Chin

by Larry McShane

  “Bobby [Ferenga] always said, ‘Pete will never do a day in jail,’ ” O’Connell recalled. “And he was right.”

  O’Connell thought back on Savino’s immaculately buffed white sneakers. “I always thought there was a Lady Macbeth thing going on,” he reflected.

  The Gigante defense team, rather than looking back, was looking at a suddenly brighter future. If they could somehow get the verdict tossed, a retrial—without Savino’s damning first-person accounts of life with the Chin—was likely to end with a far different result.

  Gigante was transferred to the U.S. Medical Center for prisoners just before the turn of the year, and he spent the next 402 days in the Springfield, Missouri, facility. He signed the transfer documents with an X. A 1991 test showed the Chin with an IQ of 71, a drop of thirty points across thirty years; a subsequent test after his incarceration put the number at 68.

  O’Connell dismissed the plunging numbers as part of the overall psychiatric scam: “I think the Chin is a pretty good guy. He just didn’t test well.”

  With the case still on appeal, and a glimmer of hope remaining, Gigante slipped back into his oddball character with the staff. After his chatty behavior in Butner bit him in the backside, he was far less communicative with the prison employees.

  Patient is confused and disoriented, read a New Year’s Eve, 1997, admission report. He is not able to give a history. Patient responded slow and followed simple commands on admission. He is not physically violent at this time.

  One week later, Vincent Gigante sat down with the Springfield psychiatrist for an evaluation.

  He denied depression, but said he was sad on occasion when he thought about his mother, with whom he said he had lived for the past 10 years, the doctor wrote. He stated that he occasionally hears voices of “bad people” and frequently hears God’s voice. He said his most enjoyable activity is praying and talking to God.

  Reports noted that the Greenwich Village godfather was greeted warmly by his fellow inmates, letting down his guard among the prison population. He was spotted chatting amiably in the hallway, and visited another inmate in the man’s cell. He spent time in the prison’s common room, watching television with his imprisoned peers, and was observed reading on the bed in his cell.

  Daily reports repeatedly described the Chin as cooperative, cheerful, taking his medication and popular with the other prisoners. Three months after he had arrived, the ailing old man approached the prison physical therapist for some help in getting healthy.

  Patient asked for advice concerning a gradual conditioning program and he was advised to initiate a gradually progressing walking program, wrote prison worker Matt Taylor. The patient voiced understanding of conditioning program.

  There were occasional reports of hearing voices, both good and evil, and one staffer observed that Gigante couldn’t remember people, places or times. The Chin, while struggling with insomnia, invoked the Almighty in a visit with one doctor.

  “I need another sleeping pill,” Gigante said. “God told me I could have one.”

  The treating doctor ignored the Higher Power’s recommendation and sent him back to bed.

  His loyal family members made the long trip west once a week for visits with Gigante, whose physical condition indeed improved. Now sporting a beard on his famous chin, Gigante was moved out of the treatment facility for a two-week pit stop in Greenville, North Carolina, before landing at the remote Federal Medical Center in Rochester, Minnesota. The staff in the Land of Ten Thousand Lakes was ready to take a dip in the Chin’s psyche for a full evaluation after his arrival in March 1999.

  The Chin, having sworn off smoking and coffee, made just a single request before checking in: he wanted to take Communion. Gigante also told a staffer that he was “praying for the other inmates.” Gigante said he had been “Catholic since he was born, and he is deeply religious.”

  Gigante’s legal fight had suffered a major setback just two months earlier. His defense team was challenging the verdict by arguing—once more, for old time’s sake—that the trial was a sham because their client was crazy.

  On January 22, 1999, the Second U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed with Weinstein’s assessment of the Chin’s mental health and upheld his racketeering conviction. The Gigante lawyers pressed on, taking their case to the Supreme Court. The federal government, determined to keep the crazy Chin from overturning their hard-won conviction, hailed the decision and braced for the next round.

  “It took seven years to bring him to trial, after all sorts of delaying tactics,” prosecutor Weissmann said of the ruling. “It’s nine years later, and it’s very gratifying, to put it mildly.”

