Wiseguy Ain't So Wise

Guilty pleas are possible in the racketeering case of Genovese family crime boss Vincent The Chin Gigante and his son Andrew and six other men.

Larry McShane of Associated Press describes the twilight of the colorful mob chieftain:

For 30 years, mob boss Vincent Gigante turned dementia into an art form, avoiding relentless efforts by federal authorities to put him in prison.  The Genovese family chieftain was reputedly the nations No. 1 Mafioso, even as he shuffled through Greenwich Village in pajamas and a bathrobe.

He rarely strayed from the neighborhood, yet controlled the New Jersey waterfront and allegedly ordered murders to settle a Philadelphia mob war.

Both Gigantes were indicted in 2002 on racketeering charges. Vincent The Chin, Gigante, 74, also known as the Oddfather, was accused of faking mental instability. Before his trial, he was in a Texas prison hospital doing a 12-year sentence, but was allegedly running the Genovese crime enterprise from jail.

Crazy like a fox, people said who knew him. While crime bosses like John Gotti dressed in sartorial splendor, the unshaven Chin wore pajamas, a ruse to hide his tough character.

Chin was recruited by Charles Lucky Luciano into the mob and became a driver for Vito Genovese. Genovese instructed Gigante to murder the family boss Frank Costello. Gigante did as he was told and shot Costello, but not fatally. According to mob rules, Costello never fingered Gigante for the hit.

But later, in 1959, Gigante was caught up in a drug raid and went to jail for several years. After his parole, Gigante created his new Oddfather persona.

McShane reports that Gigante first used the mental incompetence ruse in a trial for bribery. Once it succeeded, Gigante adopted the defense as a lifestyle. On 22 occasions between 1969 and 1990, he voluntarily checked into a suburban hospital for treatment.

Among Gigantes antics, FBI agents found him naked in the shower with an umbrella when they tried to serve him a subpoena.

Behind these antics was a ruthless man who inspired fear in the notorious tough guy John Gotti.  But the faked dementia quit working for him in 1996 when a federal judge ruled that he was competent to stand trial.  A year later, prison tapes unmasked him as the powerful mob boss that he was, running the Genovese crime family from his prison hospital bed. His son Andrew hand carried his fathers orders from the Texas prison hospital to New York City.