'The Rigano Murders'

 The Rigano Murders 

By Paul Davis

Rigano’s was crowded on that Friday evening in January of 1980.

People were lined up three deep at the nightclub’s long bar as they waited to buy drinks from the busy bartenders. Many others danced wildly and happily to club music on the large, square dance floor under a glitter ball that flashed roving light beams down upon them.

The well-dressed crowd was mixed, but many of the patrons were young people in their 20s from nearby South Philadelphia. They crossed the Walt Whitman bridge from South Philadelphia and drove to the upscale neighborhood in Cherry Hill, New Jersey to visit the trendy nightclub. Among the South Philadelphia patrons were a dozen or so of the younger members of the Philadelphia Cosa Nostra crime family.    

The young criminals from South Philadelphia were more than welcome at Rigano’s, as they were flashy big spenders and the two owners were themselves members of Cosa Nostra, although they were connected to the New York Bonfiglio crime family by way of Sicily.

The two owners and operators of the nightclub were Ciro and Angelo Rigano. The two brothers hailed from Palermo, Sicily. The 26 and 25-year-old stocky brothers with curly black hair looked like twins. They left Sicily to make their reputation and fortune in America. Their entry into America was sponsored by their father’s cousin, Luigi “Lupo” Bonfiglio, the boss of the New York Bonfiglio Cosa Nostra organized crime family.

The Rigano brothers’ popular and successful nightclub was not their primary source of income. The two brothers made the bulk of their money selling heroin, using the nightclub as their base. Their dealers spread across the region.

To operate in the Philadelphia Cosa Nostra crime family’s territory, Bonfiglio had to approach Angelo Bruno, his longtime friend and fellow Cosa Nostra National Crime Commission member, and ask him for permission for his second cousins to set up a nightclub and heroin operation in the Philly mob’s territory. Of course, Bonfiglio offered Bruno a percentage of the drug sales. Bruno agreed.

Bruno and Bonfiglio were partners in several criminal ventures, from organizing overseas high-end gambling junkets to promoting and “fixing” national boxing matches. Bruno and Bonfiglio also voted together whenever an issue came to a head at the National Cosa Nostra Crime Commission.   

Known as a businessman and racketeer rather than a violent gangster, Bruno was a friend to politicians, cops, entertainers and his South Philadelphia neighbors. He made most of his money from illegal gambling, loansharking and controlling unions. Although in his more than two decades as the Philly boss, he had men killed and many more beaten over serious issues, he much preferred to negotiate and exert influence over others rather than commit violence.

In one situation in 1969, a heroin addict named Michael “Blackie” Russo was holding up mob-run card games. Russo was called Blackie due to his raven-black long hair and scraggily black beard, and he was recognized easily by the poker players when he waved a long-barreled revolver at them and demanded they place the money on the table, and their wallets, watches and rings into a pillow sack.

When the series of robberies were reported to Bruno, his underlings asked the mob boss for the authority to murder the drug addict. Bruno gave Russo a pass, as the addict was a nephew to a made member.

“Lean on him,” Bruno ordered. “Tell him to go rob liquor stores.”

But despite a “good talking to” by his uncle, Russo went on to hold up another game. Bruno’s underlings, including Russo’s uncle, called for Russo to be “whacked,” but Bruno ordered that Russo be given “a good beating.”

When Russo recovered from the beating, he needed money for his drugs, so he went out and robbed another card game. Only then did Bruno reluctantly order that Russo be murdered.          

Bruno was born Angelo Annaloro in Sicily in 1910. His conciliatory reputation began in 1959 when the Philadelphia Cosa Nostra boss Joseph Ida fled the United States to avoid narcotic charges. Antonio “Mr. Miggs” Pollina succeeded Ida as the crime family boss.

Concerned about Bruno as a rival, Pollino ordered an underling to murder him. Instead, the underling informed Bruno of the murder plot. Bruno went to the Commission in New York to redress his grievance. The Commission sided with Bruno and authorized him to murder Pollino and become head of the Philadelphia crime family.

Instead, Bruno spared Pollino’s life and told him to retire from Cosa Nostra and move away from Philadelphia. Bruno then became the Philadelphia boss.

With his easy-going public demeaner, pencil moustache, white hair, jeff cap and big glasses, Bruno appeared to be everyone’s kindly grandfather. But in private, he ruled his crime family with an iron hand. But as the 1980s began, many in his crime family came to resent him for his greed and his old school Cosa Nostra ways. 

Allowing the Rigano brothers to sell heroin in Cherry Hill, New Jersey infuriated Bruno’s captains, soldiers and associates, as he forbade them to sell narcotics. It was bad enough that despite Bruno’s edict on narcotics, he turned a blind eye as the biggest methamphetamine dealer in Philadelphia operated openly in Bruno’s South Philly neighborhood as well as across the city.

The mobsters also knew that Bruno received a weekly fat envelope full of cash from the “meth” dealer. Now, Bruno was receiving another fat envelope from the Sicilian heroin dealers. And he was not sharing any of that tribute drug money with anyone under him.

