Vincent 'The Chin' Gigante Dies in Prison

[Tab]

NEW YORK - Mob boss Vincent "The Chin" Gigante, the powerful Mafioso who avoided jail for decades by wandering the streets in a ratty bathrobe and slippers, feigning mental illness, died Monday in prison. He was 77.

The head of the Genovese crime family, who had suffered from heart disease, died at the federal prison in Springfield, Mo., said prison spokesman Al Quintero. It was the same place where rival mob boss John Gotti died of cancer in 2002 at age 61.

Gigante's death also was confirmed by Christine Monaco, a spokeswoman for the
FBI, the organization that worked for years to put him behind bars.

Dubbed the "Oddfather" for his bizarre behavior, Gigante had scored a lengthy string of victories over prosecutors, but it ended with a July 1997 racketeering conviction. He was sentenced to 12 years in prison.

After a quarter-century of public craziness, he finally admitted his insanity ruse at an April 2003 federal hearing in which he calmly pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice. That brought him another three-year sentence.
...
For the man described by The New York Times Magazine as "the last great Mafioso of the century," his admission was the final act in a 50-year career linking the era of old-time gangsters and the modern-day Mafia of Gotti.
More: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051219/ap_on_re_us/obit_gigante

Edited to fix link

[shenmue]

1. Whew

Good riddance to bad rubbish.

[Loonman]

2. Dumbass reporters

Gotti wasn't a "rival mob boss" he was head of the Gambino family until he went to jail. Rivals are up-and-comers in your own crew or family.

[ret5hd]

3. does bush* view "The Chin" as a mentor?...

are we really dealing with a criminal mastermind rather than a slow-witted twerp that can't string five words together into a coherent sentence?

[hadrons]

4. probably last of the "great" Mafia mob bosses ....

[edbermac]

5. He was no Don Vito...

What have I done to make you treat me so disrespectfully?

[CatWoman]

6. He gained notoriety from his botched attempt to murder

Frank Costello.

http://www.ganglandnews.com/gigante.htm

[Hyernel]

7. Yet Abe Vigoda lingers on!

Hey Tessio, lets go for a little drive.

[Voltaire99]

8. Public craziness: brilliant ruse.

The Chin will go down in history not merely as a psychopathic villain, but as the last great American vaudevillian.

[gratuitous]

9. And yet Tookie Williams had to be executed

I wonder which man had more blood on his hands, Williams or Gigante? But I'm absolutely sure that it had nothing whatsoever to do with one man being white and the other man being black. Nosiree. Not even the faintest trace of a whiff of racism in our criminal justice system.

N.B.: Lest anyone misapprehend, I'm against the death penalty in this and every case. But if death is a suitable sentence for Williams, then why wasn't it suitable for Gigante? And don't give me any state versus federal nonsense; Timothy McVeigh was executed for his federal crime.

[BronxBoy]

10. Because he was convicted for racketeering...

not murder.

Does he have blood on his hands...Definetely.

Should he be executed because we THINK he's been involved in murder? You tell me

[gratuitous]

11. And they couldn't muster enough evidence for a murder beef?

Or were the prosecutors simply uninterested in pursuing further charges once they'd gotten the equivalent of a life sentence for Gigante? I don't know. I'm simply commenting on the prosecutorial disparity between a black gang "founder" and a white gang "capo." There's just no way I can envision a fair justice system that would give Williams death and Gigante life. And that being the case, perhaps it's better if the United States joins the rest of the civilized world in abjuring the death penalty.

[BronxBoy]

12. It's not the same thing....

Gigante has blood on his hands. No doubt about it. But there is a big difference...

He didn't personally (allegedly) blow 4 people away during the commission of a crime. Tookie ALLEGEDLY did.

You are right about the death penalty.

[nonconformist]

13. Because Gigante wasn't convicted of quadruple homicide?

I don't have to give you any state vs federal nonsense, because Gigante wasn't convicted of murder. Nice contradiction on the race issue/McVeigh, btw.

[Faygo Kid]

14. You dirty rat.