Chin

by Larry McShane

  It appeared the feds were targeting Gigante’s relatives, most likely Father G. and Chin’s long-suffering wife, although a source indicated no family members were ever threatened with charges. They were unquestionably going after Andrew alone, identified as a Genovese family associate and accused of extortion. The charges against his father carried stiff penalties: ten years in prison on each count.

  Vincent Gigante “is not a figurehead,” said Assistant Director Barry Mawn of the FBI. “He is a hands-on leader who remains actively involved in the running of the organization.”

  While the elder Gigante was used to the legal routine, it was a first-time experience for his forty-five-year-old son. Andrew Gigante had worked on the docks since he was eighteen years old, generally keeping his head down and his nose clean. His lawyer suggested the son was guilty of nothing more than sharing a surname with the Chin.

  “I hope this isn’t an unfortunate situation of the son being punished for the sins of the father,” said Andrew’s lawyer, Peter Driscoll. Friends of the son later came to his defense, insisting Gigante was a beloved figure on the New Jersey docks and a philanthropist whose charitable endeavors included raising money for orphanages, an annual Christmas party for cancer-stricken children and stints in a soup kitchen with his uncle Lou.

  There was no denying that Andrew was in the company of some big-league gangsters named as codefendants. The group included a pair identified as acting bosses during Chin’s incarceration: Bellomo and Muscarella, along with Genovese capo Charles “Chuckie” Tuzzo and family soldiers Falcetti and Michael “Mickey” Ragusa.

  Last but hardly least was Tommy Cafaro, the son of the turncoat Fish and the best man at Andrew Gigante’s wedding. The younger Cafaro, reportedly, had offered to murder his own father over his Mob betrayal, although the family hierarchy never pressed the issue, prosecutors said.

  Andrew was freed on $2.5 million bail after two nights in jail, with a federal judge ordering house arrest at his pricey Norwood, New Jersey, home. When Driscoll asked if Andrew could be cleared to show up at work, the U.S. magistrate Steven Gold—noting the defendant also owned a $1.7 million property in exclusive Alpine, New Jersey—said that wouldn’t happen unless Gigante could prove that he needed a paycheck.

  Andrew, while free to go home, was barred from any type of contact with his father. Any violation would mean immediate incarceration and the forfeiture of the three homes that he used to secure his seven-figure bail. He later won a pair of concessions: the court cleared Andrew to attend Mass every Sunday with his wife and children, and to take the kids to their parochial school every morning.

  “This is all trumped-up charges,” his brother, Salvatore, said as they left court. “Leave us alone.”

  * * *

  The elder Gigante returned to Brooklyn for a February 7, 2002, arraignment, where it was clear the Chin was still clinging to his now-exposed ruse. He sat slumped in a chair during the hearing, staring at the floor or straight into space, during his first court appearance in more than four years.

  “I don’t understand,” he declared when asked if he had discussed the charges with his lawyer.

  Defense attorney Gary Greenwald asserted his client was “not in any position to enter a plea because of his state of mind,” and Federal Judge I. Leo Glasser entered a plea of not guilty on Gigante’s behalf. The judge added that he was considering a competency hearing before setting a trial date—a suggestion that no longer sent shudders through prosecutors.

  “All we had to do was hit play on the tapes,” said Dorsky.

  In court papers the prosecutors noted that past psychiatric reports had asserted Gigante was incapable of speaking a single complete sentence—a claim refuted by the new batch of prison recordings. “In the face of such evidence, Gigante cannot credibly maintain that he is now mentally incompetent and no longer a malingerer,” prosecutors argued.

  For once, the defense agreed and would not raise an insanity claim. The “crazy” man in the bathrobe and pajamas was legally laid to rest, a move approved by new Gigante attorney Benjamin Brafman. Brafman was a well-regarded defense lawyer, who had helped Sean “P. Diddy” Combs beat a weapons charge in a Manhattan nightclub shooting one year earlier.

  Glasser concurred, and Gigante was—for the third and final time—declared legally sane by a federal judge. Court papers also indicated that some of the Chin’s old doctors were receiving grand jury subpoenas, and that Gigante family members could be next.

