September 26, 2024 • 45 mins
The mysterious Vincent "Chin" Gigante evades law enforcement by feigning mental illness, orchestrating deadly power moves from the shadows while maintaining his elaborate act.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
You're listening to Law and Order Criminal Justice System, a
production of Wolf Entertainment and iHeart podcasts.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
In the criminal Justice System, landmark trials transcend the courtroom
to reshape the law. The brave man and women who
investigate and prosecute these cases are part of a select
group that is defined American history. These are their stories. Sunday,
April thirteenth, nineteen eighty six, early afternoon, Benson Nurst, Brooklyn.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
It was a quiet day outside the Veterans and Friends
Social Club. A Genevese associate approached a gray Buick Electra.
He slit a brown paper bag under the passenger door,
then walked away like it was just another afternoon. That
car it belonged to Frank de Chico, the newly minted
(01:00):
Gambino underboss and the right hand man of John Gotti.
Watching from nearby was Lucsey soldier Anthony Gaspipe Casso, notorious
for his brutal tactics, but today he wouldn't need a
pipe to get the job done. The order from the
Genovise bosses was simple, get Gotti.
Speaker 3 (01:29):
Today.
Speaker 4 (01:29):
One man was killed and another critically injured when their
car was rigged with a bomb in Brooklyn.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
In the kitchen having coffee. It's just sitting there and
all of a sudden, moms, just like that. I thought
it was back in a war.
Speaker 4 (01:43):
Sources within the police department said that the man killed
was a lieutenant to John Gottie, the reported godfather of
the Gambino crime family.
Speaker 5 (01:59):
You're not with them because you want to be. It's
the gangster that decides whether you're his associated on.
Speaker 6 (02:05):
If you like your life, you will vote to acquit.
Speaker 1 (02:09):
I'm Aniseega Nicolazzi.
Speaker 7 (02:11):
My father should have been a dead.
Speaker 1 (02:12):
Man from Wolf Entertainment and iHeart podcasts. This is law
and order, criminal justice system. How did the Genevise family
avoid federal prosecution for so long through a brilliant act
(02:33):
of leadership deception. For years, prosecutors were convinced that Fat
Tony Salerno was the boss of the Genovese. His conviction
should have brought the organization down like the other mafia families.
But what the government didn't know There was a clue
buried deep within hours of surveillance that things were not
(02:53):
as they seemed. On a nineteen eighty four wire tap, Salerno,
frustrated for a list of recruits, was overheard saying and
I quote, I don't know none of them, but I'll
leave this up to the boss. That single sentence, I'll
leave this up to the boss was a bombshell. Salerno,
(03:14):
the man authorities believed to be the boss, was revealing
that there was someone even higher. This comment shattered the
long held belief that Salerno was the one in charge.
Here's defense attorney James Leonard.
Speaker 8 (03:30):
When I first became aware of the Geneese crime family,
it was seeing fat Tony Salerno, the alleged boss. The
United States government sentenced him to one hundred years and
they got their guy, and the entire time he wasn't
the boss. That's what made me want to dive into
(03:53):
who are these guys that fooled the United States government,
fooled the media, ooled some of the other organized crime families.
Speaker 1 (04:05):
Rumors began circulating that the real head of the family
was Vincent the Chin Gigante, a man who managed to
stay in the shadows while Sealerno took the heat. Gigante's
low profile wasn't just luck. It was a calculated plan
that kept him off the radar of both law enforcement
and the media. This strategy wasn't new. As far back
(04:28):
as the nineteen sixties, a former Genovie's boss known as
Benny Squints had created the role of front boss, a
decoy to protect the real leadership. Former FBI supervisor Jim
Kostler explains.
Speaker 9 (04:43):
The Genovie's family there were secret of these people would
tell you if your hair was on fire.
Speaker 1 (04:49):
The idea was simple, Sellerno would be the public face,
while Giganty really called the shots.
Speaker 9 (04:56):
So they came to an agreement that that Tony would
be the titular boss and call the shots, with the
approval of Jinger Ganty. They kept it that way for
a long time.
Speaker 1 (05:09):
And so Vincent Giganti began his covert reign out of sight,
shielded from prosecution. His administration was so cautious, secretive, and
powerful that it was described as the most sophisticated family
in the US. While federal prosecutors were busy rounding up
other mafia leaders, Giganty remained untouchable. Here's Michael Cherdoff.
Speaker 10 (05:35):
We had to focus on the people that we had
evidence were part of the commission actively. You know, there
were no recordings of Giganty. There was really no evidence
that we could.
Speaker 1 (05:44):
Use Salerno's conviction and the belief that he was the
Genovese boss added a final layer of protection for Gigante.
But who was Vincent Giganty? Law enforcement knew parts of
his criminal history, but much about him remained a mystery,
a man shrouded in both myth and legend. One person, however,
(06:06):
knew the truth about arguably the most powerful boss in
organized crime, someone who called him Dad.
Speaker 7 (06:15):
Rita Gigante. I am the daughter of Vincent Giganty.
Speaker 1 (06:21):
As a child, Rita was left largely in the dark
about her father's chosen profession, but his presence still loomed
large in her life.
Speaker 7 (06:31):
As a child, I can remember myself sitting in the classroom,
very depressed, crying all the time, wanting to go home,
never wanting to be in school. And I never understood
why I would be home a lot. My mother would
keep me home. So those are my first memories of him.
I would have to say, probably about eight years old.
I would get sick a lot physically, so he used
(06:53):
to comfort me. I would lay on his lap and
he used to rub my back when I was young,
and I would fall asleep. That was one of the
first memories.
Speaker 1 (07:02):
Rita grew up between two homes, her mother's home in
New Jersey and her grandmother's New York City apartment.
Speaker 7 (07:09):
We moved out here when I was about six months old,
and then about a year after we moved, my dad
picked up and went back in the city with his mom.
This was in Greenwich Village, the Lower West Side, and
he lived on Sullivan Street with my grandmother. Kids were
split from him, and my mom and him were split
even though they were together, so we would be visiting
(07:32):
back and forth to see him. I had two older
sisters fifteen and sixteen years older than me, and then
two older brothers ten and twelve years older than me,
So I was pretty much a change of life baby
or oops, you know. So, my brothers and sisters experienced
a very different energy and a very different father. By
(07:53):
the time I came along, he was very caught up
in his business, so he had less time and less
energy to connect to me.
Speaker 1 (08:02):
His business was running the Genevies crime family, but as
Rita remembers it, he still found time for his immediate
family too, gathering at her grandmother's house for weekly dinners.
Speaker 7 (08:14):
It would be at least twice a week, if not
three times, but always on a Sunday Sunday dinner. We
always went to spend at my grandmother so he would
be there. It wasn't exciting, let's put it that way.
And there were no real conversations between me and my
dad other than maybe ten words each time I saw him,
and that was how are you house school? You're taking
(08:37):
care of your mom. To be that young and being
asked that you're taking care of your mom, you kind
of think that's your job.
Speaker 1 (08:44):
To Gigante, family was everything. His own father had died young,
so he put a heavy significance on a child's responsibility.
He loved and took care of his own mother, and
while she loved him back, she also did approved of
his lifestyle.
Speaker 7 (09:02):
My grandmother couldn't stand what my father did. She wanted
him to go to school, She wanted him to become something.
This began back in Italy. My great grandfather was a
pharmacist and doctor and he witnessed a crime by the
black Hand. Now the black handed in Italy back then
was the mafia. The black hand approached him and told him,
(09:24):
if you testify, we're going to kill your whole family.
And honestly, back then that's what they did. It was
very different in Italy than it is here. He ended
up killing himself. He took cyanide poisoned himself, and that's
how everything altered in my grandmother's life. She met my
grandfather Salvatore, and he wanted to come to the United
(09:46):
States because his family was here, and so she followed him,
left everything, left all the wealth.
Speaker 1 (09:53):
Then my father, comes Gigante, grew up during the Depression
on the West Side of Manhattan. His father there was
a watchmaker and his mother a seamstress who doted on
Vincent and his three brothers. But it was another woman
who would steal his young heart, his future wife, Olympia.
Speaker 7 (10:12):
They knew each other as babies. My grandmothers were friends,
so they grew up together. They had their first kiss
at twelve years old. But my mother remembers him as
this nice young boy who was very respectful. It was
that side of him that she could not get out
of her mind, and it's really why she never left him,
(10:33):
because she really loved him. It's like they never parted,
you know. And then they eventually got married.
Speaker 1 (10:39):
But in the fifties, Lower Manhattan was not the wealthy
enclave of hipsters and fashionistas it is today. And to
survive the mean streets of his youth. To guant, he
knew he would have to use both his wits and
his fists.
Speaker 7 (10:54):
They were broke. I think he wanted to make sure
that he could provide for family. So my dad, he's
in the street, and eventually he wants to start boxing.
He starts to train and wants to be a boxer,
and all that he gets like a little name in
the street that he's a good kid, he's reliable. That
so Vito takes some men underneath his wing, and that's
(11:15):
how it all begins.
Speaker 1 (11:17):
Veto, as in Vito genovis top brass in the Luciano
crime family and a cutthroat gangster with his eyes on
the throne.
Speaker 7 (11:27):
He started driving for him. He started doing little things
here and there, and he start to build his reputation
and his name at that point. And I think once
he got a taste of the power and the connection
to the man Veto that really loved him, his ego
just got swept in and it was very easy to
get caught up in it.
