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Don Ricardo "Ricky" Gambinuchi is a major character the American Crime Tales seriesw, appearing in Queen City Underground, Tales from Queen City: The Ballad of Sean Killian and A Tale of Two Families. He is voiced by the legendary Hollywood actor, Robert De Niro.

Background[]

Ricardo Gambinuchi was born in 1948 to a family of Italian immigrants, who immigrated from Naples to Queen City and he is the youngest of the Gambinuchi children. His father, Enzo Gambinuchi, founded the Gambinuchi Crime Family in the 1920's, after he took over the leadership of the local street gang and made it more organised and powerful and ran it with an iron fist, until 1964, when he died of a heart stroke. After his death, one of Ricardo's three older brothers, Luigi, took over as boss of the family until he also died in 1967, with his brother Dante taking over. In the late 1960's, Ricardo married a woman named Maria and the couple had two sons together, Silvio and Vinnie and remained happily married and very much in love until she died in the late 1970's from an unknown cause. Ricardo was heartbroken over her death and never remarried but he did date a woman breifly until she learned she would abuse his sons. It is stated that her death had a profound impact on Ricardo and he never was never the same after her death On 1st of January, 1987, Ricardo's older brothers, Francesco and Dante, was murdered by one of the rival families. After the death of his brothers, Ricardo took over the leadership of the family as the Don and managed to broker a peace between the two families.

Events of A Tale of Two Families[]

By the summer of 1987, Ricardo has managed to keep his family running smoothly for about six months. In June, Ricardo recieves news that one of his former capos, Geno LaForelli is returning from Catanzaro, Italy after being forced to flee there after he pulled some favours for Gambinuchis back in 1984. Geno arrives at Freddy's Bar, run by family mobster, Freddy Baccalieri and is reunited with Ricardo. That night they celebrate with their friends and fellow family members. The next day, Geno is collected by solider, Johnny Ancelotti and taken to see Ricardo at Freddy's where Ricardo tells Geno to head over J.D's bodyshop and help him with his repo business, Geno completes the missions for J.D  and returns to Freddy's to speak with Ricardo again. Ricardo explains that another new family, the Fontana Crime Family has been muscling their way into Gambinuchi businesses. Ricardo assigns several missions to Geno and he investigates the Fontana's with family associate and Ricardo's best friend from high school, Mike McFinnigan. After these missions, Mike is eventually killed by members of the Fontana family after their discovery that it was he, who had been investigating them thanks to a treacherous member of the Gambinuchi family, who supplied them information for a fee, i.e. ratted Mike out to Fontanas for the money. The next several missions consist of figuring out who is the rat in the Gambinuchi family is by interrogating members of the Fontana family with the help of Johnny and Ricardo's maternal nephew, Christopher Alphonzo. Eventually, it is revealed to be J.D. After this news is returned to the family, Ricardo, Geno, Christopher, and Johnny take J.D to the Nightingale Club where they shoot him to death in the alley behind the club, after savagely beating him down and extracting the information why he did it. After J.D dies, Johnny joins Christopher and Geno in the rank of caporegime. A mob war erupts between the Gambinuchis and the Fontanas and Christopher hires some new members into the family and a montage of different gang wars plays, showing mob hits, shootouts, and bodies being found as newspapers flash on screen with news of the gang violence. The war continues for several months before Christopher is murdered by his crew members, Harley Facile and Matthew Petrulio, who were actually working with the Fontanas the whole time for a solid payroll. Heartbroken by the loss of his most beloved nephew and most respected soldiers in the family, Ricardo attempts to make a peace with the Fontanas by arranging a sitdown. The war is ended by Ricardo and Fontana Family's boss, Santino "Sonny" Fontana, who arranged a meeting in a warehouse after the several weeks of the mob war. During this period of peace, Johhny and Geno meet corrupt police detective, Patrick O'Grady, who blackmails the pair into doing several missions, doing various tasks and favours for him to help keeping them from being arrested, as well as exchange of the family's services for his own gain. One night, O'Grady is very drunk at Freddy's, and while the mobsters talk, O'Grady gets into an argument with a waiter whom he eventually shoots in a chest one, while being in a state of a drunken rage, killing him instantly. The mobsters quickly confront O'Grady before the three men eventually beat him to death with the help from family enforcer, Mickey Lupino with crowbars. Johnny, Geno, and Mickey then drive out to the upstate areas and bury him. Some weeks later, Johnny is sent with the briefcase filled with money as a peace offering to the Fontanas, but is murdered by Sonny himself, reigniting the flames of a mob war again. Out of anger, Ricardo returns the favour and he sends out Geno and Mickey, who eventually kill Fontana's underboss, Raymond "Ray" Braco at a restaurant and later Fontana's consigliere, Ronald Bartelli in the subway system, as well as five of his most loyal caporegimes, including Sonny's only son, Mickey. Several nights later, Geno is kidnapped and taken to the Fontana Family's mansion, where he is held and tortured by Sonny himself. Soon after Sonny leaves to eat, he manages to break free from his restraints and engages in a large shootout in the mansion and eventually kills Sonny and all of his men, blowing up the mansion and stealing back the money that was stolen when Johnny died and dropping it off to the Gambinuchi safehouse. After dropping off the money at the safehouse and calling men to pick it up, Geno calls Ricardo from a payphone at a nearby dinner in upstate Queen and tells him he killed Sonny, his brother and a bunch of his men and he's retiring from the family for good before he hangs up and drives away to the city airport and flies back to Catanzaro and the two never spoke again from that day, while Ricardo eventually managed to broker the peace between the Gambinuchis and Fontanas with Sonny's younger brother, Tommy who was more than happy to end the mob war, that claimed his brothers' and nephew's lives.

