Salvatore Ruggiero

On May 6, 1982 a Gates Learjet 23 N100TA took off from Teterboro, New Jersey, at 10:28 a.m., which was a good day for flying. The pilot, George Morton had been told, when he checked conditions earlier in the day, that there was no hazardous weather on the horizon and it looked like clear flying through to Orlando, Florida. On board the Learjet, which was owned by IBEX Corporation, Morton was joined by a stand-in pilot, Sherri Day and two passengers- a husband and wife who were described by IBEX management as business associates being flown to a meeting in Orlando. Salvatore was interested in purchasing a McDonald's franchise chain restaurant in Magic Kingdom, Disney World. Morton flew the jet while Day handled the radio communications. For more than an hour, the flight was uneventful. Then, from over the Atlantic Ocean, Day radioed the Jacksonville, Florida air traffic control center requesting landing status. An air traffic controller instructed the pilot to lower its altitude from Flight Level 410 to Flight Level 390. The Learjet however, did not immediately start its descent. A minute and a half later, Day made another brief transmission, which was unintelligible. At noon, the crew of a fishing boat spotted a huge water geyser on the surface of the Atlantic, twelve miles southeast of Savannah, Georgia. The captain sped to the scene and found debris scattered across the surface finding bits of skin from the fuselage and pieces of the Learjet's interior, but no survivors. Ninety minutes after the crash, the National Transportation Safety Board was notified.

Wanted on several charges, he had become a fugitive, hiding out with his wife, Stephanie under various aliases in New Jersey, Florida, Pennsylvania and Ohio. Salvatore could afford life on the run. He secretly owned hideouts in Fort Lauderdale, Florida and the Poconos and traded heavily in stocks and bonds under other names. He also owned a diner, a greeting card store, and other investment property purchased through a company called Ozone Holding, named after Ozone Park, Queens. He owned four cars including a Mercedes Benz and ten watches worth $12,000 each. He was living in a leased home in New Jersey while another mansion on Tortoise Lane in Franklin Lakes, New Jersey was being built for him through a company run by Anthony and Caesar Gurino, owners of Arc Plumbing Corporation, the mobsters who gave John Gotti and Angelo Ruggiero no-show jobs. His prime heroin supplier was Gerlando Sciascia. He secretly controlled a Liberia based corporation, Vimi Steamship Limited in 1981. The vagueness was deliberate, for Salvatore by 1970 was deeply involved in heroin trafficking, and by La Cosa Nostra regulations, that was strictly forbidden. So the fiction had to be maintained: Ruggiero moved heroin while officially neither his capo Carmine Fatico, nor John Gotti, nor Carlo Gambino knew anything about it. All the while, Fatico accepted a share of the heroin sales' proceeds from Sal, with the facade further maintained by both men's bland insistence that the money was the result of some successful transport truck hijackings from John F. Kennedy International Airport.

By 1975, resulting from several serious injuries that led to hospitalization in the intensive care unit, Salvatore was cured of his impulse control disorder that was the root cause of his addiction to high speed. Then, too, he had very little time for such pursuits, for Salvatore was a very busy millionaire "businessman" (as he preferred to call himself). He was dealing in heroin that made him one of the largest and wealthiest dealers in New York City that included Gerlando Sciascia, Alphonse Indelicato, Cesare Bonventre and others who would later be indicted in the Pizza Connection Trial.

Angelo looked up towards his brother in awe at his skill of criminal enterprising, who tried in vain to emulate him. Unlike his brother Angelo, Salvatore exercised regularly and maintained a muscular physique while his brother chain smoked and had eating binges often. Salvatore later married an airline stewardess named Stephanie who bore him a son, Salvatore Ruggiero Jr., on January 8, 1972 who lives in Marlboro, New Jersey. The son followed his father and uncle into organized crime. Salvatore is the paternal uncle of Gambino crime family mob associates Angelo Ruggiero Jr. and John Ruggiero Jr.

Salvatore Frank Ruggiero Sr. pronounced (roo-JEH-roh; July 20, 1945 – May 1982), also known as "Sal the Sphinx", "Sal Quack Quack" and "Sally", was a Gambino crime family mob associate and drug trafficker who was the younger brother of Angelo Ruggiero and ringleader of "The Pleasant Avenue Connection" which was a precursor to the Pizza Connection Trial drug smuggling operation. He became a fugitive in the late 1970s. He was a passenger on an aircraft that crashed on May 6, 1982; his body was recovered on May 14.