  * * *

  In his first meeting with a Rochester prison psychiatrist, Gigante seemed worn down by his long-running ruse. The doctor, unsure of what to expect, visited the Chin in his cell in the Special Housing Unit.

  “No disrespect, I love you people (psychiatrists) dearly, but I don’t want to talk to you,” Gigante said after the doctor introduced himself. “How will it help to do another evaluation? I still have to do my time.”

  Gigante finally sat down for the once-over by a prison doctor in early April, appearing with a grin that the psychiatrist interpreted as the Chin (who was a three-decade veteran of such sessions) “simply humoring me.” The Q&A went on from there, taking a few odd turns along the way.

  “I’ve hurt no one in my life,” Gigante said by way of introduction. “I’ve got nothing to fear from anyone.”

  Gigante informed the doctor that he had no history of symptoms consistent with any kind of mania or obsessive-compulsive disorder.

  Mr. Gigante emphasized that his psychiatric problems were a thing of the past, and at the time of his arrival at FMC Rochester, he did not believe he was suffering from any mental condition except “problems with memory,” wrote the doctor. Mr. Gigante said he enjoyed playing cards, watching TV and talking with his friends from the old neighborhood.

  Gigante was succinct about his legal history: “Whatever it was, I’m innocent.” The inmate again appeared tired of perpetuating the crazy act. He held up one hand several times to stop the questioning, and addressed his inquisitor directly.

  “I mean no disrespect, Doctor,” Gigante said. “But I can’t see why this is important to you.”

  The staff psychiatrist summarized their session by describing the Mob boss as “smooth and charming.” Gigante seemed to be “polite, cooperative and seemingly honest”—with a single caveat.

  Mr. Gigante manifested a dramatic style of speech and an air of superiority, including demands for special attention during the interview, which suggests to me that he harbors both histrionic and narcissistic personality traits, the doctor wrote.

  Little Al D’Arco couldn’t have said it better himself.

  In mid-July a nurse returning from a two-week vacation was surprised when she ran into Gigante in a prison hallway. “Hi, Marsha,” he greeted her pleasantly. “How have you been?”

  That same month the Chin politely opted not to take his medicine when approached by another staffer: “I promise I will take it later. Thank you for being so nice. God bless you.”

  Gigante, on a third occasion, apparently caught himself being a bit too pleasant with the staff. “Thank you for being so nice to me,” he said before reversing field. “Why are you torturing me? I’m innocent.”

  He also began demanding sit-downs with the warden on a daily basis.

  “Perhaps,” one psychiatrist mused, “Mr. Gigante has simply never given up his ‘crazy act.’”

  On July 12, a case conference was held with fifteen participants—doctors, nurses and a representative from the warden’s office—for a full review of Gigante’s mental health. After four months in Minnesota there was general agreement that the Chin was not quite ready to swear off the Oddfather routine.

  Mr. Gigante really manifests very little clinical evidence of dementia, their report concluded. Mr. Gigante’s malingering had never bef
ore been subject to such close scrutiny as it had been here and that is a more likely explanation for the fact that his malingering has seemed more “transparent” than previously.... The [diagnosis] of malingering seems to be well-substantiated.

  In a prison summary of Gigante’s history, one doctor—almost as if channeling the Judge Eugene Nickerson ruling—noted the patient had late in life “developed a new history of childhood tantrums, truancy and learning problems” in an effort to create a psychological profile to support his strange behavior.

  Whereas I initially found it difficult to believe that Mr. Gigante could have been hospitalized for psychiatric reasons repeatedly over many years without having a major mental illness, the findings of the court now lead me to believe that a crime figure as powerful as Mr. Gigante could have indeed manipulated the mental-health system to further his goal of feigning mental illness, the doctor observed. [His family] may well have been perpetuating Mr. Gigante’s “illusion” of mental illness.

  Meanwhile, back in Brooklyn, federal prosecutor Dorsky and FBI agent Mike Campi found themselves thinking the same thing.

