A celebrity chef who had cooked meals for princes, presidents including Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, and Donald Trump, and Wall Street moguls admitted in an interview that he had been an accomplice in murders and torture when he was associated with a New York crime family.
David Ruggerio was once one of New York's rising culinary stars, cooking for presidents, moguls, and royalty. He was also working for the Gambino mafia family. https://t.co/4X57tvDB1B
— VANITY FAIR (@VanityFair) March 24, 2022
David Ruggerio, 59, whose career included starring on the Food Network as well as running the kitchens of top Manhattan restaurants such as Maxim’s, La Caravelle, and Le Chantilly, told Vanity Fair that after his self-described nightmarish childhood, he had participated in a number of crimes including murders, heroin dealing, loan-sharking, bookmaking, and extortion.
He said, “I wouldn’t have wished my life on anyone. I hate to sleep. The nights are very long and filled with nightmares. I didn’t want to be a criminal. I want you to understand that. I loved being a chef.”
Ruggiero said he was born out of wedlock and that his father, Saverio Erasmo Gambino, was a cousin of Carlo Gambino, the head of the five Mafia families in the 1960s and ’70s, and had been trafficking in heroin when he was deported to Sicily from Brooklyn. His mother died in bed when he was five, leaving him at the mercy of her husband whom Ruggerio said adopted him with the proviso that he change his names and “beat me every chance he had.”
After being sent to live with his maternal grandparents, Ruggerio grew up in Brooklyn, where he said he ran a three-card monte game in elementary school and soon acquainted himself with members of the mob.
Ruggerio spoke of incidents where he accompanied a young mob member who beat a federal informant to death, then helped him load the body into a car; another occurrence in which he aided that young mobster to torture and kill a 56-year-old man associated with the mob, and weighed down a man with lead window sashes and dumped him near Sheepshead Bay after the victim was beaten nearly to death with a lead pipe but was still alive.
On July 2, 1998, Ruggerio was charged with defrauding a credit card company; he wound up pleading guilty to attempted grand larceny. “Food Network canceled his show, his restaurants closed, and he filed for personal bankruptcy,” Vanity Fair noted.
On June 21, 2014, Ruggiero received a call informing him that his oldest son, Anthony, had died. He recalled, “He did a lot of OxyContin and drank. He went to sleep and never woke up.”
Asked if he was concerned about spilling the information about his past, Ruggiero answered, “I’ll let the chips fall where they may. After I lost my son, I knew that this has to end with me.”
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