Speaker 1 (11:48):
By the time Gigante was in his twenties, he was
Genoviz's top enforcer, and as his reputation grew, he was
given a nickname that stuck. Here's prosecutor Guilt Childers.
Speaker 10 (12:01):
He got the name Chinn because he was an amateur boxer,
you know, a chin of granite, so he was a
very physical guy. He made his bones through murder and
other violence, you know, launch sharking, collection and things like that.
That's sort of how he roast to the ranks.
Speaker 1 (12:17):
The moment to Ganty truly earned his mafia spurs came
in nineteen fifty seven when he walked up to the
boss of his own crime family, Frank Costello, pointed a
gun at his head and shot him point blank.
Speaker 7 (12:32):
This was sanctioned by Vito Genevies and this is how
someone moves up in the ranks. They show their loyalty.
That's something my father had to do.
Speaker 1 (12:43):
And though Costello miraculously survived the shooting, he refused to
identify Giganty at the trial, which remains one of the
most famous examples of omerta in mob history.
Speaker 7 (12:56):
My dad knew going in he was never going to
be convicted because nobody he was going to write on
anybody's soul. Frank bowed out.
Speaker 1 (13:03):
Giganty was either destined for mob glory or perhaps he
was just lucky, because typically in Kosinostra bungling a hit
does not bode well for the would be assassin.
Speaker 7 (13:16):
Now, the fact that he missed my father should have
been a dead man, because if someone screw something like
that up, there's no room for them to stay. But
Vito was He just loved my father. I can't explain it.
There was just this connection between them. But surprisingly they
didn't take my dad out, and then he began to
(13:37):
rise further.
Speaker 1 (13:39):
And rise he did. Over the next two decades, Giganty
climbed to the head of the Genevese family, his power
and survival a result of both his ferociousness and his cunning.
So how did Giganty do it? How did he manage
to run New York's most powerful family right under the
(14:00):
knows of one of the largest federal investigations in American history,
with perhaps the craziest KHN in mafia history.
Speaker 5 (14:20):
The recruitment process starts, usually with young teenage kids, and
they visualize the glory of being in that life.
Speaker 1 (14:29):
During his career in the FBI, special agent Mike Campy
spent two decades battling organized crime, and there is perhaps
no better authority on what gangsters call the life.
Speaker 5 (14:41):
So say you grow up in a neighborhood and you
have social clubs where you'll see the wealth that somebody
may generate, or attractive women cars that can lure somebody
into it. That may not be what you would describe
as the best student. He thinks he's a tough guy.
The fistfights then changed into guns where you sort of
(15:04):
want to become a gangster, and you may align yourself
as an associate with an individual who is in organized crime.
Speaker 1 (15:14):
Over the course of his career, Mike put away and
flipped dozens of associates, soldiers, captains, and bosses. Mike also
had an aptitude for numbers, which led him to pursue
a degree in accounting.
Speaker 5 (15:27):
I did probably about three years in accounting and realized
that I could not visualize myself doing this as a career,
so I dropped accounting immediately, and about a year later,
coming home from working in the summer, I met an
individual named Jack McKenna who was an FBI agent, and
(15:47):
we had a conversation about FBI.
Speaker 1 (15:51):
Similar to other investigators we spoke with It was a
family friend that set Mike on his proper path. He
arrived at the New York Field office at the hight
of the investigation into the Five Families.
Speaker 5 (16:03):
I got to New York in nineteen eighty five. At
that time I was involved in labor racketeering investigations.
Speaker 1 (16:11):
He immediately put his accounting skills to good use and
did so well that he even developed a reputation on
the streets.
Speaker 5 (16:19):
I remember one time meeting a guy from the Bureau
of Prisons. He looked at me and he said, you're
Campy and I said, yeah, what, And he said it.
You don't know how often I heard your name on
prison calls. And I said, can you recall one? And
he said, oh, I remember somebody calling from prison to
a guy outside who said that he was just visited
(16:40):
by Mike Campy at FBI agent. And the inmates said,
hire an attorney and plead guilty. He said, but he
didn't charge me with anything, And he said, hire an
attorney and plead guilty. I'll see you in a few months.
I mean, I took that as a big compliment.
Speaker 1 (16:56):
With his number crunching prowess, Mike Campy was just the
rite agent for tackling the Genovies mobsters because one of
the family's foremost talents was making obscene amounts of money.
Here's defense attorney James Leonard.
Speaker 8 (17:11):
There were books written about John Gotti and the Gambino
crime family, but separated apart the genez crime family.
Speaker 1 (17:21):
In addition to their usual income from gambling rackets, the
Genevies had their hand in almost everything, and Mike was
uncovering a lot of it.
Speaker 5 (17:31):
They can generate money through bank robbery and loan sharking, extortions,
the stock fraud business, with the check cashing, I mean,
there was another scheme where they were talking about a
blocking sewers scheme. On a holiday weekend, they would block
the sewers outside huge buildings in Manhattan with the purpose
(17:53):
of an individual in charge of approving an emergency to
unblock the sewer that they prevented the flooding in the buildings.
It was like a simple process outside which took nothing,
and they cited like making a million dollars on a weekend,
and they'd split it amongst themselves.
Speaker 1 (18:11):
In other words, even as the Commission trial was dismantling
the Concrete Club, the Genovise family was still raking in
the cash. They controlled the Fulton Fish Market, ports and
waterfront services, shipping container companies, convention centers, trade shows, as
well as garbage collection in all five burroughs, and if
(18:32):
another company attempted to encroach on Genovi's profits, they were
met with horror, like when a waste removal company began
competing for the city's business. One morning, the sales manager
found a dog's head on his front lawn. Stuffed in
its mouth was a note reading, Welcome to New York.
Speaker 5 (18:53):
These are not people that go to work. These are
people that just talk kind of regular basis, how they're
going to use somebody in a business to generate money
for them.
Speaker 1 (19:01):
And behind it all the family's cutthroat and elusive boss,
Vincent Gigante, who even had the audacity to extort the
biggest religious festival in little Italy.
Speaker 5 (19:12):
At the Feast of San Gennaro. Historically it goes back decades.
It's as though it's a charitable organization, that the church
is generating money, but the reality is it's just a
front for organized crime. The city charges twenty five percent
of what they're collecting from the vendors, and the vendors
fill out forms with the city. Say, for instance, they're
(19:34):
being charged five hundred dollars for the stand, where in
reality they may be charged five thousand, depending on where
they're located, Like if they're right at Mulberry Street, just
off Canal, there's higher fee charged by the mobsters.
Speaker 1 (19:49):
That to me is a perfect example, as you're saying
it of exactly how so many people are just victimized.
Here you have a food cart vendor, right, but like
where they should be paying, making the number up five hundred,
they're having to pay up the little that they have
to the mob to even get that business, which they
should have every right to do for whatever it's supposed to.
Speaker 5 (20:10):
Cost, right, and the city loses out. It's like hundreds
of thousands of dollars a year, you know. I remember
the priest fled New York to go to South America
because his life was in jeopardy because he didn't want
the church to be a sponsor of crime. And it
wasn't benefiting the church, it was benefiting organized crime.
Speaker 1 (20:31):
A lot of what Mike learned about these criminal operations
was from wiretaps planted in Genevie's social clubs. But there
was one person that continued to avoid ever being recorded
the boss himself, Vincent Giguanty. Here's Jim Costler again.
Speaker 9 (20:47):
We did try to put microphones on, but we weren't
successful because he was that.
Speaker 1 (20:51):
Secretive, employing a front boss that was just his first
layer of insulation. Giganty was known to only speak to
a select inner circle of trusted mobsters. Former Colombo capo
Michael Franzis, who managed to escape the life in the
early nineties, had this to say.
Speaker 11 (21:11):
I'll tell you one thing about Chin.
Speaker 3 (21:13):
He didn't care who you were. If he didn't want
to meet you.
Speaker 11 (21:15):
Made guy Coppo on the boss Boss, he wasn't going
to meet you.
Speaker 9 (21:19):
That was it.
Speaker 10 (21:20):
He was the real power in New York for quite
a long time.
Speaker 1 (21:25):
Anyone outside of Giganti's trust circle would receive messages second hand,
and even those communications came with a dire warning. If
a mobster was ever caught on a wire speaking Chin's name,
the punishment was death. So during his investigations, Mike learned
of a type of sign language mobsters would use.
Speaker 5 (21:47):
I made recordings where they wouldn't say his name, where
they would refer to Chin Gigante by just putting their
finger to their chin. They're talking crimes. But they would
say this guy and I I'm sure, and align it
to the recording where this guy was chin because they'd
point to this chin. He had the respect of the
people under him and they feared him.
Speaker 1 (22:10):
Gil Childers also learned of a code name they used.
Speaker 10 (22:15):
He was extremely careful. Another case I did, which was
a Genevie's family case, the guys were on tape talking
about I've got to go downtown and see my aunt.
They always referred to him as a female, so that
was another part of his thing. But of course the
conversations that were on tape roysoul be like tell my
(22:36):
aunt I love him, mixing up the gender so it
became obvious who they were talking about.
Speaker 1 (22:43):
Rita was no stranger to her father's covert communication style.
In fact, she often had a front row seat.
Speaker 7 (22:52):
By the time I reached the age of seven or eight.