  Pulitzer Prize–winning columnist Jimmy Breslin’s latest book, I Don’t Want to Go to Jail, appeared in paperback that summer. It told the tale of fictional Mob boss Fausti “the Fist” Dellacava. The title character was an ex-boxer who had become a philandering Mafioso working out of Greenwich Village. The inspiration was obvious.

  The world of the real-life boss was considerably more turbulent. With the devastating impact of the D’Urso tapes and the threat of witness George Barone, Vincent Gigante was clearly in serious trouble—again. The government was hell-bent on squeezing an admission from Chin about the long-running scam. In the end the wizened Mob boss, worn down by decades of battle, decided the easiest thing to do was cop a plea.

  * * *

  The frail Chin sat with Brafman in Brooklyn’s Metropolitan Detention Center, where the Mob boss personally informed the lawyer of his decision to go quietly—ending the psychiatric ploy launched thirty-seven years earlier in a New Jersey doctor’s office.

  Gigante, quite rationally, couldn’t see the point in another contentious trial. While his relatively short ten-year sentence had convinced the Genovese family to keep him as their boss, Vincent now believed he would die before doing his time. Family members completely supported his stance.

  “He clearly understood the proceedings and intelligently waived his right to a trial,” Brafman recalled. “My impression of Mr. Gigante was that he was a very complicated man, who was just too old, too tired and too physically ill to continue to fight the government.”

  Word soon leaked to the media, with reports that Gigante’s last stand was imminent. It was all over except for one final appearance where the Chin would play a character unseen by the general public: Vincent Gigante, the quite rational head of the Genovese crime family.

  The day of the oddest court proceeding in federal history arrived with appropriately bizarre weather: a spring blizzard that forced the New York Yankees to cancel Opening Day in the Bronx. It was a perfect storm for federal prosecutors, ready to take their final swing at Vincent Gigante just down the East River in Brooklyn.

  Thick flakes pelted pedestrians in the park opposite the front door of the U.S. Courthouse, and the wind whipped remorselessly down Cadman Plaza. Among the early arrivals on the nasty morning was Andrew Gigante, who passed through a metal detector; his father was already inside.

  The promise of Vincent Gigante finally coming clean about his “crazy act” guaranteed a packed courtroom for the April 7, 2003, hearing. Columnists from Newsday, the New York Times and the New York Post turned out. A pair of sketch artists perched in the jury box to capture the Chin one last time.

  Father Louis chatted amiably in the fourth-floor hallway with Breslin. For the last act of his brother’s long legal fight, he arrived in street clothes, and he declined to speak with the rest of the assembled media. Brafman, standing nearby, killed time by sipping from a bottle of water. He and Gigante had earlier stopped by the judge’s chambers to finalize the day’s details. Now he walked through the courtroom’s double doors and headed inside to wait at the defense table for his client.

  As always, a contingent from the Gigante clan filled the front row of the courtroom, with the South Bronx priest joined by Chin’s children Vincent, Carmella and Lucia Esposito and Salvatore Gigante. Five FBI agents who had pursued Gigante for years filled some of the other seats, which were divided like a wedding: friends of the defendant on one side of the aisle, guests of the government on the other.

  Prosecutor Dorsky and his team
took their spots in the front. Judge Glasser finally took the bench as the audience rose to their feet. The judge quickly gestured for all to take their seats. And then, with the courtroom hushed in anticipation, Gigante finally entered—stage right.

  The Genovese boss appeared promptly at 9:30 A.M., coming through a side door and wandering inside as if he’d just made a wrong turn. White stubble covered his chin, and his hair stretched toward the ceiling. He wore a seriously outsized blue smock that hung limply from his thin shoulders, an ill-fitting outfit that was somehow perfectly fitting. His pants were khaki, and his sneakers were slip-ons. Stamboulidis, the prosecutor from his first Brooklyn trial and now in private practice, would have noted the defendant required neither a wheelchair nor a cane.

