Murder, lovers, and lottery millions: The tragic tale of Lotto Joe

On the night of September 11, 1996, a man stumbled into the New Castle police station with a gunshot wound in his chest and an incredible story to share.

It was a tale that spanned over the course of decades, involving lies, betrayals, affairs, and a massive lottery jackpot, all of which led up to a night of unspeakable violence that left two people dead and two families shattered beyond repair.

There is no shortage of tragedies surrounding lottery winners, but few contain as much drama, money, and violence as the tragic case of Gjelosh “Lotto Joe” Rukaj.

This is the terrible true story of how one lottery dream became a murderous nightmare for a New York community.

American dream

Rukaj's journey to glory and tragedy began like that of many other immigrants pursuing the American Dream. He was a child when his family moved from the impoverished communist country of Albania to New York in the 1970s.

His family worked hard and eventually purchased a few small apartment buildings in the Bronx, where they lived. Rukaj worked for his father and took a job as the building's superintendent. He was known for being hardworking, diligent, and always wearing a tie to work.

Rukaj had bigger dreams than fixing leaky faucets and replacing light bulbs. He wanted to be a successful property developer, but with limited funds, it would take him years to build a substantial property portfolio. In addition to his business dreams, Rukaj was also a devoted member of New York's tight-knit Albanian immigrant community, and he frequently attended the local Orthodox church.

It was there, as a teenager, that he first laid eyes on the woman who would both redeem and ultimately destroy his life. Rigaletta Nikac, known to her friends as Vicki, was a beautiful young woman and, like Rukaj, an Albanian immigrant.

According to Rukaj, they felt an immediate spark the moment they saw each other, but they could not date because of the strict Albanian customs to which they both adhered. In their community, parents frequently arranged the marriages of their children, and Vicki, who was eighteen at the time, had already been promised to another man.

Antonio Nikc was the son of Mark Nikac (he spelled his surname differently than his son), a hugely successful property developer and one of the wealthiest and most prominent men in the Albanian immigrant community. He lived in Mount Pleasant, an affluent suburb just outside of Westchester, in a house so large that neighbors compared it to a hotel.

Antonio and his family were in a different financial league compared to Rukaj, and regardless of how he and Vicki felt about each other, he could not compete with their vast fortune.

So the two went their separate ways. Vicki married Antonio just three months after Rukaj married another woman.

Now with a family to support, Rukaj launched his own career as a small-time property developer, building low-income apartment buildings in the poorest sections of the Bronx.

At the same time, Vicki lived a life of luxury with Antonio in her father-in-law's mansion, and she gave birth to their first child, a daughter. And that may have been the end of the story if it weren't for one unlikely stroke of luck.

Rukaj won the lottery.

The winner

In 1991, Rukaj was a struggling businessman with a wife and four children, doing his best to provide for his family. His career was growing but slowly, and he felt he would never achieve the success he dreamed of.

That's when he did what millions of Americans do every year and bought a lottery ticket. However, he also did something almost no one does: he won the jackpot.

One fateful day in 1990, Rukaj checked his ticket and saw that he had all the winning numbers for the New York Lotto. The jackpot was $35 million, but because there were two winners, he collected $17.5 million.

Overnight, Rukaj's life changed in ways that he could have never imagined. He relocated his family from their modest Bronx home to a mansion in the affluent Harrison neighborhood. He shed his modest suits for designer Versace outfits and purchased a luxurious Range Rover. He wasn't shy about showing his wealth, and he came to be known as Lotto Joe to his neighbors.

However, despite everything he could now afford to purchase, there was one thing that still felt just beyond his grasp: the love of Vicki Nikac.

The affair

New wealth made Rukaj feel like a new man, and he decided it was time to rekindle his relationship with Vicki. He confessed his feelings to her, and she admitted that she felt the same way.

The two embarked on a multi-year affair, meeting in homes and apartments that Rukaj owned. While their true love was for each other, neither felt they could break the rules of their deeply religious communities and leave their spouses for one another.

In addition, Vicki's father-in-law was a devout follower of the Kanun, an ancient and strict set of rules and customs that governed life in traditional Albanian communities. One of the strongest laws of the Kanun concerned family honor, and an affair outside of marriage is one of the gravest transgressions a person could commit.

In Albania, it was not unheard of for violence to break out when one family felt an extramarital affair had dishonored it.

Vicki and Rukaj believed it was essential for their safety to keep their love a secret, but one complication changed everything. Vicki was pregnant with his child.

Broken families

When Vicki realized she was pregnant, a DNA test confirmed that Rukaj was the father. However, Vicki feared that she could not leave her husband and decided to raise the baby, named Mondalena, as if she were Antonio's.

The pain that Rukaj felt over never being able to have a real relationship with Vicki only grew stronger when he had to watch another man raise his child. He tried to convince her to tell Antonio the truth so that he could be openly involved in Mondalena's life, but she refused.

Consumed with jealousy, Rukaj called Antonio directly and told him they had to meet. Afraid that the news might drive him to violence, Rukaj insisted that they meet in a police station. The next day, Vicki joined her husband at the meeting. Rukaj told them that he was the birth father of their youngest daughter, but Vicki refused to back him up and claimed it was all a lie.