There was always this knowing that he was more than
what they were telling me, because I remember the phone
would always be off the hook. He never ever spoke
on a phone. These men that would come into my
grandmother's apartment very nice men. They would kiss a silo,
sit down, around the dining room table with him. The
(23:13):
TV was on, the radio was on, lad and I
would see these pieces of paper being you know, they
were just notes to give him information, and then he
would write back, and then they would take them and
rip them up and either flush them down the toilet
or they would burn them. Nobody ever really spoke above
a whisper, and if they wanted to directly speak to him,
they had to go up to him and whisper in
his ear. He would give them a direction to go
(23:35):
and do something, and they would nod and go one
by one. So this I knew was something's he's important.
I don't know how he's important, but he is.
Speaker 1 (23:46):
When Rita asked about her father's job, the answer was
a lie, and.
Speaker 7 (23:50):
She knew it. I was told several different things. He
worked for a hat company, trucking. Those were the two
most that I remember.
Speaker 1 (24:01):
But secrets can be kept only for so long. One
way or another. They forced their way out, and being
an unwitting accomplice to her father's secret life was taking
a dangerous toll.
Speaker 7 (24:14):
I was sixteen, so I was in high school and
there was this girl, typical eighties girls, big hair, all
of that and she would spew a lot of stuff
about my family and me being a mafia princess and
all of that, and so many people were afraid of us,
and kids couldn't hang out with me. And I think
I was so angry because it was probably a piece
of me that knew there was something to it, but
(24:34):
I didn't know what. I was having a really bad day,
and I cornered her in the bathroom, and before she
could even try to make a move to get out
of the bathroom, I just wrapped my hand around the
back of her thick hair and I pulled her head
right into the sink and I just slammed her head
in the sink. She fell to the floor. She was bleeding.
(24:55):
I stepped on her face and I said, I'm done
with you. And I remember instantly a brief flashback, but
I didn't know where it came from. Then all of
a sudden, I snapped out of it, and I walked
out of the bathroom, and I'm like, where did that
come from?
Speaker 1 (25:11):
In her heart, Rita knew that her violent outburst had
its roots in her traumatic childhood, and in one memory
in particular.
Speaker 7 (25:21):
I remember clearly as a flashback, not so much that
it was part of my memories until I had the flashback.
So I remember being underneath my grandmother's dining room table.
I was five years old, and I was playing and
there was always a radio and a TV on, and
they were pretty loud, you know, just in case anybody
was talking or anything, it could be buffled out. I
(25:43):
could hear like a struggle coming through the door. I
remember being under the table, and I remember hearing the
scuffle coming through like the hallway, and then it ended
up where my grandmother's dining room entrances. I knew like
something was going on, but I didn't know what it was.
So I backed up and I kind of just wrapped
my arms around my legs and I, you know, covered
(26:05):
my mouth and I was just quiet. And then I
remember hearing like like someone punched somebody in the face
and the man fell to the floor and he was bleeding.
Blood was starting to trickle out of his nose and
coming towards me. But I remember very vividly my father's
(26:25):
hand and the only reason why I knew it was
his hand was because of his pinky ring. You know,
I'm under the table, he's above me, and I see
his hand, you know, hitting this man like over and
over again his face to the point where the guy was,
you know, unconscious. And then the last thing he did
was take his foot and just step on his face
and like in a very grave, low voice, he said,
(26:49):
don't ever disrespect me again. And then he told them
get him out of here.
Speaker 1 (26:55):
Rita was frozen in fear, shaking silently underneath the table.
She was one of the few people to witness her
father's violent temper and live to tell about it.
Speaker 7 (27:06):
You know, what happens to all children, I think when
they have that kind of trauma, is they go inward.
They know not to speak a word. I remember at
that moment, I just started to shake from the inside out.
It was probably minutes later where I heard my mother
and my grandmother calling for me, because nobody knew where
I was. When they looked on the kneath the table,
(27:27):
they saw me shaking and crying, and my mother pulled
me out and she was holding me, and I was
just told, you know, it's okay. Daddy was just angry.
You're safe, You're this, you're that. But I don't ever
remember seeing my father's face. It was like I buried
my face in my mother's chest area, and they just kind.
Speaker 12 (27:48):
Of ripped me out of there and that was it. It
was the memory of that day that came back to
her when she attacked her high school classmate. It left
her wanting answers.
Speaker 7 (28:00):
I was flipping out, what is this? Why are people
calling me mafia princes? I said, I know he's important.
I know people go to him fit things, but I
don't know what it is that he actually does. So
my sisters sat with me and they described everything and
went through the whole thing from the beginning.
Speaker 1 (28:18):
The truth about her father and the magnitude of his
power came as a massive shock. It was information that
very few people possessed, including the FBI.
Speaker 7 (28:30):
I was told he was the head of the Genevese
crime family and the head of the Commission, which meant
he was the head of all five families, which means
nothing could be sanctioned unless somebody came to ask my father,
especially if someone wanted to kill someone. And that his
hand stretched across the country.
Speaker 1 (28:49):
Because by the nineteen eighties, Gigante was not just the
most powerful Boston, New York. His authority extended over crime
families in New England, Buffalo, Philadelphia and the Midwest, and
with profits of over one hundred million a year, the
Genovese family was earning more than half the companies on
the fortune five hundred.
Speaker 7 (29:11):
I had no idea, no idea.
Speaker 1 (29:14):
For his youngest daughter. It was a staggering revelation.
Speaker 7 (29:19):
All the pieces of the puzzle start to snap into
place at that age, the people around the table and
all things that I questioned, I began to come to
the realization of, Okay, this is why. So there was
a lot of different emotions that came with it. One
was relief in finally knowing everything, the idea that he
was this force of nature that people didn't cross. Actually
(29:43):
I felt very protected by it. And then the other
part of it was like, oh my god, like the
Feds could come at any time and take him down.
They could take us with him, because we were all
part of this. So there was this struggle inside of
me of this is my family. I love them. I
would never utter a word to anyone about it other
than therapy, and I knew that they were sworn that
(30:05):
they couldn't say anything unless they felt I was in trouble.
Oh my gosh, I'm.
Speaker 1 (30:09):
Just picturing the therapist when you say, like my father's
head of a major organized crime family.
Speaker 7 (30:16):
She went white, like everything drained out of her. But
she was very good at recovering, and she helped me tremendously.
Speaker 1 (30:24):
For Rita, therapy became a refuge from the guilt and
anguish caused by the knowledge of what her father did
for a living and what he was capable of doing.
It was a burden few people could bear, and in fact,
even the boss himself was starting to show outward signs
that the mob life was taking a significant psychological toll.
Speaker 13 (30:45):
Giganty has taken to walking the streets near his Greenwich
Village home, unshaven and wearing just a bathrobe. His friends
and family say Giganty is mentally unbalanced. I already say
it's an elaborate hoax.
Speaker 1 (30:59):
But was Gigante really starting to crack or was his
insanity act just another smokescreen to protect him from prosecution.
It would take a showdown with the Feds and an
up and coming rival to finally reveal the truth. With
(31:24):
federal investigators bearing down on all the top bosses of
organized crime, one boss was deploying a myriad of tactics
to avoid prosecution. While the Commission trial was a sweeping success.
It also showed the government's hand, revealing the many ways
they had successfully infiltrated organized crime, and Vincent Giganty was
taking note. From refusing to use telephones, speaking in code,
(31:48):
and even deploying a front boss to act as as representative,
Giganty avoided leaving any incriminating evidence for Feds to use
against him. But none of these strategic deceptions could hold
a candle to his most impressive ruse.
Speaker 11 (32:03):
Vincent the China Ganti has appeared as a mentally ill
invalid who for years has walked around New York streets
in a bathrobe, mumbling to himself. To the FEDS, that's
been an elaborate act. To his family, it's the truth.
Speaker 1 (32:16):
There's no cure for what he has. Andrew Weisman began
his career as an AUSA in the Eastern District of
New York in nineteen ninety one.
Speaker 3 (32:26):
When I started, I was in a tiny little office
that I think had been the equivalent of like a
broom closet, and my supervisors had below ground offices where
people could go by. You could see them peeing on
the street and throwing trash, but you know what, I've
never been happier. So the physical space was pretty bad,
(32:49):
but the work was so great that you never even
thought about the physical conditions.
Speaker 1 (32:55):
Andrew worked his way up to deputy chief of the
Organized Crime and Racketeering Section, and for years he watched
Gigante's increasingly bizarre public behavior.
Speaker 3 (33:05):
People talk about the Godfather, but he was known as
the odd Father for many, many, many years, decades. He
had been viewed as and presented himself as incompetent. He
had run around the village in a bathrobe and pajamas
and looked disheveled.
Speaker 1 (33:28):
His appearance was a far cry from the slick suited
image of his mafia predecessors, and his behavior disguised his
true role as the boss. In public, Gigante would mumble
and stumble his way through the streets of Greenwich Village.
FBI agent Charlotte Lang recalls one time when a couple
of her colleagues paid Giganty a visit and were met
(33:48):
with a curious surprise.
Speaker 6 (33:51):
He was at his mother's apartment and she goes, yeah,
I go in, you can talk to him. And when
the agents walked in, he was in the bathroom, standing
in the shower stall with an umbrella, holding an umbrella up.
Speaker 1 (34:04):
Within law enforcement, Gigantes's antics earned him the nickname the
Enigma in a Bathrobe, but according to Gil Childers, there
was a growing suspicion amongst his colleagues that Gigante's incompetence
was all in act.
Speaker 10 (34:18):
He would roam the streets by day in his bathrobe,
mumbling to himself, urinating on fire hydrants, and doing all
sorts of things to make himself look like he was crazy,
so he figured that would insulate him from prosecutions.
