DD Support Board and Research Team

[shajandr]

"Raised in New Jersey, the young Robert entered the workforce at the age of 13 in the family business."

Thirteen is a fairly late game to get into the family business of grifting. Gypsies typically get the kids involved in street scams at 6 years old or so, and then when they hit their teens they move up to one of the family's crews - scammers going door-to-door offering to pave your driveway at a discount because they have "surplus or excess hot asphalt left over from another job and we have to lay it before it cools" or scamming old people on unlicensed roofing work they don't do or do badly and the old folks can't climb up to inspect their non-work/crappy work.

I would bet Rico began grifting much younger than 13.

They probably put him to work on one of his uncle's crews going door-to-door with a hot asphalt mop, learning to pitch to widows and the infirm.