At least one person indicted in Operation Royal Flush—the federal case against dozens accused of fixing mob-run poker games, including NBA head coach Chauncey Billups—won't be seeing the outside anytime soon: reported Gambino family member Angelo Ruggiero Jr. was denied bail despite offering up a package worth $5 million.
The decision took place during a bail hearing in federal court in Brooklyn on Tuesday (Oct. 28). Ruggiero, dressed in a tan prison jumpsuit, appeared in front of a small courtroom full of friends and family, including multiple family members willing to guarantee the seven-figure package detailed by his attorney, James Froccaro.
Assistant US Attorney Michael Gibaldi argued that Ruggiero's release, even under home confinement, presented an "ongoing risk" of obstruction of justice and witness intimidation in the case. As evidence, he brought up that Ruggiero once pleaded guilty to witness tampering, which he committed while already in federal prison for conspiracy to commit murder in aid of racketeering for the Gambino family. Ruggiero's father Angelo “Quack Quack” Ruggiero Sr. was a Gambino captain who was close to John Gotti.
"He's done it before," Gibaldi said of the younger Ruggiero's propensity for intimidating witnesses.
Froccaro, for his part, argued that the witness tampering case only happened because prison authorities put a known cooperator in Ruggiero's cell.
"Did they expect him to give them a kiss?" he asked.
The attorney also pointed out that Pretrial Services recommended his client's release. He also said that because the guarantors of the bail package included his sister and his nephew, as well as several lifelong friends, Ruggiero "has five million reasons to comply... [If he violated the bail conditions], he would leave his entire family homeless and broke."
In the end, Judge Joseph Marutollo sided with prosecutors, agreeing that if Ruggiero was free, there would be a "serious risk of obstruction of justice." The judge said that the mobster's prior witness tampering conviction puts him in a "different category" than other defendants in the case, many of whom have been released on bond.
One of those very defendants, Curtis Meeks, appeared in the same courtroom shortly afterwards, to be arraigned on his own charges in the case. Meeks, who pleaded not guilty on all counts, is accused of helping to supply the cheating technology used in the fixed poker games.
The Texas-based Meeks, a professional gambler and boxing coach (and a former boxer), had already been released on a $250,000 bond. After the judge in his case, Taryn Merkl, expressed confusion as to why Meeks had a court-appointed attorney despite bringing in a monthly income that she characterized as "not insignificant," Meeks explained that there was a $15 million judgment entered against him in an unrelated case.
One somewhat unusual moment occurred when prosecutors asked that Meeks, as a condition of his release, be banned from all gambling. It was at that moment that Meeks' attorney revealed to the court that he was a professional gambler, and thus needed to be able to do at least some gambling (Meeks gave as an example being part of the World Series of Poker) in order to earn a living.
After some consultation, both sides agreed that Meeks would be barred from gambling unless he got the approval of Pretrial Services.
The next hearing for many of the defendants in Operation Royal Flush is set for Nov. 24.