Speaker 1 (34:34):
But there was some evidence that perhaps it wasn't an
act at all. Multiple doctors and psychiatrists issued reports that
Giganty was, in their words, a psychotic, a mute, or
possibly schizophrenic. Others that his mind was quote infantile and primitive,
with a below normal IQ of sixty nine to seventy two.
Speaker 14 (34:55):
Not what you'd expect of an alleged organized crime boss,
and relatives of the god he's saying he's not a boss,
he's a paranoid schizophrenic, wanders around hallucinating and has to
take florazine four times a day.
Speaker 1 (35:09):
These diagnoses and his public reputation as someone with severe
mental impairment created a cloud of uncertainty about his role
in the Genevese leadership. After all, how could someone with
his disability be the dawn of Don's It was also
laying groundwork for a clever defense in the face of
a potential federal prosecution, because being deemed mentally unfit to
(35:31):
stand trial might just be the get out of jail
free card he was hoping to receive. So was Vincent
Gigante as mentally unfit as he said he was. Here's
his daughter, Rita.
Speaker 7 (35:46):
At some point I was told it's got paranoid schizophrenia.
I never thought it was real because I started to
see patterns of when he would do it. One of
the doctors came to visit. I mean immediately everybody went
into role. At that point, it was like my grandmother,
hurry up, get him his medicine. He's not well today.
(36:06):
The TV would have cartoons on. He'd be mimicking the
cartoons and he was good. I'm gonna tell you, he
was good. The doctor would come in evaluate him, and
then once he was gone, that was it. He was
my father again.
Speaker 1 (36:21):
According to Rita, her entire family was in on the
ruse which often included accompanying her father on his walks
around the neighborhood.
Speaker 7 (36:30):
So you tell me, come on, I'm gonna walk. I'm like, oh,
God help me. He would leave his pajamas on, put
his robe on, mess up his hair, even if he
wore a hat. You know, he would never be clean shaven.
He would like stumble in the streets. He was five ten,
five eleven. I'm five to one on a good day.
He'd whisper to me, make like you're holding me up,
(36:50):
and I'm looking at him like really, people are not
really gonna believe this. And then he would stop and
talk to the tree or the parking met or whatever
it was. He'd make statements, it's the parking meter. It's
a nice day today. God told me to say this,
you know something along those lines. He would mumble and
say just words like sporadic words and stuff. Wasn't always
(37:11):
like a full sentence, you know what I mean. And
then it with people coming down the block. Those who
knew him would tip their hat or smile at him.
Others that didn't know him would walk to the other side.
They would look at us like we were crazy. Not
an easy task.
Speaker 15 (37:26):
Let me tell you for nearly two decades.
Speaker 2 (37:29):
Vincent Gigante's relatives have said he walked around in the
bathroobe talking to himself because he was emotionally and physically ill.
Speaker 1 (37:37):
Her father had been committed to his Mental Illness Act
for as long as she could remember, even willing to
check himself into the psychiatric word to maintain the charade.
Speaker 7 (37:48):
He was checking himself into three weeks at a time
whenever the fens were getting close to him. But I
think going in and experiencing him checking himself into an
institution where these people were on the third floor, the
ones that were the sickest. This was brutal, especially for me.
They would be roaming the floors, they would be cursing
at you. It was sad because I thought to myself,
(38:11):
these are people that are sick, like there really need help,
and you're in here faking like you're making a mockery
of this illness. I was beside myself with it.
Speaker 1 (38:22):
But Gigante's deception came in handy, especially when the FEDS
were turning up the heat on his fellow mobsters.
Speaker 3 (38:29):
Actually, shortly before the commission case was brought, vinc Giganti
had a law enforcement source and knew that the indictment
was coming down, and thus checked himself into a hospital
before the commission case happened.
Speaker 1 (38:44):
As it turns out, it wasn't just the federal government
that Giganty was worried about, because while the Chin continued
his mental masquerade, he was also contending with his biggest adversary,
a brand new Gambino boss whose public image was a
far from the boss in the bathrobe.
Speaker 8 (39:03):
The New York tabloids had christened John Gotti the Dapper Don,
And anytime you would see John Gotti, he's wearing a
two thousand dollars suit, hand painted silk ties. His hair
is perfectly quaff. And then Vincent Chin Gaganty out of
the fanfare, never clean shaven, always wearing a natty bathrobe,
(39:26):
in a hat, wandering the streets holding somebody's arm, mumbling
to himself. And that guy was more powerful than John Gotti,
and he could not have been more polar opposite in
the image that was projected.
Speaker 1 (39:46):
In the nineteen eighties, Gotti's star was on the rise,
and his conspicuous display of flash and style was obscene
to Giganty. But there was another reason that Giganty wanted
Gotti dead. He had broken Kosen nose ST's most fundamental rule.
Speaker 3 (40:02):
You can't kill a boss without approval from the Commission,
and obviously bosses and other families would take that role
particularly seriously for their own self preservation. Well, John Gotti
had killed Paul Castellano outside of sparks.
Speaker 5 (40:19):
Castelano's murder was not a sanctioned murder by the Commission.
The Lucasi and Genovese family were an agreement that the
retaliation is to occur.
Speaker 1 (40:30):
Gigante had ordered a Luksi soldier to kill John Gotti
and his underboss Frank to Jacob, but there was an
unusual twist. The hit had to be done with a bomb,
and according to Special Agent Mike Campy, this method of
murder was supposed to be off limits even for the mob.
Speaker 5 (40:51):
The car bomb situation, that's what they do in Italy.
That's not how you're supposed to kill here in the US.
That's prohibited.
Speaker 1 (41:01):
Tipped off that Gotti and his deputy would be at
the social club that day, gas Pipe and his crew
approached Gotti's car with the homemade bomb, using a detonator
made from a toy car remote. The blast killed two people,
but incredibly, Gotti was not one of them. It turns
out that he was tipped off about the potential hit
(41:23):
and stayed away from the meeting.
Speaker 16 (41:25):
Sunday afternoon, a police officer had carried Jajico's body from
this car. The Chico, second in command of the Gambino
organized crime family, had opened the passenger door. A bomb
under the front seat exploded, killing him. Why the most
popular law enforcement theory revenge.
Speaker 1 (41:43):
With the failed hit, the beef between the reclusive Giganty
and the flashy Gotti was brought into the open, and
while the teflon Dawn never seemed to be afraid of
the spotlight, it was clear that Giganty too would no
longer be able to work in the shadows.
Speaker 7 (42:00):
You could look at it in this way too. There
were men dressed in three thousand dollars suits getting away
with all kinds of things, being very showy. But then
there's this man who is now dressed in the bathrobe,
slippers and pajamas, who you could say, well, that would
draw attention as well, right, and.
Speaker 1 (42:17):
Make the government really want to get him and prove
that it's false.
Speaker 7 (42:20):
Exactly, so, did he bring the heat not the way
other families conducted themselves, not in that way, and that
really did not help moving forward, because once you bring
that heat, they're just going to stay there till they
figure it out. They needed him because he was the
head of the commission, and they were going to get
him at all courts.
Speaker 15 (42:41):
This is Vincent Gigante, aka the Chin. Now take a
good look. According to a judge, he avoided prosecutors for
twenty seven years by pulling a crazy act. According to
most cops, it was worthy of an oscar performance. Cops
say he's the last of the big time organized crime bosses.
Now he's set to go on trial.
Speaker 2 (43:08):
Next time on law and order criminal justice system.
Speaker 7 (43:12):
Vito Genevies and some of the others they were ruthless
and they would kill someone at the drop of a hat.
My father was not that way.
Speaker 9 (43:19):
He got a phone call in the middle of the
night from Euganti's right hand man, told his wife, this
is it. I guess I'll never see you again.
Speaker 5 (43:27):
He was forewarned that Sevino was a rat and he
was trying to warn others to stay away from him.
Speaker 3 (43:33):
Vincent Giganti had a wife named Olympia. He also had
a girlfriend named Olympia.
Speaker 2 (43:45):
Law and Order. Criminal Justice System is a production of
Wolf Entertainment and iHeart Podcasts. Our host is Anna Sega Nicolazi.
This episode was written by Chandler Mays and Anna Sega Nicolazzi.
Executive produced by Dick Wolf, Elliott Wolf, and Stephen Michael
at Wolf Entertainment on behalf of iHeartRadio. Executive produced by
(44:09):
Alex Williams and Matt Frederick, with supervising producers Trevor Young
and Chandler Mays and producers Jesse Funk, Noms Griffin and
Rima Elkayali. This season is executive produced by Anna Sega Nicolazzi,
story producer Walker Lamond. Our researchers are Carolyn Talmage and
(44:31):
Luke Stentz. Editing in sound design by Rima Alkali, original
music by John O'Hara, original theme by Mike Post, additional
music by Steve Moore, and additional voice over by me
Steve Zarnkelton. Special thanks to Fox five in New York,
(44:52):
ABC and CBS for providing archival material for the show.
For more podcasts from iHeartRadio and Wolf Entertainment, visit the
iHeartRadio app Apple Podcasts or Wherever you listen to your
favorite shows. Thanks for listening.
You're listening to Law and Order Criminal Justice System, a
production of Wolf Entertainment and iHeart podcasts.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
In the criminal Justice System, landmark trials transcend the courtroom
to reshape the law. The brave man and women who
investigate and prosecute these cases are part of a select
group that is defined American history. These are their stories. Sunday,
April thirteenth, nineteen eighty six, early afternoon, Benson Nurst, Brooklyn.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
It was a quiet day outside the Veterans and Friends
Social Club. A Genevese associate approached a gray Buick Electra.
