Costello murder attempt and caporegime As a teenager, Gigante became the protégé of
Vito Genovese, then a
caporegime (captain, or head of a "crew") in the Luciano crime family, who had helped pay for Gigante's mother's surgery. Between the ages of 17 and 25, he was arrested seven times on charges ranging from receiving stolen goods, possession of an unlicensed handgun and
illegal gambling and
bookmaking. Most of these charges were dismissed or resolved by fines, except for a sixty-day jail sentence for a gambling conviction. During this time, Gigante listed his occupation as a tailor. Although the wound was superficial, it persuaded Costello to relinquish power to Genovese and retire. Genovese then controlled what is now called the
Genovese crime family. A
doorman identified Gigante as the gunman. In 1958, Costello testified that he was unable to recognize his assailant. Gigante was
acquitted on charges of
attempted murder. This came to be known as "
The Bathrobe Defense," in which those accused of criminal wrongdoing feign mental incompetence to avoid the legal consequence of such behavior. In 1969, Gigante was indicted in New Jersey for
conspiracy to
bribe the five-member Old Tappan police force. The charge was dropped after Gigante's lawyers presented reports from psychiatrists that he was mentally unfit to stand trial. Gigante built a vast network of
bookmaking and
loansharking rings, profiting from the
extortion of garbage, shipping, trucking and construction companies seeking labor peace or contracts from carpenters',
Teamsters and laborers' unions, including those at the
Javits Center, as well as
protection payoffs from merchants at the
Fulton Fish Market. In January 1987, Salerno was sentenced to 100 years in prison for
racketeering, along with top members of the other
Five Families of New York, as part of the
Mafia Commission Trial. Salerno had initially been billed as the boss of the Genovese family, but shortly after the trial, his longtime right-hand man,
Vincent "The Fish" Cafaro, turned
informant and told the FBI that Salerno had been acting as a front for Lombardo and Gigante since 1969. FBI bugs captured a conversation in which Salerno and captain
Matthew "Matty the Horse" Ianniello reviewed a list of prospective candidates to become made members in another family; frustrated that the nicknames of the potential inductees had not been included, Salerno shrugged and said, "I'll leave this up to the boss." It was well known in the New York Mafia long before then that Salerno was a front. For example, newly inducted soldiers were told that Gigante, not Salerno, headed the Genovese family. Following Gotti's imprisonment in 1992, Gigante came to be known as the figurehead
capo di tutti capi, the "Boss of All Bosses", despite the position being abolished in 1931 with the murder of
Salvatore Maranzano.
Trials and conviction From 1978 to 1990, four of the five crime families of New York, including the Genovese family, rigged bids for 75% of $191 million, or about $142 million, of the window contracts awarded by the
New York City Housing Authority. Installation companies were required to make union payoffs between $1 and $2 for each window installed. In 1988, Gigante had
open-heart surgery. Gigante attended his
arraignment in pajamas and bathrobe. Due to his defense that he was mentally and physically impaired, legal battles ensued for seven years over his
competence to stand trial. and
Alphonse "Little Al" D'Arco, former acting boss of the Lucchese family, testified that Gigante was lucid at top-level Mafia meetings and that he had told other gangsters that his eccentric behavior was a pretense. On July 25, 1997, after almost three days of deliberations, the jury convicted Gigante of conspiring in plots to kill other mobsters and of running rackets as head of the Genovese family. Prosecutors said the verdict finally established that Gigante was not mentally ill, as his lawyers and relatives had long maintained. While in prison, he maintained his role as boss of the Genovese family, while other mobsters were entrusted to run the family's day-to-day activities. Gigante relayed orders to the crime family through his son, Andrew, who visited him in prison. Several days later, Andrew was released on $2.5 million bail. Federal prosecutor
Roslynn R. Mauskopf had planned to play tapes showing him "fully coherent, careful and intelligent," running crime operations from prison. Faced with this evidence, Gigante pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice on April 7, 2003, just hours before the trial was to start. Judge
I. Leo Glasser sentenced him to an additional three years in prison. Mauskopf said, "The jig is up ... Vincent Gigante was a cunning faker, and those of us in law enforcement always knew that this was an act ... The act ran for decades, but today it's over."
The New York Times organized-crime reporter and mob historian
Selwyn Raab described Gigante's plea deal as an "unprecedented capitulation" for a Mafia boss. It was almost unheard of for a boss to even consider pleading guilty. Gigante agreed to the deal to ease the burden on his relatives. For instance, Andrew faced up to 20 years in prison had he gone to trial. Another provision of the plea agreement stipulated that any relatives who helped in his deception, including his wife, mistress, and Father Louis, would not be charged with obstruction of justice. == Death ==