Tony Rampino


Anthony J. Rampino, also known as "Tony Roach", was a Gambino crime family mobster who was involved in truck hijacking and drug trafficking.

Biography

He earned the nickname "Tony Roach" or simply "Roach" because of his vague physical resemblance to the insect, the cockroach, the name assumed a double meaning not too long afterward when Rampino started smoking copious amounts of marijuana. He was involved in drug trafficking. He became a close friend of John Gotti, Angelo Ruggiero, Nicholas Corozzo, Leonard DiMaria and Pavle Stanimirovic. Anthony's passion was stickball and being a successful thief. He was a cadaverous looking man with huge hands and long arms that seemed to reach down past his knees, and an odd rubbery-looking face. He liked to contort his face into all kinds of horrible grimaces in front of a mirror, years of practice allowed him, at a second's notice, to shape his face into something like The Phantom of the Opera. He firmly believed that such faces would frighten any enemy.
He had been troubled with a severe heroin addiction in the 1960s which was well known among his criminal associates, but had successfully kicked the drug habit by 1979. Former friend Sammy Gravano later said, "It was all around amongst us that people with John were heavy, heavy in drugs; personally I don't believe John ever did it himself. But he had to know what was going on. I mean, there's Genie, his own brother, Angelo Ruggiero, who he grew up with - the other guys with him - John Carneglia, Edward Lino Tony Roach, who not only had a reputation for drugs but was an ex-junkie." Anthony and Wilfred Johnson served as John Gotti's chief loan collectors for the crew.

Drug bust and arrest

On June 28, 1987, he was arrested for selling $30,000 worth of heroin to an undercover police officer in Ozone Park, Queens. He was sentenced to twenty-five years in a federal prison for criminal sale of a controlled substance in the first degree, which carries a sentence of fifteen years to life in prison. His bail was set at $150,000.

Death

Rampino was admitted to St. Luke's Hospital in New Hartford on December 4, 2010. The colorful mob character had been suffering from heart and respiratory ailments, according to court filings. He died 16 days later in the same hospital.