He slit a brown paper bag under the passenger door,
then walked away like it was just another afternoon. That
car it belonged to Frank de Chico, the newly minted
(01:00):
Gambino underboss and the right hand man of John Gotti.
Watching from nearby was Lucsey soldier Anthony Gaspipe Casso, notorious
for his brutal tactics, but today he wouldn't need a
pipe to get the job done. The order from the
Genovise bosses was simple, get Gotti.
Speaker 3 (01:29):
Today.
Speaker 4 (01:29):
One man was killed and another critically injured when their
car was rigged with a bomb in Brooklyn.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
In the kitchen having coffee. It's just sitting there and
all of a sudden, moms, just like that. I thought
it was back in a war.
Speaker 4 (01:43):
Sources within the police department said that the man killed
was a lieutenant to John Gottie, the reported godfather of
the Gambino crime family.
Speaker 5 (01:59):
You're not with them because you want to be. It's
the gangster that decides whether you're his associated on.
Speaker 6 (02:05):
If you like your life, you will vote to acquit.
Speaker 1 (02:09):
I'm Aniseega Nicolazzi.
Speaker 7 (02:11):
My father should have been a dead.
Speaker 1 (02:12):
Man from Wolf Entertainment and iHeart podcasts. This is law
and order, criminal justice system. How did the Genevise family
avoid federal prosecution for so long through a brilliant act
(02:33):
of leadership deception. For years, prosecutors were convinced that Fat
Tony Salerno was the boss of the Genovese. His conviction
should have brought the organization down like the other mafia families.
But what the government didn't know There was a clue
buried deep within hours of surveillance that things were not
(02:53):
as they seemed. On a nineteen eighty four wire tap, Salerno,
frustrated for a list of recruits, was overheard saying and
I quote, I don't know none of them, but I'll
leave this up to the boss. That single sentence, I'll
leave this up to the boss was a bombshell. Salerno,
(03:14):
the man authorities believed to be the boss, was revealing
that there was someone even higher. This comment shattered the
long held belief that Salerno was the one in charge.
Here's defense attorney James Leonard.
Speaker 8 (03:30):
When I first became aware of the Geneese crime family,
it was seeing fat Tony Salerno, the alleged boss. The
United States government sentenced him to one hundred years and
they got their guy, and the entire time he wasn't
the boss. That's what made me want to dive into
(03:53):
who are these guys that fooled the United States government,
fooled the media, ooled some of the other organized crime families.
Speaker 1 (04:05):
Rumors began circulating that the real head of the family
was Vincent the Chin Gigante, a man who managed to
stay in the shadows while Sealerno took the heat. Gigante's
low profile wasn't just luck. It was a calculated plan
that kept him off the radar of both law enforcement
and the media. This strategy wasn't new. As far back
(04:28):
as the nineteen sixties, a former Genovie's boss known as
Benny Squints had created the role of front boss, a
decoy to protect the real leadership. Former FBI supervisor Jim
Kostler explains.
Speaker 9 (04:43):
The Genovie's family there were secret of these people would
tell you if your hair was on fire.
Speaker 1 (04:49):
The idea was simple, Sellerno would be the public face,
while Giganty really called the shots.
Speaker 9 (04:56):
So they came to an agreement that that Tony would
be the titular boss and call the shots, with the
approval of Jinger Ganty. They kept it that way for
a long time.
Speaker 1 (05:09):
And so Vincent Giganti began his covert reign out of sight,
shielded from prosecution. His administration was so cautious, secretive, and
powerful that it was described as the most sophisticated family
in the US. While federal prosecutors were busy rounding up
other mafia leaders, Giganty remained untouchable. Here's Michael Cherdoff.
Speaker 10 (05:35):
We had to focus on the people that we had
evidence were part of the commission actively. You know, there
were no recordings of Giganty. There was really no evidence
that we could.
Speaker 1 (05:44):
Use Salerno's conviction and the belief that he was the
Genovese boss added a final layer of protection for Gigante.
But who was Vincent Giganty? Law enforcement knew parts of
his criminal history, but much about him remained a mystery,
a man shrouded in both myth and legend. One person, however,
(06:06):
knew the truth about arguably the most powerful boss in
organized crime, someone who called him Dad.
Speaker 7 (06:15):
Rita Gigante. I am the daughter of Vincent Giganty.
Speaker 1 (06:21):
As a child, Rita was left largely in the dark
about her father's chosen profession, but his presence still loomed
large in her life.
Speaker 7 (06:31):
As a child, I can remember myself sitting in the classroom,
very depressed, crying all the time, wanting to go home,
never wanting to be in school. And I never understood
why I would be home a lot. My mother would
keep me home. So those are my first memories of him.
I would have to say, probably about eight years old.
I would get sick a lot physically, so he used
(06:53):
to comfort me. I would lay on his lap and
he used to rub my back when I was young,
and I would fall asleep. That was one of the
first memories.
Speaker 1 (07:02):
Rita grew up between two homes, her mother's home in
New Jersey and her grandmother's New York City apartment.
Speaker 7 (07:09):
We moved out here when I was about six months old,
and then about a year after we moved, my dad
picked up and went back in the city with his mom.
This was in Greenwich Village, the Lower West Side, and
he lived on Sullivan Street with my grandmother. Kids were
split from him, and my mom and him were split
even though they were together, so we would be visiting
(07:32):
back and forth to see him. I had two older
sisters fifteen and sixteen years older than me, and then
two older brothers ten and twelve years older than me,
So I was pretty much a change of life baby
or oops, you know. So, my brothers and sisters experienced
a very different energy and a very different father. By
(07:53):
the time I came along, he was very caught up
in his business, so he had less time and less
energy to connect to me.
Speaker 1 (08:02):
His business was running the Genevies crime family, but as
Rita remembers it, he still found time for his immediate
family too, gathering at her grandmother's house for weekly dinners.
Speaker 7 (08:14):
It would be at least twice a week, if not
three times, but always on a Sunday Sunday dinner. We
always went to spend at my grandmother so he would
be there. It wasn't exciting, let's put it that way.
And there were no real conversations between me and my
dad other than maybe ten words each time I saw him,
and that was how are you house school? You're taking
(08:37):
care of your mom. To be that young and being
asked that you're taking care of your mom, you kind
of think that's your job.
Speaker 1 (08:44):
To Gigante, family was everything. His own father had died young,
so he put a heavy significance on a child's responsibility.
He loved and took care of his own mother, and
while she loved him back, she also did approved of
his lifestyle.
Speaker 7 (09:02):
My grandmother couldn't stand what my father did. She wanted
him to go to school, She wanted him to become something.
This began back in Italy. My great grandfather was a
pharmacist and doctor and he witnessed a crime by the
black Hand. Now the black handed in Italy back then
was the mafia. The black hand approached him and told him,
(09:24):
if you testify, we're going to kill your whole family.
And honestly, back then that's what they did. It was
very different in Italy than it is here. He ended
up killing himself. He took cyanide poisoned himself, and that's
how everything altered in my grandmother's life. She met my
grandfather Salvatore, and he wanted to come to the United
(09:46):
States because his family was here, and so she followed him,
left everything, left all the wealth.
Speaker 1 (09:53):
Then my father, comes Gigante, grew up during the Depression
on the West Side of Manhattan. His father there was
a watchmaker and his mother a seamstress who doted on
Vincent and his three brothers. But it was another woman
who would steal his young heart, his future wife, Olympia.
Speaker 7 (10:12):
They knew each other as babies. My grandmothers were friends,
so they grew up together. They had their first kiss
at twelve years old. But my mother remembers him as
this nice young boy who was very respectful. It was
that side of him that she could not get out
of her mind, and it's really why she never left him,
(10:33):
because she really loved him. It's like they never parted,
you know. And then they eventually got married.
Speaker 1 (10:39):
But in the fifties, Lower Manhattan was not the wealthy
enclave of hipsters and fashionistas it is today. And to
survive the mean streets of his youth. To guant, he
knew he would have to use both his wits and
his fists.
Speaker 7 (10:54):
They were broke. I think he wanted to make sure
that he could provide for family. So my dad, he's
in the street, and eventually he wants to start boxing.
He starts to train and wants to be a boxer,
and all that he gets like a little name in
the street that he's a good kid, he's reliable. That
so Vito takes some men underneath his wing, and that's
(11:15):
how it all begins.
Speaker 1 (11:17):
Veto, as in Vito genovis top brass in the Luciano
crime family and a cutthroat gangster with his eyes on
the throne.
Speaker 7 (11:27):
He started driving for him. He started doing little things
here and there, and he start to build his reputation
and his name at that point. And I think once
he got a taste of the power and the connection
to the man Veto that really loved him, his ego
just got swept in and it was very easy to
get caught up in it.
Speaker 1 (11:48):
By the time Gigante was in his twenties, he was
Genoviz's top enforcer, and as his reputation grew, he was
given a nickname that stuck. Here's prosecutor Guilt Childers.
Speaker 10 (12:01):
He got the name Chinn because he was an amateur boxer,
you know, a chin of granite, so he was a
very physical guy. He made his bones through murder and
other violence, you know, launch sharking, collection and things like that.
That's sort of how he roast to the ranks.
Speaker 1 (12:17):
The moment to Ganty truly earned his mafia spurs came
in nineteen fifty seven when he walked up to the
boss of his own crime family, Frank Costello, pointed a
gun at his head and shot him point blank.
