction of justice and witness intimidation in the case. As proof, he introduced up that Ruggiero as soon as pleaded responsible to witness tampering, which he dedicated whereas already in federal jail for conspiracy to commit homicide in assist of racketeering for the Gambino household. Ruggiero’s father Angelo “Quack Quack” Ruggiero Sr. was a Gambino captain who was near John Gotti.
“He’s done it before,” Gibaldi mentioned of the youthful Ruggiero’s propensity for intimidating witnesses.
Froccaro, for his half, argued that the witness tampering case solely occurred as a result of jail authorities put a identified cooperator in Ruggiero’s cell.
“Did they expect him to give them a kiss?” he requested.
The lawyer additionally identified that Pretrial Services advisable his shopper’s launch. He additionally mentioned that as a result of the guarantors of the bail package deal included his sister and his nephew, in addition to a number of lifelong pals, Ruggiero “has five million reasons to comply… [If he violated the bail conditions]he would leave his entire family homeless and broke.”
In the top, Judge Joseph Marutollo sided with prosecutors, agreeing that if Ruggiero was free, there could be a “serious risk of obstruction of justice.” The choose mentioned that the mobster’s prior witness tampering conviction places him in a “different category” than different defendants in the case, a lot of whom have been launched on bond.
One of these very defendants, Curtis Meeks, appeared in the identical courtroom shortly afterwards, to be arraigned on his personal expenses in the case. Meeks, who pleaded not responsible on all counts, is accused of serving to to provide the dishonest know-how used in the fastened poker video games.
The Texas-based Meeks, an expert gambler and boxing coach (and a former boxer), had already been launched on a $250,000 bond. After the choose in his case, Taryn Merkl, expressed confusion as to why Meeks had a court-appointed lawyer regardless of bringing in a month-to-month revenue that she characterised as “not insignificant,” Meeks defined that there was a $15 million judgment entered in opposition to him in an unrelated case.
One considerably uncommon second occurred when prosecutors requested that Meeks, as a situation of his launch, be banned from all playing. It was at that second that Meeks’ lawyer revealed to the court docket that he was an expert gambler, and thus wanted to have the ability to do a minimum of some playing (Meeks gave for instance being a part of the World Series of Poker) in order to earn a residing.
After some session, either side agreed that Meeks could be barred from playing except he acquired the approval of Pretrial Services.
The subsequent listening to for most of the defendants in Operation Royal Flush is ready for Nov. 24.