Vincent Gigante

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Vincent Gigante

Born March 29, 1928(1928-03-29)
Manhattan, New York, U.S.
Died December 19, 2005 (aged 77)
Springfield, Missouri, U.S.

Vincent "The Chin" Gigante (March 29, 1928 – December 19, 2005) was a New York mobster who headed the Genovese crime family. Vincent "The Chin" was one of five brothers; himself, Mario, Pasquale and Ralph all became mobsters in the Genovese family. Only one brother, Louis, did not become a Genovese mobster and instead became a priest. Dubbed "the Oddfather," by the press, Gigante often wandered the streets of Greenwich Village, Manhattan in his bathrobe and slippers, mumbling incoherently to himself, in what police characterized as an elaborate act.

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[edit] Gigante's Greenwich Village Crew

Vincent was an ex-professional boxer who weighed close to three hundred pounds. On May 2nd 1957, he was ordered by Vito Genovese to murder Frank Costello. Vincent shot Costello as he entered the lobby at 115 Central Park West, where he had an apartment, on the corner of 7nd Street, Manhattan. But just as Gigante fired his .38-caliber handgun, Costello moved, causing the bullet to graze the right side of his head. Because Costello went down as if he was dead, Gigante thought the mob boss was dead and sped away in a black Cadillac. Costello refused to identify his attempted assassin, yet the doorman at 115 Central Park West did. But when tried for the shooting, his defense team effectively challenged the credibility of the doorman, and Gigante went free. Gigante could pull off many miracles, though his favorite ploy was the "bug act", pretending to be punch-drunk from his boxing days. Even when not under indictment, he prepared for those inevitable times (knowing the police watched him) by picking up cigarette butts off the street and smoking them, gesturing wildly in the air, having long, loud arguments with himself, or dropping his pants to urinate in the street.

Gigante ran a crew from Greenwich Village, Manhattan, that was formerly overseen by Vito Genovese and later Anthony "Tony Bender" Strollo. Gigante's crew was based out of the Triangle Social Club, located at 208 Sullivan Street, but also met with fellow crew members at the Dante Social Club at 81 McDougal Street, and the Panel Social Club at 208 Thompson Street. Besides those locations, Gigante met with gangsters and business associates at his mother's apartment located at 225 Sullivan Street.

Gigante's closest associates included his brother Mario Gigante, sons Andrew Gigante and Vincent Esposito, Dominick Alongi, Venero "Benny Eggs" Mangano, Frank "Frankie California" Condo, Dominick DiQuarto, Thomas D'Antonio, Frank Caggiano, Louis "Bobby" Manna, Dominick "Quiet Dom" Cirillo, Joseph Denti, and Joseph Sarcinella.

The crew controlled many of the organized crime activities throughout downtown Manhattan, and Gigante would go on to become the most powerful boss of the New York La Cosa Nostra from the early 1980s until his death. Some of the rackets included labor racketeering, gambling, loan sharking, hijackings, and extortion of businesses. Through his brother Mario, who later became a capo of his own crew, the Gigantes maintained influence in the Bronx, Yonkers and upper Westchester.

[edit] Genovese Crime Boss

Vincent Gigante was a protege of both Vito Genovese and ultra-secretive boss Philip "Benny Squints" Lombardo. As boss of the family, Gigante strengthened the family's stranglehold of some of New York City's most lucrative rackets, including the New York Coliseum, Jacob K. Javits Center, labor racketeering, the drywall business, Concrete Club, Fulton Fish Market, drug trafficking, private waste industry, and gambling.

Gigante was a very reclusive boss, managing to never be picked up on a wiretap by the FBI or other law enforcement agencies and managed to remain on the streets longer than all of his contemporaries. Gigante made Venero "Benny Eggs" Mangano his underboss and sent his orders only through his closest associates thereby insulating himself from the other family's bosses and lower ranking wiseguys.

While preferring to remain by the scenes, Gigante would not hesitate to authorize the use of violence and was responsible for ordering the slayings of Philadelphia family mobsters John "Johnny Keys" Simone, Anthony Caponigro, Fred Salerno, and Frank Sindone for the unsanctioned murder of Philadelphia boss Angelo Bruno, and Philadelphia mobsters Frank Narducci and Rocco Marinucci for the unsanctioned murder of Bruno's successor. Gigante also ordered the murders of Genovese soldier Jerry Papa and many other New York City wiseguys who failed to adhere to the powerful Genovese boss's directives.