  CHAPTER 21

  EVERYTHING IS BROKEN

  ONCE THE 1997 SENTENCING WAS DONE, FEDERAL OFFICIALS SOON learned from an informant that Gigante had hired someone to learn the identities of the anonymous federal jurors in a bid to fix the case. There was another revelation, too, this one regarding the length of the Chin’s jail term.

  “The informant told us if the judge had given Chin the full twenty-five years, it would have essentially shelved Gigante,” said Dorsky. “It would have taken away his full force. But with the shorter sentence, he was allowed to run things from prison.”

  The postconviction Genovese family, instead, answered to a ruling commission, with the Chin calling the shots. Except now, the typically vigilant Gigante—who so memorably chastised John Gotti for bringing his son into the Life—opted to use his own son Andrew as a go-between to relay his directives.

  It was incredible, unlikely and almost unbelievable, given Gigante’s history. But the pursuit of a lucid Gigante, calling the shots from a distant jail cell, was suddenly on. The government was now working with a new Genovese insider, one without the name recognition of the witnesses from the first trial. More important, this one didn’t flip while in custody: Michael “Cookie” D’Urso was still on the street.

  “A tremendous witness,” recalled Dorsky. “With respect to the Chin, he was essential.”

  The obscure Genovese soldier, like Savino before him, became the unlikely lynchpin of the prosecution case against the suddenly vulnerable Gigante. Much of the boss’s old street insulation was, like him, locked up: Mangano, Manna and Canterino were no longer around to cover the Chin’s back.

  D’Urso was two things: one of the youngest Mob informants ever used by the government—and incredibly lucky to be alive. He was just twenty-three and already running with the Genovese family when he stopped by a Brooklyn Mob hangout for a November 1994 card game. The nascent mobster survived a bullet to the back of his head during a robbery inside the San Giuseppe Social Club in Williamsburg.

  Another player cashed in his chips: D’Urso’s cousin Sabatino Lombardi, a Genovese family loan shark, was killed by the gunmen who just minutes earlier were sitting at the table with the doomed mobster. One of the killers later described the nervous seconds before the shooting started.

  “I’m combing my hair in the [club’s] mirror and I just said to myself, ‘Screw it,’ ” recalled gunman Anthony Bruno. “I turned around and pulled my gun out and shot Mike in the back of the head. I pulled the trigger and I saw Mike’s hair split as the bullet went in.”

  The murder attempt didn’t sour young D’Urso, even though his slain cousin was his mentor. “I pretty much idolized him,” D’Urso later acknowledged.

  His criminal career included robbery, fraud, extortion and loan-sharking. D’Urso, after his narrow escape, even served as the getaway driver in another Mafia hit. His approach to handling Mob business was direct: when a Brooklyn bakery shop owner showed D’Urso even the slightest bit of disrespect, the young thug would pay him a visit.

  “I would give him a beating, to be honest with you,” he acknowledged.

  His introduction to the ranks of Mafia informants came under similar circumstances. A pair of screwups by a clerk at a mobbed-up betting operation left D’Urso holding the bag when two bettors won $50,000 in 1997. The mobster laid a beating on the clerk without a second thought. A short time later his pager started beeping. When D’Urso called back, the enraged voice at the other end launched into an angry diatribe.

  “A guy just screaming at the top of his lungs,” D’Urso later recalled. “He says, ‘You can’t hit my clerk!’ I says, ‘Oh, no? I’m the one who got screwed here.’ I says, ‘I’ll go hit your clerk right now.’ I didn’t know at the time who [the caller] was.”

  D’Urso quickly discovered that he’d delivered a dressing-down to Frank “Farby” Serpico, then serving as the acting Genovese boss in Gigante’s absence. Serpico—no relation to the corruption-busting NYPD detective of the same name—wasted little time putting out a murder contract on the mouthy kid for his violation of Mob protocol.

  That was enough of the Genovese family for D’Urso, who immediately decided to start a second life devoid of organized crime.

  “I was disappointed,” he said. “You know, getting screwed for the money, getting shot in the head once before, and my life being on the line again. I decided to reach out to the federal government.”

