The Odd Father: Vice Looks at Mob Boss Who Feigned Mental Illness
- Known by the moniker “The Chin”, crime boss Vincent Gigante once put a contract on the mighty John Gotti and accidently killed a Gotti Lookalike
- Routinely gallivanted around Greenwich Village, Manhattan, in a bathrobe, slippers and floppy hat pulled down low on his head, often urinating in public places
- FBI referred to Gigante as “crazy like a fox”
- The Chin’s feigning of mental illness “remains the single most brilliant gambit in the annals of organized crime “
On Tuesday, Vice Media reported on the late Vincent "Chin" Gigante, who ran New York’s Genovese Crime Family starting in the early 1980’s and managed to survive doing so for nearly another 25 years.
His secret for surviving so long during these tumultuous times in Mob history?
Gigante, known as “The Chin”, was such a bad ass he once almost had the mighty John Gotti offed.
Loyal soldiers apparently referred to him by rubbing their chins after Gigante issued an edict that his name not be uttered in public, Seth Ferranti of Vice writes.
From Vice:
Despite the fearsome reputation, though, the Chin was probably best known as the Odd Father because he feigned insanity at key junctures, puzzling doctors, frustrating law enforcement officials, and prolonging his reign. It might be hard to envision now, but the crime boss routinely gallivanted around Greenwich Village, Manhattan, in a bathrobe, slippers and floppy hat pulled down low on his head. He was known to urinate in public, play pinochle in storefronts, and even hid a second family from his wife.
Following what turned into a 30-year run of psychiatric evaluations, Chin was ultimately declared competent to stand trial in 1997. He was convicted of racketeering and murder conspiracy, and sentenced to federal prison, but died only a few years later in 2005 of natural causes.
Vice sat down with seasoned Daily News beat reporter Larry McShane to discuss his new book about Gigante entitled: Chin: The Life and Crimes of Mafia Boss Vincent Gigante.
In the interview, McShane tells of how “The Chin” became head of one of New York’s most feared crime families, the rackets he oversaw and that planned hit on Gotti.
Regarding that matter, McShane relayed:
There was one near-miss in the effort to kill Gotti, a bombing that killed his underboss Frank DeCicco and badly injured a Gotti lookalike who was mistakenly targeted. Gigante was also infuriated by Gotti's high-rolling lifestyle, and his courting of media attention. The old-school Chin preferred to keep his mouth shut and his business to himself.
Among the many rackets: Construction, unions, garbage hauling, and of course gambling.
But was he really crazy?
McShane says it was mostly all an act, but a brilliant one.
Crazy like a fox was the FBI's assessment. Two different federal judges ruled he was sane as well. But the act itself was a thing of twisted beauty, complete with annual trips to a suburban psychiatric facility, the weird wardrobe, the loony antics on the Greenwich Village streets. The clothes helped make the crazy man, but it was Gigante who pulled it off in public. The performance was so good that it took the federal government seven years after his 1990 indictment to get him in court, and then only after endless psychiatric evaluations by an assortment of doctors.
It remains the single most brilliant gambit in the annals of organized crime, if not crime dating back to when Cain killed Abel. He's one of a kind, and one who will never be duplicated. To run the Genovese family in two centuries, despite constant FBI attention, was astounding. And to do it with the mental incompetency dodge is the cherry on top of the crazy cake. The mob will never see his like again.
Watch for the book to come out May 31, 2016.
- Alejandro Botticelli, Gambling911.com
