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