During his tenure as boss of the Genovese borgata, Gigante would come to be known as the de facto Capo de tutti Capi, the "Boss of all Bosses", even though that position had been abolished decades before. Gigante was the most cunning, intelligent, and generally powerful Cosa Nostra don of his era. Don Chin was a true politician and godfather who understood the rules and politics of Cosa Nostra.

[edit] Feigning legal insanity

In 1969, Gigante started feigning mental illness to escape criminal prosecution. He escaped conviction on bribery charges by producing a number of prominent psychiatrists who testified that he was legally insane. The doctors said Gigante suffered from schizophrenia, dementia, psychosis, and other disorders. Gigante allegedly enlisted his mother and wife to help him in these deceptions. In 1986, the official Genovese boss, Anthony "Fat Tony" Salerno, was convicted on charges of murder and racketeering and sentenced to 100 years in prison. However, former mobster and turncoat Vincent Cafaro soon revealed that Salerno was just a front boss, a figurehead; the real boss of the family since 1981 was Gigante.

In 1990, Gigante was arrested and charged with racketeering and murder; however, it wasn't until 1997 that he was brought to trial. During that time period, Gigante's lawyers produced witness after witness who testified that Gigante was mentally ill and unfit to stand trial. However, all this changed when a number of prominent Mafia members from various families began to cooperate with the government in the early 1990s.

Foremost among the cooperating witnesses was Salvatore "Sammy the Bull" Gravano, former underboss of the Gambino crime family, who became a cooperating witness in 1991. Gravano testified that on the two occasions he met Gigante, the mob boss was perfectly lucid and clear in his thinking. Other turncoat witnesses such as Phil Leonetti of the Bruno crime family of Philadelphia implicated Gigante in ordering the murder of several Bruno family members in the early 1980s. Additionally, Anthony "Gaspipe" Casso, former underboss of the Lucchese crime family, implicated Gigante in a 1986 plan to have Casso kill new Gambino boss John Gotti, Gotti associate Frank DeCicco and Gotti's brother Gene Gotti.

[edit] Conviction and imprisonment

In Summer 1997, Gigante was finally convicted on several racketeering and conspiracy charges and sentenced to 12 years in a federal prison. Despite his lawyers' and psychiatrists' claims that he has been legally insane for more than 30 years, the jury convicted him on all but the murder charges, which would have mandated a life sentence without parole.

On April 7, 2003, he pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice in Federal District Court, acknowledging that his "insanity" was a pretense in order to delay his racketeering trial. This was part of a deal to avoid another set of charges that would have brought on a lengthy trial (he was 75 at the time). Instead, he had another three years added to his sentence.[1]

[edit] Death

In 2005, Gigante's health started to decline. He started suffering labored breathing, oxygen deprivation, swelling in the lower body, and bouts of unconsciousness. In November 2005, Flora Edwards, his lawyer, sued officials at the Medical Center for Federal Prisoners in Springfield, Missouri to transfer Gigante to an acute care hospital. Transferred to a private medical facility, Gigante rallied physically. In early December, he was transferred back to Springfield, where he died 10 days later on December 19, 2005.

On December 23, 2005, after a service at Saint Anthony of Padua Church in Greenwich Village, Gigante's body was cremated at the historic Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, New York. He is survived by eight children (five from his wife and three from his mistress) and his prominent cousins from Boston. (The cousins spell their name both Gigante and Giganti.) Gigante's lawyer has said that the family intends to sue the federal government over Gigante's health care treatment while in prison.

Gigante's release-year was 2010.

[edit] Further reading

  • Capeci, Jerry. The Complete Idiot's Guide to the Mafia. Indianapolis: Alpha Books, 2002. ISBN 0-02-864225-2
  • Jacobs, James B., Coleen Friel and Robert Radick. Gotham Unbound: How New York City Was Liberated from the Grip of Organized Crime. New York: NYU Press, 2001. ISBN 0-8147-4247-5
  • Maas, Peter. Underboss: Sammy the Bull Gravano's Story of Life in the Mafia. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1997. ISBN 0-06-093096-9
  • Raab, Selwyn. Five Families: The Rise, Decline, and Resurgence of America's Most Powerful Mafia Empires. New York: St. Martin Press, 2005. ISBN 0-312-30094-8

[edit] Footnotes

  1. ^ Vincent Gigante, Mob Boss Who Feigned Incompetence to Avoid Jail, Dies at 77 - New York Times

[edit] External links

Preceded by
Anthony Salerno		 Genovese Crime Family Boss
1981-2005		 Succeeded by
Dominick Cirillo