Speaker 7 (12:32):
This was sanctioned by Vito Genevies and this is how
someone moves up in the ranks. They show their loyalty.
That's something my father had to do.
Speaker 1 (12:43):
And though Costello miraculously survived the shooting, he refused to
identify Giganty at the trial, which remains one of the
most famous examples of omerta in mob history.
Speaker 7 (12:56):
My dad knew going in he was never going to
be convicted because nobody he was going to write on
anybody's soul. Frank bowed out.
Speaker 1 (13:03):
Giganty was either destined for mob glory or perhaps he
was just lucky, because typically in Kosinostra bungling a hit
does not bode well for the would be assassin.
Speaker 7 (13:16):
Now, the fact that he missed my father should have
been a dead man, because if someone screw something like
that up, there's no room for them to stay. But
Vito was He just loved my father. I can't explain it.
There was just this connection between them. But surprisingly they
didn't take my dad out, and then he began to
(13:37):
rise further.
Speaker 1 (13:39):
And rise he did. Over the next two decades, Giganty
climbed to the head of the Genevese family, his power
and survival a result of both his ferociousness and his cunning.
So how did Giganty do it? How did he manage
to run New York's most powerful family right under the
(14:00):
knows of one of the largest federal investigations in American history,
with perhaps the craziest KHN in mafia history.
Speaker 5 (14:20):
The recruitment process starts, usually with young teenage kids, and
they visualize the glory of being in that life.
Speaker 1 (14:29):
During his career in the FBI, special agent Mike Campy
spent two decades battling organized crime, and there is perhaps
no better authority on what gangsters call the life.
Speaker 5 (14:41):
So say you grow up in a neighborhood and you
have social clubs where you'll see the wealth that somebody
may generate, or attractive women cars that can lure somebody
into it. That may not be what you would describe
as the best student. He thinks he's a tough guy.
The fistfights then changed into guns where you sort of
(15:04):
want to become a gangster, and you may align yourself
as an associate with an individual who is in organized crime.
Speaker 1 (15:14):
Over the course of his career, Mike put away and
flipped dozens of associates, soldiers, captains, and bosses. Mike also
had an aptitude for numbers, which led him to pursue
a degree in accounting.
Speaker 5 (15:27):
I did probably about three years in accounting and realized
that I could not visualize myself doing this as a career,
so I dropped accounting immediately, and about a year later,
coming home from working in the summer, I met an
individual named Jack McKenna who was an FBI agent, and
(15:47):
we had a conversation about FBI.
Speaker 1 (15:51):
Similar to other investigators we spoke with It was a
family friend that set Mike on his proper path. He
arrived at the New York Field office at the hight
of the investigation into the Five Families.
Speaker 5 (16:03):
I got to New York in nineteen eighty five. At
that time I was involved in labor racketeering investigations.
Speaker 1 (16:11):
He immediately put his accounting skills to good use and
did so well that he even developed a reputation on
the streets.
Speaker 5 (16:19):
I remember one time meeting a guy from the Bureau
of Prisons. He looked at me and he said, you're
Campy and I said, yeah, what, And he said it.
You don't know how often I heard your name on
prison calls. And I said, can you recall one? And
he said, oh, I remember somebody calling from prison to
a guy outside who said that he was just visited
(16:40):
by Mike Campy at FBI agent. And the inmates said,
hire an attorney and plead guilty. He said, but he
didn't charge me with anything, And he said, hire an
attorney and plead guilty. I'll see you in a few months.
I mean, I took that as a big compliment.
Speaker 1 (16:56):
With his number crunching prowess, Mike Campy was just the
rite agent for tackling the Genovies mobsters because one of
the family's foremost talents was making obscene amounts of money.
Here's defense attorney James Leonard.
Speaker 8 (17:11):
There were books written about John Gotti and the Gambino
crime family, but separated apart the genez crime family.
Speaker 1 (17:21):
In addition to their usual income from gambling rackets, the
Genevies had their hand in almost everything, and Mike was
uncovering a lot of it.
Speaker 5 (17:31):
They can generate money through bank robbery and loan sharking, extortions,
the stock fraud business, with the check cashing, I mean,
there was another scheme where they were talking about a
blocking sewers scheme. On a holiday weekend, they would block
the sewers outside huge buildings in Manhattan with the purpose
(17:53):
of an individual in charge of approving an emergency to
unblock the sewer that they prevented the flooding in the buildings.
It was like a simple process outside which took nothing,
and they cited like making a million dollars on a weekend,
and they'd split it amongst themselves.
Speaker 1 (18:11):
In other words, even as the Commission trial was dismantling
the Concrete Club, the Genovise family was still raking in
the cash. They controlled the Fulton Fish Market, ports and
waterfront services, shipping container companies, convention centers, trade shows, as
well as garbage collection in all five burroughs, and if
(18:32):
another company attempted to encroach on Genovi's profits, they were
met with horror, like when a waste removal company began
competing for the city's business. One morning, the sales manager
found a dog's head on his front lawn. Stuffed in
its mouth was a note reading, Welcome to New York.
Speaker 5 (18:53):
These are not people that go to work. These are
people that just talk kind of regular basis, how they're
going to use somebody in a business to generate money
for them.
Speaker 1 (19:01):
And behind it all the family's cutthroat and elusive boss,
Vincent Gigante, who even had the audacity to extort the
biggest religious festival in little Italy.
Speaker 5 (19:12):
At the Feast of San Gennaro. Historically it goes back decades.
It's as though it's a charitable organization, that the church
is generating money, but the reality is it's just a
front for organized crime. The city charges twenty five percent
of what they're collecting from the vendors, and the vendors
fill out forms with the city. Say, for instance, they're
(19:34):
being charged five hundred dollars for the stand, where in
reality they may be charged five thousand, depending on where
they're located, Like if they're right at Mulberry Street, just
off Canal, there's higher fee charged by the mobsters.
Speaker 1 (19:49):
That to me is a perfect example, as you're saying
it of exactly how so many people are just victimized.
Here you have a food cart vendor, right, but like
where they should be paying, making the number up five hundred,
they're having to pay up the little that they have
to the mob to even get that business, which they
should have every right to do for whatever it's supposed to.
Speaker 5 (20:10):
Cost, right, and the city loses out. It's like hundreds
of thousands of dollars a year, you know. I remember
the priest fled New York to go to South America
because his life was in jeopardy because he didn't want
the church to be a sponsor of crime. And it
wasn't benefiting the church, it was benefiting organized crime.
Speaker 1 (20:31):
A lot of what Mike learned about these criminal operations
was from wiretaps planted in Genevie's social clubs. But there
was one person that continued to avoid ever being recorded
the boss himself, Vincent Giguanty. Here's Jim Costler again.
Speaker 9 (20:47):
We did try to put microphones on, but we weren't
successful because he was that.
Speaker 1 (20:51):
Secretive, employing a front boss that was just his first
layer of insulation. Giganty was known to only speak to
a select inner circle of trusted mobsters. Former Colombo capo
Michael Franzis, who managed to escape the life in the
early nineties, had this to say.
Speaker 11 (21:11):
I'll tell you one thing about Chin.
Speaker 3 (21:13):
He didn't care who you were. If he didn't want
to meet you.
Speaker 11 (21:15):
Made guy Coppo on the boss Boss, he wasn't going
to meet you.
Speaker 9 (21:19):
That was it.
Speaker 10 (21:20):
He was the real power in New York for quite
a long time.
Speaker 1 (21:25):
Anyone outside of Giganti's trust circle would receive messages second hand,
and even those communications came with a dire warning. If
a mobster was ever caught on a wire speaking Chin's name,
the punishment was death. So during his investigations, Mike learned
of a type of sign language mobsters would use.
Speaker 5 (21:47):
I made recordings where they wouldn't say his name, where
they would refer to Chin Gigante by just putting their
finger to their chin. They're talking crimes. But they would
say this guy and I I'm sure, and align it
to the recording where this guy was chin because they'd
point to this chin. He had the respect of the
people under him and they feared him.
Speaker 1 (22:10):
Gil Childers also learned of a code name they used.
Speaker 10 (22:15):
He was extremely careful. Another case I did, which was
a Genevie's family case, the guys were on tape talking
about I've got to go downtown and see my aunt.
They always referred to him as a female, so that
was another part of his thing. But of course the
conversations that were on tape roysoul be like tell my
(22:36):
aunt I love him, mixing up the gender so it
became obvious who they were talking about.
Speaker 1 (22:43):
Rita was no stranger to her father's covert communication style.
In fact, she often had a front row seat.
Speaker 7 (22:52):
By the time I reached the age of seven or eight.
There was always this knowing that he was more than
what they were telling me, because I remember the phone
would always be off the hook. He never ever spoke
on a phone. These men that would come into my
grandmother's apartment very nice men. They would kiss a silo,
sit down, around the dining room table with him. The
(23:13):
TV was on, the radio was on, lad and I
would see these pieces of paper being you know, they
were just notes to give him information, and then he
would write back, and then they would take them and
rip them up and either flush them down the toilet
or they would burn them. Nobody ever really spoke above
a whisper, and if they wanted to directly speak to him,
they had to go up to him and whisper in
his ear. He would give them a direction to go
(23:35):
and do something, and they would nod and go one
by one. So this I knew was something's he's important.
I don't know how he's important, but he is.
Speaker 1 (23:46):
When Rita asked about her father's job, the answer was
a lie, and.