Rukaj would not give up. He met again with the Nikc family, this time bringing a priest with him, but Vicki still would not admit that Rukaj was the father. By this time, despite her denials, Vicki's family was suspicious that her youngest child wasn't Antonio's, and Rukaj claimed that Antonio grew cruel towards Mondalena.

Finally, driven by desperation, Rukaj did something shocking within their community: he filed a lawsuit demanding legal acknowledgment that he was the father of Vicki's youngest daughter.

The affair was one thing, but making it public was considered a massive transgression against the Nikc family, and the consequences of their anger would be tragic.

September 11

One-time lovers Vicki and Rukaj were now the bitterest of enemies. Rukaj demanded that he be allowed to see his daughter, but Vicki would not let him near her.

On September 11, 1996, the long-simmering feud between the two families erupted into unspeakable violence. Vicki called the police and issued a complaint of aggravated harassment against Rukaj. There were fourteen phone calls between Vicki and Rukaj that day, which Antonio recorded. Vicki swore violently at Rukaj and dared him to come to her house and take the girl.

In a decision that would lead to tragedy for both families, Rukaj decided to accept her dare. He jumped into his Range Rover and drove to Vicki's estate at 16 Bedford Road. While the details of what happened next are disputed, specific facts are not in question.

As Rukaj pulled into the driveway of the Nikc's home, Mark, Vicki, and Antonio were all waiting for him. Rukaj and Vicki were both armed with handguns, and shortly after Rukaj's arrival, they opened fire on each other.

Vicki was hit twice and died in the driveway of her home. The medical examiner determined that she was two and a half months pregnant at the time Rukaj shot her.

Mark was shot once in the side and twice in his back and died next to his daughter-in-law. In total, Rukaj fired ten shots, five of which hit either Marc or Vicki.

Rukaj was hit in the chest and severely wounded, but was able to pull himself back into his car. He drove to the New Castle police station and reported the shooting. Officers called for an ambulance, and paramedics transported him to the hospital, where doctors discovered that the bullet had missed his heart by less than an inch.

The trial

It was up to Westchester police detectives to untangle a sordid web of lies and intrigue that led to one of the most violent nights in the history of the tony neighborhood. Rukaj claimed that he only acted in self-defense, but prosecutors were not convinced, and he was charged with twenty-eight counts, including first-degree murder, second-degree murder, attempted murder, attempted burglary, and attempted kidnapping.

Robert K. Saurer, one of the prosecuting attorneys from the Westchester County District Attorney's office, wrote:

The defendant claimed over and over that he had his 'blood' at the Nikac home. He said he was going to get the child, and when he did, no one was going to come between them.

Jay Goldberg, Rukaj's attorney, countered that he had been lured to the home by the Nikc family, where he was ambushed, shot, and forced to defend himself. In support of this theory, he played recordings of phone calls between Vicki and Rukaj in which she repeatedly screamed at him to come get his child.

Goldberg said it was Mark, Vicki's father, who laid the trap because he was enraged that Rukaj had dishonored his family by carrying on an affair with his daughter-in-law and then made it public with his lawsuit.

“If he were to die, they would save face. Their whole problem would end. He was the irritant. He had the nerve to take them to court,” Godlberg said of Rukaj during jury selection.

Attorneys played taped phone conversations that took place between the former lovers on the day of the shooting. A hysterical Vicki can be heard telling Rakuj to stay away from her while also daring him to come to her house and take Mondalena.

Vicki screams on one of the recordings:

Come and get the girl. Come, you know the address. If you're man enough, come and get her. You're not going to get her any other way.

The jury deliberated for hours before returning its verdict. They found Rakuj not guilty on the charge of murdering Vicki, believing that he had acted in self-defense. However, they found him guilty of second-degree murder for shooting and killing Mark, who was unarmed at the time of the confrontation. 

For his crimes, Rukaj was sentenced to twenty years to life in jail.

Like father, like son

Sadly, death and tragedy continued to follow Rukaj's family, even while he served out his jail sentence. On April 23, 2002, several high school students from the Harrison, New York area, gathered at a friend's house for an impromptu beer bash after their school was closed due to a power outage.

Among the attendees were high school football teammates Rob Viscome and Pat Rukaj, who is the son of Joe Rukaj. As the teenagers drank beer and enjoyed the pool, an argument allegedly broke out between Rob and Pat after Rob apparently insulted Pat's imprisoned father.

Pat challenged Rob to a fist fight, and they both went outside to the stone pool deck. There, witnesses say, Rob punched Pat so hard that Rob fell backward, struck the back of his head on the deck, and passed out.

Instead of immediately calling for help, the students went to great lengths to cover up their party, collecting all the beer bottles and disposing of them in the dumpster of a nearby store before attempting to help Rob.

After eliminating the evidence of their party, a group of boys carried Rob's unmoving body into a car and took him to a hospital, where they lied and told doctors he had fallen at a local park.

Eventually, the police uncovered the truth, and Pat Rukaj was arrested later that night on charges of second-degree assault. Sadly, after arriving at the hospital, Rob slipped into a coma, lost all brain function, and died a week later.

The case was brought before a grand jury, but the community was shocked when it failed to return any charges against the younger Rukaj. Instead, prosecutors brought misdemeanor assault charges against him. Rukaj pleaded guilty, and a judge sentenced him to one hundred hours of community service.