  * * *

  The FBI welcomed D’Urso with open arms and a new Rolex, which was fitted with a tiny listening device. The beef with Serpico was resolved, and the clock immediately began ticking on Gigante—once D’Urso returned to the fold with his new timepiece.

  The tapes, recorded secretly, contained the details of how Gigante, now in a Texas penitentiary, remained the power behind the Mob family. D’Urso’s taped conversations exposed Andrew’s new gig as his father’s Genovese go-between.

  “Whatever the kid (Andrew) says, it comes from him,” Bronx soldier Pasquale “Patty” Falcetti said during a March 30, 2001, conversation in his home. Falcetti then touched his chin: “Who’s going to challenge that?”

  Family member Paul “Slick” Geraci made the same gesture during an October 2000 meeting with D’Urso. The Genovese soldier acknowledged Serpico, like Salerno before him, was sitting on the throne truly occupied by Gigante.

  “[Serpico’s] still there, but he ain’t the guy,” said Geraci, touching his chin. “This guy is the guy. Don’t say nothing.”

  Acting family capo Salvatore “Sammy Meatballs” Aparo echoed his associates during a January 22, 2000, meet with D’Urso. Aparo said Gigante was continuing with the crazy act while imprisoned, while still directing the family from deep in the heart of Texas. Aparo explained that Gigante “gets visits,” and the orders were then brought back to New York.

  “I mean, the guy still sends messages,” said Aparo. “He gets them, [too]. How he gets them and how he sends them, I don’t know.”

  He suggested that Chin’s longtime cardiologist, Dr. Wechsler, was perhaps the mule for the back-and-forth.

  “The doctor that always goes and sees him and everything,” Aparo said. “He’s a good guy, the doctor. So I don’t know if he gives him a message. He’s got this doctor for years and years and years. So actually he can trust him.”

  Just four days earlier, Gigante’s last hope at beating his racketeering rap had disappeared. The Supreme Court, without comment, rejected the Chin’s last-ditch appeal at overturning his 1997 conviction. Yet, according to another capo, the family’s influence was expanding under Gigante’s absentee leadership.

  “Don’t let anyone tell you we’re dead,” announced Alan “Baldie” Longo during an October 18, 2000, meeting with D’Urso at an Upper East Side café. “We’re not. Because Vito (Genovese) ain’t here no more. Vincent is. We’re here.”

  The duped Lon
go, in the same chat, told the undercover mobster that the family might need him to murder his colleagues as the Genoveses tried to keep the organization free of informants.

  “If there’s a problem, the guys . . . we’re going to pull together—you’ll be one of them,” Longo promised. “If we ever step out and do something, we go to the guys we can trust and do it. We ain’t going to put guys on the line who are going to become rats a day later.”

  D’Urso captured Savino’s old capo Joe Zito reminiscing about the days when Gigante was on the street. A Colombo capo named Joe Beck had violated some bit of Mafia etiquette, and a sit-down was called between the family hierarchy and the Genovese leadership.

  A proposal was made by another Colombo capo to “punish Joe Beck by breaking him.” That meant suspending his Mob privileges, Zito recalled.

  “We don’t break our capos,” Gigante had declared evenly. “We kill them.”

  * * *

  The damning D’Urso tapes started the wheels spinning back in the Brooklyn prosecutor’s office. What if Gigante was using the phones at his Texas prison for Mob business?

  “We immediately thought he had to be,” said Dorsky. “And superstar Mike Campi went down to Texas and came back with six months of tapes. In all of them the Chin was talking in the same way: sane and lucid.”

  The FBI agent had previously worked cases involving labor racketeering and the Colombo family. But as their power waned, he wound up working with the team chasing the Chin. The tapes only confirmed what he’d believed all along: a rational Gigante was still running the nation’s most powerful family in the new millennium.

  “It was like, ‘What a surprise,’” he deadpanned. “One of the things you find is when you get in prison, it’s a different life. There’s a complacency. I didn’t know if it would ever get to the point of a major indictment, but I did expect what I heard.”