Events of Queen City Underground[]

By 2001, Ricardo is steadily running the mob in Queen City. He is first introduced to Aiden McCreary by Guido Vittanese, Mario Montinelli and Jimmy Pegorini. Ricardo assigns Aiden nearly every mission in the game, with Aiden helping to weaken the Alfred Family's operations throughut the game and eventually, destroy them. Ricardo takes a personal liking to Aiden, making him into a full-time member of the family and very trusted associate for the family, despite the fact that Aiden is Irish-American. As the final scene ends, we see Ricardo and Aiden looking into the sunset over the Atlantic Ocean, discussing their plans for the future.

Events of Tales from Queen City: The Ballad of Sean Killian[]

In 2007, we are first introduced to Ricardo by John Callahan whom has Ricardo visit the O'Leary household, Ricardo asks for assistance in the Gambinuchi's problems with the Furino Family and the Russian Mafia. In return for their favours, Ricardo brings the men who killed John to Sean and Sean kills both of them, avenging his fallen friend. Ricardo then gives Sean more useful information on the men who killed his cousin, Quinn. Despite Ricardo only making one physical appearance in the game, his voice supplies many missions and jobs to Sean throughout the later half of the story. His last phone call he expresses his gratitude to Sean for killing Furino Family boss, Phil Furino and says "you're always welcome in my house, kid." before hanging up.

QCPD Police Record[]

  • 1966 - Possession of Marijuana
  • 1970 - Grand Theft Auto
  • 1972 - Extortion
  • 1975 - Racketeering
  • 1975 - Petty Theft
  • 1976 - Promoting Gambling
  • 1977 - Grand Theft Auto
  • 1978 - Petty Larceny
  • 1979 - Hijacking
  • 1981 - Armed Robbery
  • 1984 - Extortion
  • 1986 - Possession of Marijuana
  • 1987 - Promoting Gambling
  • 1989 - Racketeering
  • 1995 - Pety Theft
  • 1997 - Racketeering
  • 2004 - Disorderly Conduct
  • 2006 - Possession of Marijuana

Trivia[]

  • Ricardo's original name was Richard Frankelli.
  • Ricardo's physical appearance is based off his voice actor, Robert De Niro.
  • Ricardo is the only member from the 1987 crew that is still in the family in 2007.
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