The Philadelphia Cosa Nostra troops under Bruno were not happy.

Ricardo “Ricky” Amato, a tall, thin man in his 50s with a pinched face, was an unhappy caporegime in the Philadelphia crime family. He was unhappy that Angelo Bruno restricted his ability to earn a living by not allowing him to venture into narcotic trafficking. He was especially unhappy that Bruno did not share his drug money from those who were exceptions to his rule.

Not that he needed the money. Amato was caught on an FBI wiretap telling his fellow caporegimes that he had more money than he could possibly spend in his lifetime. Amato made a fortune overseeing illegal gambling, loansharking and theft from legitimate businesses in South Philadelphia. But he hated the boss for not sharing his drug tributes with his captains.

“It’s the principal, not the money,” Amato told his fellow mobsters. But of course, he wanted the money as well.

Although Amato’s parents came over from Sicily, he hated Sicilians. He said they were greedy and notorious cheap skates. He called them “Zips” and “greaseballs,” and he hated that Bruno dealt with them.

Amato was also unhappy at the way Bruno had made Atlantic City an “open city” like Las Vegas when New Jersey legalized casino gambling in the seaside resort town in 1978. Bruno retained a hold on several unions in Atlantic City, so the Philadelphia crime family made a fortune as the casinos began to operate. But his decision to call Atlantic City an open city allowed other Cosa Nostra crime families to operate in a city that was firmly in the Philadelphia crime family’s territory.

“He’s allowing these New York wiseguys and other crooks to pick our pockets in Atlantic city,” Amato told the gathering of Philadelphia caporegimes in his South Philly home in the Packer Park area. “And we can’t sell narcotics, but he allows these fuckin’ Sicilian “Zips” to set up shop in our backyard.

“It’s a fuckin’ insult.”     

The other angry captains nodded in agreement. Richard Amato, the capo’s son, overheard the conversation as he emptied ashtrays and refilled the captains’ glasses with Sambuco, Scotch and wine. Some thought it ridiculous, but the son was called “Little Ricky,” even though the 25-year-old was hefty and even taller than his father.

Little Ricky was ambitious, and he waited desperately to become “made,” and he dreamed of being inducted formally into the Philadelphia Cosa Nostra crime family. He saw himself as a future boss of the crime family.

After the other captains left Amato’s house, the father sat his son down and explained what must be done, and how Little Ricky must do it.         

On that busy Friday night at Rigano’s, Little Ricky Amato was one of the many customers at the bar. He was accompanied by Joseph “Fireplug” Caruso, a short and stocky young man who was Amato’s best friend. Amato swallowed his Scotch in a gulp and Caruso lifted his bottle of beer and gulped down half of it. Amato slammed his glass on the bar, looked at Caruso and began to walk towards the men’s room. Caruso smacked his bottle down on the bar and the shorter man followed Amato.

Amato and Caruso lingered at the sinks, washing their hands until they were the only ones in the men’s room. Amato then pulled a ski mask out from his sport jacket and placed the mask over his head. As Caruso was also placing his ski mask on his head, Amato pulled out his 9mm Colt and theatrically jacked a round in the chamber, like they do in the movies. Caruso pulled out his 38. Smith & Weston.

“Let’s do this, Joe,” Amato said.

The two young mobsters rushed out of the men’s room and moved swiftly through the crowd towards a back table where the Rigano brothers were holding court with two young girls and a criminal associate named Billy Yates.

The Rigano brothers were so engrossed with drinking and laughing with the girls and Yates that they failed to see the two-masked gunmen moving towards their table.      

Amato and Caruso began shooting as they neared the table and Ciro Rigano and Yates died instantly from the hail of bullets. The girls screamed and ducked under the table as Angelo Rigano was up and attempting to run from the table. Amato ran up quickly behind the fleeing Sicilian and shot him in the upper back and the back of his head. Rigano fell and slid across the dance floor.

Most of the crowd at the nightclub were running and screaming from the numerous shots while many others had dropped to the floor. No one attempted to stop the two masked gunmen from running out of the nightclub. The two fleeing gunmen fired at a man in the parking lot as they jumped into their car. Amato rolled down his window and fired off two shots in the air to scare off anyone looking to stop them from driving away. 

      

The sensational murders at Rigano’s made headlines in all of the Philadelphia area newspapers and was the lead story on the TV news broadcasts. The Rigano murders also led to the murder of the Philadelphia Cosa Nostra organized crime family boss on March 21, 1980.  

After having dinner at a South Philly restaurant, Angelo Bruno was driven home by Sicilian John Stanfa. As Bruno sat in the passenger seat of the car in front of his South Philadelphia row home, someone came up to his window with a shotgun and blasted the 69-year-old mob boss. He died instantly. 

A macabre photo of the late mobster, his head back and his mouth agape, ran on the front page of the Philadelphia newspapers and other newspapers across the country.  

The brutal murder of Angelo Bruno led to further murders and an internecine mob war that stretched from South Philly to Sicily.  

© 2025 Paul Davis