Rusty originally came out of the Greenpoint-Williamsburg section of North Brooklyn. For many years he was actually a soldier --- albeit a very powerful one ---- who many people mistook for a captain, because he was so active and such a force.

I believe he was elevated to a capo status by the early 1960s, but with the turmoil and shifting alliances that took place a few years later with the advent of the Banana War, he saw his stock rise and fall several times.

By the late 1960s he had become extremely powerful and was considered a hierarchy member of the Bonanno administration.

By the very early 1970s, he had arguably become "the" power in the family, but over the course of the coming decades, his power and abilities were continually eroded by the fact of his constant jailing.