If you walked down 101st Avenue in Ozone Park during the 1980s, you might have seen a man who didn't just look like a criminal—he looked like a nightmare. He was tall. He was skeletal. His arms were unnaturally long, supposedly reaching past his knees. People called him "The Vampire" or "The Phantom of the Opera." But to the crew at the Bergin Hunt and Fish Club, he was simply Anthony Tony Roach Rampino.
He wasn't a "made man." He never took the official oath of Omertà. Yet, Anthony Tony Roach Rampino was more trusted by John Gotti than almost anyone with a gold ring on their finger. He was the shadow behind the "Dapper Don," a backup shooter at the most famous mob hit in history, and a guy who literally practiced scaring people in the mirror.
Why They Called Him Tony Roach
Mob nicknames usually follow a pattern. You’ve got your "Shortys," your "Leftys," and your "Tony Ducks." Rampino’s moniker was a bit more literal and a lot more insulting. He got the name "Roach" because people thought he looked like a cockroach.
That’s cold.
But Rampino leaned into it. He was a cadaverous guy with a rubbery face that he could contort into terrifying grimaces. Honestly, he used his appearance as a tool of the trade. If you owed the Gambino family money and saw Tony Roach standing on your porch making a "Phantom of the Opera" face, you found the cash. Quickly.
The name eventually took on a second meaning. Rampino was a heavy marijuana smoker in an era when many old-school mobsters looked down on drugs—even while they were selling them. It’s a bit ironic considering he had kicked a serious heroin habit in the 1960s, only to become a high-level dealer later on.
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The Sparks Steak House Hit
You can't talk about Anthony Tony Roach Rampino without talking about December 16, 1985. This was the day the Mafia changed forever. Paul Castellano, the boss of bosses, was gunned down in front of Sparks Steak House in Manhattan.
John Gotti and Sammy "The Bull" Gravano sat in a car nearby, watching the whole thing. The hit team was dressed in Russian fur hats and tan trench coats. Rampino wasn't one of the four main shooters who stepped up to Castellano’s Lincoln. He was the "fail-safe."
His job was simple: kill anyone who tried to interfere. If a cop turned the corner or a civilian tried to be a hero, Rampino was there to end the problem. He stood down the street, a backup shooter with a job to ensure Gotti’s rise to power wasn't interrupted.
It worked. Castellano died on the sidewalk, and Gotti became the King of New York. Rampino’s loyalty that night cemented his place in the inner circle, even if his drug history kept him from being officially "made."
A Life of Hijacking and Heroin
Rampino wasn't just a scary face; he was a worker. He spent his days truck hijacking and running drug operations. He was a staple at the Bergin Hunt and Fish Club, the headquarters for Gotti’s crew.
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While Gotti was wearing $2,000 suits and getting his hair blown out, Rampino was the street-level muscle. He was close with Angelo Ruggiero and Nicholas Corozzo. He was the guy who did the dirty work that kept the Bergin crew afloat before they took over the whole family.
But drugs were his undoing. In June 1987, Rampino was caught selling $30,000 worth of heroin to an undercover cop in Ozone Park. It wasn't his first brush with the law, but it was the one that stuck.
The Trial That Didn't Work
In 1986, Rampino stood trial alongside Gotti and others for racketeering. That was the famous trial where a juror was bribed, and everyone walked free. The "Teflon Don" was born. But Rampino's luck didn't last. The heroin charge was separate, and the feds weren't playing.
The Long Fade Out in Prison
He was sentenced to 25 years to life. For a guy like Rampino, who lived for the street and the camaraderie of the social club, prison was a slow death.
He spent over two decades behind bars. By 2009, his lawyers were pleading for a sentence reduction. He was suffering from severe heart and respiratory issues. He was a shell of the man who used to frighten rivals with a look.
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The courts said no.
Anthony Tony Roach Rampino died on December 20, 2010, at St. Luke’s Hospital in New Hartford, New York. He was 71. He didn't go out in a hail of bullets like the bosses he served. He died as a prisoner, sixteen days after being admitted to the hospital.
What We Can Learn From the Roach
Rampino is a reminder that the "glamorous" Mafia life of the 80s was mostly a myth. For every John Gotti on the cover of Time magazine, there were dozens of guys like Rampino—men with strange faces and long shadows who did the actual killing and died in hospital beds while serving life sentences.
He was a "colorful character," according to the New York Daily News, but his life was one of violence, addiction, and eventually, total isolation.
Next Steps for Research:
- Check out the book Goombata by John Cummings for more on the Bergin crew's daily life.
- Look into the FBI surveillance tapes from the Ravenite Social Club; they offer a raw look at how Gotti actually treated his subordinates.
- Examine the court records from the 1987 heroin bust to see how the NYPD finally took down one of Gotti’s most feared enforcers.