Speaker 7 (23:50):
She knew it. I was told several different things. He
worked for a hat company, trucking. Those were the two
most that I remember.
Speaker 1 (24:01):
But secrets can be kept only for so long. One
way or another. They forced their way out, and being
an unwitting accomplice to her father's secret life was taking
a dangerous toll.
Speaker 7 (24:14):
I was sixteen, so I was in high school and
there was this girl, typical eighties girls, big hair, all
of that and she would spew a lot of stuff
about my family and me being a mafia princess and
all of that, and so many people were afraid of us,
and kids couldn't hang out with me. And I think
I was so angry because it was probably a piece
of me that knew there was something to it, but
(24:34):
I didn't know what. I was having a really bad day,
and I cornered her in the bathroom, and before she
could even try to make a move to get out
of the bathroom, I just wrapped my hand around the
back of her thick hair and I pulled her head
right into the sink and I just slammed her head
in the sink. She fell to the floor. She was bleeding.
(24:55):
I stepped on her face and I said, I'm done
with you. And I remember instantly a brief flashback, but
I didn't know where it came from. Then all of
a sudden, I snapped out of it, and I walked
out of the bathroom, and I'm like, where did that
come from?
Speaker 1 (25:11):
In her heart, Rita knew that her violent outburst had
its roots in her traumatic childhood, and in one memory
in particular.
Speaker 7 (25:21):
I remember clearly as a flashback, not so much that
it was part of my memories until I had the flashback.
So I remember being underneath my grandmother's dining room table.
I was five years old, and I was playing and
there was always a radio and a TV on, and
they were pretty loud, you know, just in case anybody
was talking or anything, it could be buffled out. I
(25:43):
could hear like a struggle coming through the door. I
remember being under the table, and I remember hearing the
scuffle coming through like the hallway, and then it ended
up where my grandmother's dining room entrances. I knew like
something was going on, but I didn't know what it was.
So I backed up and I kind of just wrapped
my arms around my legs and I, you know, covered
(26:05):
my mouth and I was just quiet. And then I
remember hearing like like someone punched somebody in the face
and the man fell to the floor and he was bleeding.
Blood was starting to trickle out of his nose and
coming towards me. But I remember very vividly my father's
(26:25):
hand and the only reason why I knew it was
his hand was because of his pinky ring. You know,
I'm under the table, he's above me, and I see
his hand, you know, hitting this man like over and
over again his face to the point where the guy was,
you know, unconscious. And then the last thing he did
was take his foot and just step on his face
and like in a very grave, low voice, he said,
(26:49):
don't ever disrespect me again. And then he told them
get him out of here.
Speaker 1 (26:55):
Rita was frozen in fear, shaking silently underneath the table.
She was one of the few people to witness her
father's violent temper and live to tell about it.
Speaker 7 (27:06):
You know, what happens to all children, I think when
they have that kind of trauma, is they go inward.
They know not to speak a word. I remember at
that moment, I just started to shake from the inside out.
It was probably minutes later where I heard my mother
and my grandmother calling for me, because nobody knew where
I was. When they looked on the kneath the table,
(27:27):
they saw me shaking and crying, and my mother pulled
me out and she was holding me, and I was
just told, you know, it's okay. Daddy was just angry.
You're safe, You're this, you're that. But I don't ever
remember seeing my father's face. It was like I buried
my face in my mother's chest area, and they just kind.
Speaker 12 (27:48):
Of ripped me out of there and that was it. It
was the memory of that day that came back to
her when she attacked her high school classmate. It left
her wanting answers.
Speaker 7 (28:00):
I was flipping out, what is this? Why are people
calling me mafia princes? I said, I know he's important.
I know people go to him fit things, but I
don't know what it is that he actually does. So
my sisters sat with me and they described everything and
went through the whole thing from the beginning.
Speaker 1 (28:18):
The truth about her father and the magnitude of his
power came as a massive shock. It was information that
very few people possessed, including the FBI.
Speaker 7 (28:30):
I was told he was the head of the Genevese
crime family and the head of the Commission, which meant
he was the head of all five families, which means
nothing could be sanctioned unless somebody came to ask my father,
especially if someone wanted to kill someone. And that his
hand stretched across the country.
Speaker 1 (28:49):
Because by the nineteen eighties, Gigante was not just the
most powerful Boston, New York. His authority extended over crime
families in New England, Buffalo, Philadelphia and the Midwest, and
with profits of over one hundred million a year, the
Genovese family was earning more than half the companies on
the fortune five hundred.
Speaker 7 (29:11):
I had no idea, no idea.
Speaker 1 (29:14):
For his youngest daughter. It was a staggering revelation.
Speaker 7 (29:19):
All the pieces of the puzzle start to snap into
place at that age, the people around the table and
all things that I questioned, I began to come to
the realization of, Okay, this is why. So there was
a lot of different emotions that came with it. One
was relief in finally knowing everything, the idea that he
was this force of nature that people didn't cross. Actually
(29:43):
I felt very protected by it. And then the other
part of it was like, oh my god, like the
Feds could come at any time and take him down.
They could take us with him, because we were all
part of this. So there was this struggle inside of
me of this is my family. I love them. I
would never utter a word to anyone about it other
than therapy, and I knew that they were sworn that
(30:05):
they couldn't say anything unless they felt I was in trouble.
Oh my gosh, I'm.
Speaker 1 (30:09):
Just picturing the therapist when you say, like my father's
head of a major organized crime family.
Speaker 7 (30:16):
She went white, like everything drained out of her. But
she was very good at recovering, and she helped me tremendously.
Speaker 1 (30:24):
For Rita, therapy became a refuge from the guilt and
anguish caused by the knowledge of what her father did
for a living and what he was capable of doing.
It was a burden few people could bear, and in fact,
even the boss himself was starting to show outward signs
that the mob life was taking a significant psychological toll.
Speaker 13 (30:45):
Giganty has taken to walking the streets near his Greenwich
Village home, unshaven and wearing just a bathrobe. His friends
and family say Giganty is mentally unbalanced. I already say
it's an elaborate hoax.
Speaker 1 (30:59):
But was Gigante really starting to crack or was his
insanity act just another smokescreen to protect him from prosecution.
It would take a showdown with the Feds and an
up and coming rival to finally reveal the truth. With
(31:24):
federal investigators bearing down on all the top bosses of
organized crime, one boss was deploying a myriad of tactics
to avoid prosecution. While the Commission trial was a sweeping success.
It also showed the government's hand, revealing the many ways
they had successfully infiltrated organized crime, and Vincent Giganty was
taking note. From refusing to use telephones, speaking in code,
(31:48):
and even deploying a front boss to act as as representative,
Giganty avoided leaving any incriminating evidence for Feds to use
against him. But none of these strategic deceptions could hold
a candle to his most impressive ruse.
Speaker 11 (32:03):
Vincent the China Ganti has appeared as a mentally ill
invalid who for years has walked around New York streets
in a bathrobe, mumbling to himself. To the FEDS, that's
been an elaborate act. To his family, it's the truth.
Speaker 1 (32:16):
There's no cure for what he has. Andrew Weisman began
his career as an AUSA in the Eastern District of
New York in nineteen ninety one.
Speaker 3 (32:26):
When I started, I was in a tiny little office
that I think had been the equivalent of like a
broom closet, and my supervisors had below ground offices where
people could go by. You could see them peeing on
the street and throwing trash, but you know what, I've
never been happier. So the physical space was pretty bad,
(32:49):
but the work was so great that you never even
thought about the physical conditions.
Speaker 1 (32:55):
Andrew worked his way up to deputy chief of the
Organized Crime and Racketeering Section, and for years he watched
Gigante's increasingly bizarre public behavior.
Speaker 3 (33:05):
People talk about the Godfather, but he was known as
the odd Father for many, many, many years, decades. He
had been viewed as and presented himself as incompetent. He
had run around the village in a bathrobe and pajamas
and looked disheveled.
Speaker 1 (33:28):
His appearance was a far cry from the slick suited
image of his mafia predecessors, and his behavior disguised his
true role as the boss. In public, Gigante would mumble
and stumble his way through the streets of Greenwich Village.
FBI agent Charlotte Lang recalls one time when a couple
of her colleagues paid Giganty a visit and were met
(33:48):
with a curious surprise.
Speaker 6 (33:51):
He was at his mother's apartment and she goes, yeah,
I go in, you can talk to him. And when
the agents walked in, he was in the bathroom, standing
in the shower stall with an umbrella, holding an umbrella up.
Speaker 1 (34:04):
Within law enforcement, Gigantes's antics earned him the nickname the
Enigma in a Bathrobe, but according to Gil Childers, there
was a growing suspicion amongst his colleagues that Gigante's incompetence
was all in act.
Speaker 10 (34:18):
He would roam the streets by day in his bathrobe,
mumbling to himself, urinating on fire hydrants, and doing all
sorts of things to make himself look like he was crazy,
so he figured that would insulate him from prosecutions.
Speaker 1 (34:34):
But there was some evidence that perhaps it wasn't an
act at all. Multiple doctors and psychiatrists issued reports that
Giganty was, in their words, a psychotic, a mute, or
possibly schizophrenic. Others that his mind was quote infantile and primitive,
with a below normal IQ of sixty nine to seventy two.
Speaker 14 (34:55):
Not what you'd expect of an alleged organized crime boss,
and relatives of the god he's saying he's not a boss,
he's a paranoid schizophrenic, wanders around hallucinating and has to
take florazine four times a day.