  Vincent Gigante looked around the room carefully before walking toward Brafman, his gait slow and unsteady. In one hand he clutched a plastic prescription bottle—his heart medication. He was frail and hard of hearing, a shadow of the once-feared head of the nation’s most powerful organized crime family.

  There was no fight left in the old man, his days as a boxer and a hit man reduced to nothing more than a yellowing clip in some ancient newspaper file. Gigante made his way to the front of the bench, where he signed a court document with an X. Then he nodded at Brafman, and the remarkable hearing began.

  * * *

  The judge moved to put Gigante under oath, asking the Chin to raise his right hand. The defendant instead slowly lifted his left, and Dorsky wondered for a half second if everything was about to fall apart at the moment of truth.

  “I remember thinking he was trying to walk a tightrope between his silly act and allocuting to the judge,” Dorsky recalled. “I wasn’t sure if he could carry through with it all, based on his stake in the entire act.” It was, the prosecutor agreed with a laugh, somewhat like Al Pacino rising to return his Oscar.

  The Chin corrected himself, raised the correct hand, then swore to tell the truth that would wipe away nearly four decades of living a lie. Gigante stood with his head tilted, listening intently as Glasser began to speak. The Chin had sat in the same courtroom, one year earlier, staring aimlessly into space. This time he was all business as the judge addressed him first: “Vincent Gigante, how old are you?”

  “Seventy-five,” the Chin replied, his voice raspy and hard to make out in the large, crowded room.

  “Do you understand why you’re here?”

  “Yes,” replied Gigante as the courtroom filled with a silent, palpable buzz.

  Had the Mob boss taken any prescriptions drugs that could affect his ability to participate?

  “No, Your Honor,” Gigante replied, firmly shaking his head from side to side.

  Glasser delivered the money question: “Mr. Gigante, did you knowingly, intentionally mislead doctors evaluating your mental health? Is that true?”

  “Yes, Your Honor,” the defendant said softly while nodding in agreement.

  On seventeen occasions the judge asked Gigante, “Do you understand that?”

  Gigante confirmed each time that he did.

  Gigante occasionally turned to Brafman, who translated any legalese or simply repeated some of the questions to his client. The Chin reacted just once—that was when Glasser mentioned the maximum penalty for obstruction of justice was ten years.

  The plea deal was for three. Gigante, after conferring with Brafman, seemed appeased before Glasser handed down the preapproved term: “Thirty-six months.”

  The sentence would run consecutively with his 1997 jail term, meaning Gigante’s earlier chance at freedom would come in 2010. It was a term he was unlikely to survive.

  “Yes, Your Honor,” Gigante said. And just like that, the charade was over. Glasser asked if Gigante wanted to address the court, to offer some explanation or deliver some parting words.

  “No, thank you,” he politely declined.

  * * *

  With Vincent Gigante’s fate now sealed, the most astounding part of the hearing was about to commence. The newly unburdened Chin revealed something long tucked somewhere in the darkness: his personality. Brafman noted Andrew Gigante’s presence in the courtroom; the two had not seen each other in more than a year under the son’s bail terms.

  The Chin noticeably brightened when Glasser approved the lawyer’s request for the codefendants to share some time together before the old man was taken back to prison. Reporters and federal agents craned their necks as Andrew came forward and took a seat at the defense table. Gone now was the prescription drug-addled don of dementia, replaced by a father greeting his son after a long absence. The two chatted amiably for about ten minutes, their conversation unheard despite the best efforts of the assembled media, their necks craned toward the front of the courtroom.

  Gigante smiled frequently as they spoke. His brown eyes seemed to sparkle, and some in the courtroom believed he shared a few secret jokes with his oldest child. With the mantle of his old life lifted, the Mob boss appeared both relieved and relaxed. The Chin sipped from a cup of water, shook hands with the defense team and turned to blow kisses to his kids in their front-row seats. Two kisses were directed at the departing Andrew as he walked back to his seat.

  “It played a lot like a ten-minute silent movie,” observed Mob chronicler Jerry Capeci.

  Lights. Camera. Sanity.

