Benjamin "Lefty" Ruggiero

Benjamin Ruggiero "Lefty"
FBI surveillance photo of Lefty Ruggiero (center) in c. 1980
Born	(1926-04-19)April 19, 1926 Hell's Kitchen, Manhattan, New York
Died	November 24, 1994(1994-11-24) (aged 68) United States

Benjamin Ruggiero, also known as "Lefty", "Lefty Guns", and "Lefty Two Guns" (April 19, 1926 – November 24, 1994), was a soldier in the Bonanno crime family. He is well known for his friendship and mentorship of FBI undercover agent Joseph "Donnie Brasco" Pistone. Ruggiero was an old school Cosa Nostra mobster who knew how Mafia politics worked. Ruggiero allegedly murdered around 26 people and refused to break omertà when arrested.

Born in the Fourth Ward neighborhood of Manhattan, Ruggiero grew up in the Knickerbocker Village private housing development in Little Italy, Manhattan. Ruggiero joined the Bonanno family organization as a young man, serving as a street soldier under caporegime Michael Sabella. Ruggiero soon became successful in bookmaking, extortion and loansharking rackets. Ruggiero was a 6-foot tall (1.8 m), lean-bodied man with a narrow face, intense eyes, slightly stooped shoulders and a cigarette-raspy voice (likely due to chain-smoking English Ovals cigarettes).

He lived in an apartment on Monroe Street in Manhattan in the same building as his 'friend' and Bonanno soldier Anthony Mirra. Ruggiero reportedly owned a cigarette boat that he kept docked on the East River in New York. Ruggiero became good friends with future family boss Philip "Rusty" Rastelli and Mirra. Ruggiero became the part-owner of a fishery in the Fulton Fish Market in Manhattan. As a part-owner, Ruggiero was able to put himself on the company payroll with a $5,000-a-month "no-show" job. During the 1970s, he purchased a social club in Little Italy. Ruggiero loved animals and his apartment had several tanks with tropical fish. He also had a pet lion cub, which he had to let go once it got too big.