Mob informant Anthony Ruggiano, Jr. last week was sentenced in Brooklyn Federal Court (pictured) to time served.
Photo Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons/BeyondMyKen
A mob informant last week was sentenced to time served—three days in federal prison—for his role in a 26-year-old hit in an Ozone Park social club that resulted in the death of his brother-in-law, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York and published reports.
Anthony Ruggiano, Jr., 61, last Thursday received his sentence, which also included five years of supervised release, from Judge Jack Weinstein, who according to the Daily News explained to the family of the victim, Frank Boccia, why he could not give Ruggiano a lengthier sentence, calling him “a tool by the government to further destroy the remnants of this Mafia that had been the cause of your grief. Were he sentenced to life, that would destroy this tool.”
Boccia reportedly was shot to death in the garden behind Café Liberty on Liberty Avenue in Ozone Park in 1988. The hit, allegedly sanctioned by Gambino crime family boss John Gotti, was in retaliation for Boccia hitting Ruggiano’s mother during a domestic dispute, according the News.
Ruggiano testified against Gambino capos Dominick Pizzonia—the alleged triggerman in the Boccia hit—Bartolomeo Vernace and Charles Carneglia, assisting federal authorities in solving many murders.
Vernace in May was sentenced to life in prison without parole plus 10 years, in part, for the 1981 double homicide of Richard Godkin and John D’Agnese inside the Shamrock Bar in Woodhaven.
By Michael V. Cusenza
