Guest Author - Vance Rowe

Known as one of the oddest mobsters of our time, Vincent “the Chin” Gigante was the alleged mob boss of the Genovese Crime Family. Up until 1997, Gigante had avoided jail by allegedly pretending to be crazy. In fact, between 1969 and 1990, he checked himself into a mental institution, twenty-two times.

Vincent Gigante didn’t start out in a life of crime like most of the mobsters did. He tried to lead a straight life and even went to a vocational high school. He dropped out at age sixteen to pursue a boxing career that only lasted for twenty-four bouts and twenty-three wins. He then left boxing to join the Army but was declared 4F because of anti-social behavior. He then began a life of crime becoming a soldier in the Genovese family. He was a soldier under Tony Eboli and eventually ran his own crew in Greenwich Village out of the Triangle Social Club. In 1957, he was ordered to kill Frank Costello so Vito Genovese could regain his role as boss of the family, but the hit attempt failed and Costello was only wounded, however it was enough to scare Costello and he stepped down as boss.

It was 1969, when Vincent Gigante began to allegedly feign mental illness and kept it up until he died in 2005. He was able to avoid prosecution for various charges over these years until 1997. He would walk the streets of Greenwich Village wearing pajamas or threadbare pants and would gesture wildly to no one and talked loudly to himself. Dubbed “The Oddfather” by the media, Gigante was the alleged boss of the Genovese Crime family since 1981 but kept a very low profile. It wasn’t until 1991, that the feds began to relentlessly pursue him. It was then that Sammy “The Bull” Gravano said in court during the Mafia Commission trials that Gigante was in fact the boss of the Genovese Crime Family and that he was faking his mental illness. In 1997, he was convicted on forty-one counts of various crimes and was sent to jail. He was due to be up for parole in 2007 but he died in 2005 at the Medical Center for Federal Prisoners in Springfield, Missouri after his health declined. A few days later on December 23, 2005, there was a funeral for Gigante in Greenwich Village that was presided over by his brother Louis Gigante who is a Catholic priest. His body was cremated at the Greenwood Cemetery in Brooklyn, New York.

Vincent Gigante was also the inspiration for the character of Junior Soprano on the hit HBO series, The Sopranos.