10 May 1 - 7, 2025 dallasobserver.com DALLAS OBSERVER Classified | MusiC | dish | Culture | unfair Park | Contents arm of the mafia. “My father was a gangster, a killer,” Rug- giano says. “He lost his father when he [Andy] was six. His two best friends were connected to the mafia through family. … He was a great father. He used to kiss me on the lips. We had a great relationship. But he hated people who cooperated.” Extending over 10 blocks in Brooklyn, Engel’s neighborhood included Brownsville and Ocean Hill, areas once known as re- cruitment grounds for Murder Inc. From the late 1920s until the early 1940s, the Brooklyn gang was responsible for between 400 and 1,000 contract killings, authorities say. Muder Inc.’s reign of killing ended in 1941. Its founder, Louis “Lepke” Buchalter, along with other leaders, died in the electric chair, and assassins gunned down Anastasia in a barber shop in 1957. But their families remained behind in the neighborhoods. In the early 1970s, five families made up the New York mafia: the Bonanno, Colombo, Gambino, Genovese and Lucchese. Carlo Gambino, the namesake of his family, was the most powerful boss of the five families. “A couple of families were in the same neighborhood,” Engel/Borelli says. “It’s kind of like how the government’s doing things. You just had boundaries.” Gambino boss John Gotti came from Engel’s neighborhood. His younger brother Gene Gotti, a high-ranking Gambino mafi- oso, hung out with one of Engel’s sisters. Nick “Nicky” Corozzo, another high-rank- ing Gambino mafioso, had his first head- quarters in a small candy store in Ocean Hill. When Engel was younger, he worked for Corozzo’s brother Blaise, first selling fireworks, later taking bets on horse races, baseball and other sporting events. He thumped a few heads to get debts paid. “They got all the money, all the respect, all the attention. They had nice clothes and got pretty girls,” Engel says. “Hanging out with them gave me a place to belong.” Engel felt that sense of belonging at the pizza parlor in Queens with Ruggiano, who had taken a liking to Engel, whose tough- guy reputation among the local street gangs had been spreading. It eventually spread to the FBI. “We knew of him,” says Philip Scala, a re- tired FBI agent who spent 35 years in the Organized Crime Unit, the last 10 of them as supervisor of the Gambino crime family squad. “I’ve spoken to two or three cooper- ates and associates like Robert, and these were tough kids involved with murders and beatings. These were people that everybody who knew them would walk on the other side to avoid them. They all tell me … Robert was the real deal.” Ruggiano knew Engel was the real deal in 1972. He recalls that they began hanging out every day, going to the clubs in Manhattan, doing cocaine and “making money doing mob stuff.” That mob stuff included … Well, the first rule of the mob Engel learned: “Never admit to anything.” “It’s hard for me to explain it,” Engel says. “I don’t want to sound unconscionable. Some of my acts… that was work. Live through the streets, die through the streets, that’s what happens. My concern was not getting caught.” “Never take a plea” was another rule, fol- lowed by “Don’t rat on nobody, keep your mouth shut and do your time like a man,” and whatever you do, “Don’t mess with somebody’s wife. That’s automatic death,” Engel recalls. “Don’t mess with drugs” was a rule Engel says nearly all of them ignored. The old bosses, among them Paul Casellano, who took over the family in 1976, enforced the rule because drug trafficking led to lengthy prison sentences and possible cooperation with prosecutors in exchange for shorter ones. Engel was 20 in 1975 when he was ar- rested for a 1973 murder that involved “a guy who started some trouble,” he says. The man had become aggressive with a knife over drugs that Engel says his companions didn’t have. He died from stab wounds. Fat Andy hid Engel and Little Joe for about a year and then put Engel under the protec- tion of Gambino captain Nick “Nicky” Coro- zzo, only for Engel to pick up another murder charge in 1974 while hiding out from his first one after a gunshot victim was found dead in a club Engel had visited. Corozzo became a father figure to Engel. “Nicky taught me a lot about the mob,” En- gel says. “After a while, I wanted to be Nicky.” In 1977, Engel was acquitted of the shoot- ing death. Authorities dismissed the charge in the stabbing death because, Ruggiano says, there were no witnesses. “It’s sort of like Goodfellas,” says Rug- giano, whose father was portrayed by Louis Eppolito in the movie. “We could go any- where we want. Robert was well-liked by the mob guys, and I started introducing him to people. ‘Robert, the Mob Star.’ It was just an exciting time.” Get Clean or Die C ocaine started as an exciting time for Engel in the 1970s. Jay Black of Jay and the Americans, a popular rock act in the 1960s, turned Rug- giano on to the drug. Black, who died in 2021, was friends with Fat Andy, Engel says, and took Ruggiano, then 17, to Puerto Rico, where the white powder flowed. “That was the first time he’d seen co- caine,” Engel recalls. Ruggiano introduced Engel and Little Joe to it when Ruggiano’s father was hiding them in upstate New York from the first murder charge. “Joseph didn’t want to do it at first. ‘Nah, I don’t want that shit,’” recalls Ruggiano, who got clean in 1988. “When I got clean and had to do my step work, when I was do- ing my eighth or ninth step, I went to his grave and made amends.” Engel began using and selling cocaine for the Gambino crime family. In the early ’80s, he served about two years in prison on a fed- eral case for possession of $200,000 in sto- len treasury checks and on two state cases for robbery and possession of a weapon. En- gel returned to prison for a year in 1985 for violating his parole on a weapons charge in Manhattan. He’d been robbing furs from a storefront. By the late ’80s, a friend who freebased with him introduced him to crack. “For a while it was sociable,” Engel says. “After [a] while, I couldn’t maintain business.” Paranoia accompanied his addiction. He shot his friend in the head because Engel says he thought his friend was stealing drugs from him. The man survived and even man- aged to run out of the house, only to get hit by the ambulance. Engel didn’t face charges. “He didn’t tell anybody that it was me.” In the early ’90s, crack had become En- gel’s life. If he had money, Engel says he’d go to a motel, find a girl and get high. He’d stay up for weeks at a time and only fall asleep when he blacked out. Then he’d wake up, do it all again until he was homeless, seeking shelter at crack houses. He’d often hang out near Fat Andy’s son’s after-hours club in Ozone Park to get high. He’d walk into the club, hustle people for cocaine or a couple of dollars. The guy who ran the joint got hold of Ruggiano, who came to the club to reason with Engel. But Engel wouldn’t listen to Ruggiano or any other mob friend except for Corozzo, who sent word in ’94 that Engel needed to leave New York. He was becoming an em- barrassment to the mafia. “Get clean” was the message. What would happen if he failed to do so was clear. Busted Again E ngel approached the stolen cargo truck in a quiet industrial area near Fort Lau- derdale to count the cigarette cartons in the back. He’d been dealing with stolen cargo since the ’70s when he hijacked cargo trucks from the JFK International Airport in Queens. He already had a buyer for the ciga- rettes in suburban Deerfield Beach, about 18 miles north of Fort Lauderdale. A year had passed since he left New York for Miami. Engel had moved in with his mother, gotten clean and found a job cleaning large office buildings downtown. He even got to spend time with his daughter, who was a year old and came to visit him from New York with her mother in July 1994. Then Ruggiano called in late ’94 and said Corozzo, now the acting Gambino boss, wanted to see him at the Fontainebleau, a luxury hotel in Miami Beach where they were staying. Corozzo had set up loan shark operations at an E-Z Check Cashing in Deerfield Beach. He was offering “shylock loans” at a 260% annual interest rate, cheaper than current legal payday loans that offer 400% yearly rates but don’t threaten beatings for those who fall behind. Accord- ing to a May 25, 2005, court document, Corozzo’s crew was also participating in ex- tortion, fraud, money laundering and stolen goods such as the stolen cargo truck filled with cigarette cartons. “It was just a visit,” Engel says. “Nicky wanted to feel me out. It was a couple of times. They were coming back and forth and men- tioned to me that this guy needed someone to collect money out of a check-cashing place.” They gave Engel a list of people who hadn’t paid. He began visiting them. “Actu- ally, I told them nice, ‘You need to pay it. We’re willing to work with you. Start mak- ing payments and make a commitment. I’ll come by every week and pick it up,’” he re- calls. “Some people were reluctant, Mike Brooks Witness from p8 Borelli and Ruggiano Jr. are reformed mobsters who now chat about their experiences on YouTube. >> p12