  Before he departed, the Chin offered a final, memorable coda. Gigante offered the sentencing judge a broad wave as he headed for the exit. “God bless you,” the Oddfather said cheerily before disappearing through the side door, where Mob pal Bellomo was arriving for his own sentencing. The Bronx boss winked at Gigante as they passed.

  Brafman, after the hearing, compared Gigante with John Forbes Nash—the brilliant and troubled Princeton mathematician whose battle with schizophrenia framed the cinematic smash A Beautiful Mind.

  “I think anybody who has seen [the movie] will tell you that the person could be seriously mentally ill and have some degree of rational thought,” the defense lawyer contended.

  A decade later, Brafman recalled his emotions as Gigante stood in the courtroom spotlight before Glasser. “I remember the plea well,” said the renowned defense attorney. “It was clearly an important plea for the government, as they had been chasing Gigante for years. I personally, however, remember feeling sad watching him plead. Despite what the government claimed he was, I saw an elderly, frail man near the end of his life taking one more hit that was perhaps unnecessary given the ‘life’ sentence he was already serving.”

  U.S. Attorney Roslynn Mauskopf spoke for an assortment of prosecutors, police officers and federal agents who had chased the Chin into the new millennium. “Our position is that for decades, he had fooled mental-health experts. With his guilty plea there is no further debate of the issue,” the Brooklyn federal prosecutor said.

  Andrew Gigante entered his own plea to extortion in the same courtroom one hour after his father’s dramatic departure. He was sentenced to two years behind bars, and ordered to forfeit $2 million. The son left the courthouse clutching an umbrella against the still-falling snow, with reporters asking about his defense table farewell with his father.

  “How would it be for you guys?” he asked rhetorically.

  Dan Dorsky and fellow prosecutor Paul Weinstein stared straight ahead, their faces betraying no emotion throughout the short hearing. But Dorsky, after twice prosecuting Gigante, said there was little doubt that forcing the Chin’s admission was a long-awaited triumph.

  “It was a real vindication . . . the end of this long absurdity,” he said years later. “It was a good feeling, not to sound corny, to get truth and justice to prevail. It was a great feeling to get a really bad guy.”

  Dorsky, still nursing his grudge against 60 Minutes, actually called a producer after the plea and asked for a piece to correct the impression made in their 1998 report.

  “They thought about it, and rejected the idea,” he recalled, now more bemused than irate. “But you think about the idea that this
guy was incoherent, and you’d have to laugh your head off.”

  * * *

  Vincent Gigante, at his request, was shipped back to FCI-Fort Worth to serve what prosecutors also figured was a life sentence, given his age and health. Andrew, drawn into his father’s world, was set for his own jail term imposed three months after his father’s memorable farewell.

  Though he faced up to twenty years in prison, the plea bargain assured that Andrew would face only two. There was much speculation that the lighter sentence was facilitated by his father’s decision to surrender rather than fight.

  “It’s a complicated decision and a lot of factors entered into the plea,” Brafman said after the Chin’s sentencing.

  Dorsky was somewhat more noncommittal: “I mean, I heard that. I don’t know that definitely. But Chin didn’t have much of a chance at trial.”

  The younger Gigante returned to the federal courthouse on July 25, 2003, where he was officially sent away and barred for the rest of his life from any further work on the waterfront. [The last concession] was demanded by the government in an effort to permanently remove organized crime elements from the New Jersey and South Florida piers, wrote prosecutor Weinstein in court papers.

  Andrew arrived in court armed with letters from the police chief and mayor of his New Jersey community, reminiscent of the campaigns waged for his father in the past.

  [Gigante is] a friend who I feel has been an outstanding member of our community and church, offered Police Chief Frank D’Ercole.

  Norwood Council member Delores Senatore, after the sentencing, took it a step further: He’s innocent. I really do believe that. I think he just decided to cut a deal rather than take a chance on a jury trial.

  Prosecutors made it clear that while the younger Gigante insisted he never resorted to violence in his labor racketeering work, his familial ties took care of that.

  There was “an implicit threat of harm,” said AUSA Weinstein. “That if monies were not paid to the Genovese family, and that included associate Andrew Gigante, it would lead to violence.”