Speaker 1 (35:09):
These diagnoses and his public reputation as someone with severe
mental impairment created a cloud of uncertainty about his role
in the Genevese leadership. After all, how could someone with
his disability be the dawn of Don's It was also
laying groundwork for a clever defense in the face of
a potential federal prosecution, because being deemed mentally unfit to
(35:31):
stand trial might just be the get out of jail
free card he was hoping to receive. So was Vincent
Gigante as mentally unfit as he said he was. Here's
his daughter, Rita.
Speaker 7 (35:46):
At some point I was told it's got paranoid schizophrenia.
I never thought it was real because I started to
see patterns of when he would do it. One of
the doctors came to visit. I mean immediately everybody went
into role. At that point, it was like my grandmother,
hurry up, get him his medicine. He's not well today.
(36:06):
The TV would have cartoons on. He'd be mimicking the
cartoons and he was good. I'm gonna tell you, he
was good. The doctor would come in evaluate him, and
then once he was gone, that was it. He was
my father again.
Speaker 1 (36:21):
According to Rita, her entire family was in on the
ruse which often included accompanying her father on his walks
around the neighborhood.
Speaker 7 (36:30):
So you tell me, come on, I'm gonna walk. I'm like, oh,
God help me. He would leave his pajamas on, put
his robe on, mess up his hair, even if he
wore a hat. You know, he would never be clean shaven.
He would like stumble in the streets. He was five ten,
five eleven. I'm five to one on a good day.
He'd whisper to me, make like you're holding me up,
(36:50):
and I'm looking at him like really, people are not
really gonna believe this. And then he would stop and
talk to the tree or the parking met or whatever
it was. He'd make statements, it's the parking meter. It's
a nice day today. God told me to say this,
you know something along those lines. He would mumble and
say just words like sporadic words and stuff. Wasn't always
(37:11):
like a full sentence, you know what I mean. And
then it with people coming down the block. Those who
knew him would tip their hat or smile at him.
Others that didn't know him would walk to the other side.
They would look at us like we were crazy. Not
an easy task.
Speaker 15 (37:26):
Let me tell you for nearly two decades.
Speaker 2 (37:29):
Vincent Gigante's relatives have said he walked around in the
bathroobe talking to himself because he was emotionally and physically ill.
Speaker 1 (37:37):
Her father had been committed to his Mental Illness Act
for as long as she could remember, even willing to
check himself into the psychiatric word to maintain the charade.
Speaker 7 (37:48):
He was checking himself into three weeks at a time
whenever the fens were getting close to him. But I
think going in and experiencing him checking himself into an
institution where these people were on the third floor, the
ones that were the sickest. This was brutal, especially for me.
They would be roaming the floors, they would be cursing
at you. It was sad because I thought to myself,
(38:11):
these are people that are sick, like there really need help,
and you're in here faking like you're making a mockery
of this illness. I was beside myself with it.
Speaker 1 (38:22):
But Gigante's deception came in handy, especially when the FEDS
were turning up the heat on his fellow mobsters.
Speaker 3 (38:29):
Actually, shortly before the commission case was brought, vinc Giganti
had a law enforcement source and knew that the indictment
was coming down, and thus checked himself into a hospital
before the commission case happened.
Speaker 1 (38:44):
As it turns out, it wasn't just the federal government
that Giganty was worried about, because while the Chin continued
his mental masquerade, he was also contending with his biggest adversary,
a brand new Gambino boss whose public image was a
far from the boss in the bathrobe.
Speaker 8 (39:03):
The New York tabloids had christened John Gotti the Dapper Don,
And anytime you would see John Gotti, he's wearing a
two thousand dollars suit, hand painted silk ties. His hair
is perfectly quaff. And then Vincent Chin Gaganty out of
the fanfare, never clean shaven, always wearing a natty bathrobe,
(39:26):
in a hat, wandering the streets holding somebody's arm, mumbling
to himself. And that guy was more powerful than John Gotti,
and he could not have been more polar opposite in
the image that was projected.
Speaker 1 (39:46):
In the nineteen eighties, Gotti's star was on the rise,
and his conspicuous display of flash and style was obscene
to Giganty. But there was another reason that Giganty wanted
Gotti dead. He had broken Kosen nose ST's most fundamental rule.
Speaker 3 (40:02):
You can't kill a boss without approval from the Commission,
and obviously bosses and other families would take that role
particularly seriously for their own self preservation. Well, John Gotti
had killed Paul Castellano outside of sparks.
Speaker 5 (40:19):
Castelano's murder was not a sanctioned murder by the Commission.
The Lucasi and Genovese family were an agreement that the
retaliation is to occur.
Speaker 1 (40:30):
Gigante had ordered a Luksi soldier to kill John Gotti
and his underboss Frank to Jacob, but there was an
unusual twist. The hit had to be done with a bomb,
and according to Special Agent Mike Campy, this method of
murder was supposed to be off limits even for the mob.
Speaker 5 (40:51):
The car bomb situation, that's what they do in Italy.
That's not how you're supposed to kill here in the US.
That's prohibited.
Speaker 1 (41:01):
Tipped off that Gotti and his deputy would be at
the social club that day, gas Pipe and his crew
approached Gotti's car with the homemade bomb, using a detonator
made from a toy car remote. The blast killed two people,
but incredibly, Gotti was not one of them. It turns
out that he was tipped off about the potential hit
(41:23):
and stayed away from the meeting.
Speaker 16 (41:25):
Sunday afternoon, a police officer had carried Jajico's body from
this car. The Chico, second in command of the Gambino
organized crime family, had opened the passenger door. A bomb
under the front seat exploded, killing him. Why the most
popular law enforcement theory revenge.
Speaker 1 (41:43):
With the failed hit, the beef between the reclusive Giganty
and the flashy Gotti was brought into the open, and
while the teflon Dawn never seemed to be afraid of
the spotlight, it was clear that Giganty too would no
longer be able to work in the shadows.
Speaker 7 (42:00):
You could look at it in this way too. There
were men dressed in three thousand dollars suits getting away
with all kinds of things, being very showy. But then
there's this man who is now dressed in the bathrobe,
slippers and pajamas, who you could say, well, that would
draw attention as well, right, and.
Speaker 1 (42:17):
Make the government really want to get him and prove
that it's false.
Speaker 7 (42:20):
Exactly, so, did he bring the heat not the way
other families conducted themselves, not in that way, and that
really did not help moving forward, because once you bring
that heat, they're just going to stay there till they
figure it out. They needed him because he was the
head of the commission, and they were going to get
him at all courts.
Speaker 15 (42:41):
This is Vincent Gigante, aka the Chin. Now take a
good look. According to a judge, he avoided prosecutors for
twenty seven years by pulling a crazy act. According to
most cops, it was worthy of an oscar performance. Cops
say he's the last of the big time organized crime bosses.
Now he's set to go on trial.
Speaker 2 (43:08):
Next time on law and order criminal justice system.
Speaker 7 (43:12):
Vito Genevies and some of the others they were ruthless
and they would kill someone at the drop of a hat.
My father was not that way.
Speaker 9 (43:19):
He got a phone call in the middle of the
night from Euganti's right hand man, told his wife, this
is it. I guess I'll never see you again.
Speaker 5 (43:27):
He was forewarned that Sevino was a rat and he
was trying to warn others to stay away from him.
Speaker 3 (43:33):
Vincent Giganti had a wife named Olympia. He also had
a girlfriend named Olympia.
Speaker 2 (43:45):
Law and Order. Criminal Justice System is a production of
Wolf Entertainment and iHeart Podcasts. Our host is Anna Sega Nicolazi.
This episode was written by Chandler Mays and Anna Sega Nicolazzi.
Executive produced by Dick Wolf, Elliott Wolf, and Stephen Michael
at Wolf Entertainment on behalf of iHeartRadio. Executive produced by
(44:09):
Alex Williams and Matt Frederick, with supervising producers Trevor Young
and Chandler Mays and producers Jesse Funk, Noms Griffin and
Rima Elkayali. This season is executive produced by Anna Sega Nicolazzi,
story producer Walker Lamond. Our researchers are Carolyn Talmage and
(44:31):
Luke Stentz. Editing in sound design by Rima Alkali, original
music by John O'Hara, original theme by Mike Post, additional
music by Steve Moore, and additional voice over by me
Steve Zarnkelton. Special thanks to Fox five in New York,
(44:52):
ABC and CBS for providing archival material for the show.
For more podcasts from iHeartRadio and Wolf Entertainment, visit the
iHeartRadio app Apple Podcasts or Wherever you listen to your
favorite shows. Thanks for listening.
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Decisions, Decisions
Welcome to "Decisions, Decisions," the podcast where boundaries are pushed, and conversations get candid! Join your favorite hosts, Mandii B and WeezyWTF, as they dive deep into the world of non-traditional relationships and explore the often-taboo topics surrounding dating, sex, and love. Every Monday, Mandii and Weezy invite you to unlearn the outdated narratives dictated by traditional patriarchal norms. With a blend of humor, vulnerability, and authenticity, they share their personal journeys navigating their 30s, tackling the complexities of modern relationships, and engaging in thought-provoking discussions that challenge societal expectations. From groundbreaking interviews with diverse guests to relatable stories that resonate with your experiences, "Decisions, Decisions" is your go-to source for open dialogue about what it truly means to love and connect in today's world. Get ready to reshape your understanding of relationships and embrace the freedom of authentic connections—tune in and join the conversation!