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 many women who investigate
Speaker 2: and prosecute these cases are part of a select group
Speaker 2: that has defined American history. These are their stories. Wednesday,
Speaker 2: August twenty eighth, nineteen ninety six, Federal District Court, Brooklyn.
Speaker 1: After six years of protracted legal battles, Vincent the Ciniganti,
Speaker 1: the boss of the Genevese crime family, was declared mentally
Speaker 1: competent to stand trial. His decades long odd Father act
Speaker 1: deemed an elaborate deception.
Speaker 3: Vinnie the Cinigante is sane enough to stand trial. That's
Speaker 3: what a federal judge decided. The alleged mob boss will
Speaker 3: face charge of murder and racketeering.
Speaker 1: The judge ruled that Giganty's public display of bizarre behavior
Speaker 1: was all part of a campaign of quote persistent malingering,
Speaker 1: and that, with the help of relatives, he had feigned
Speaker 1: mental illness for over twenty years as a means to
Speaker 1: elude prosecution.
Speaker 3: For years, his lawyers have been saying he's insane, that
Speaker 3: all he does is walk around outside in a bathrobe.
Speaker 3: He must now appear in court next week.
Speaker 1: In the ten years since the Commission trial, Giganty had
Speaker 1: been the only New York mob boss to escape imprisonment.
Speaker 1: But after this dramatic nineteen ninety six competency hearing, the
Speaker 1: tables were starting to turn.
Speaker 4: The government's witnesses, cops and agents would document the movements
Speaker 4: of a saying, at least according to them, Vincent Giganty.
Speaker 5: You're not with the mob because you want to be.
Speaker 5: It's the gangster that decides whether y're his associated with.
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 man.
Speaker 1: From Wolf Entertainment and iHeart Podcasts. This is law and
Speaker 1: order criminal justice system. In the years following the Commission trial,
Speaker 1: Vincent Gigante had reached an almost mythical status among the
Speaker 1: Five families. For most Gene's mobsters, it would have been
Speaker 1: extremely rare to catch a glimpse of their reclusive boss,
Speaker 1: let alone speak with him, unless, that is, you are
Speaker 1: responsible for engineering something new, something that would generate millions
Speaker 1: of dollars. That kind of juice could earn you a
Speaker 1: seat at the table. Taking advantage of a government subsidy program.
Speaker 1: A savvy Genovi's associate by the name of Pete Savino,
Speaker 1: had developed a scheme involving windows. Savino rig bids for
Speaker 1: the installation and replacement of windows throughout the city houses, buildings,
Speaker 1: low rises, even skyscrapers. Much like the concrete racket. It
Speaker 1: wasn't sexy, but it was extremely profitable and for the
Speaker 1: next decade, netted the four participating families hundreds of millions
Speaker 1: of dollars.
Speaker 8: The government claims that since nineteen seventy eight, the mob's
Speaker 8: control of the bidding, manufacture, and installation of replacement windows
Speaker 8: resulted in the mafia getting three fourths of the one
Speaker 8: hundred and ninety one million dollar replacement window business in
Speaker 8: city housing projects.
Speaker 1: Savino had become a money making machine for the Genevies,
Speaker 1: and his reward was something rare, indeed, the confidence of
Speaker 1: the boss. He was granted the privilege of meeting with
Speaker 1: Gigante dozens of times over the years, eating dinner together,
Speaker 1: meeting his family, even gaining access to Gigante's exclusive village hangout,
Speaker 1: the Triangle Club on Si Sulli Street. A rare feat
Speaker 1: from your associate, But as Jim Kostler points out, that
Speaker 1: privilege also came with its fair share of risk, and
Speaker 1: nothing could be more frightening than answering a late night
Speaker 1: summons from the boss.
Speaker 9: He got a phone call in the middle of the night,
Speaker 9: two or three in the morning from Gigante's right hand
Speaker 9: man telling him come to Sullivan Street right now, get
Speaker 9: over here, right now.
Speaker 1: So Vino had no choice but to obey. Given Gigante's reputation,
Speaker 1: this might be a one way trip.
Speaker 9: Told his wife, I guess I'll never see you again.
Speaker 9: This is it. He's called me to come over. I'd
Speaker 9: probably be dead by morning. We haf to two. If
Speaker 9: you're told, if you join that your life is in
Speaker 9: the hands of the mob. But he did what he
Speaker 9: was told, and he came over to Sullivan Street and
Speaker 9: walked into the club. Gigante was sitting at the table,
Speaker 9: and he goes over and Gigante takes out this catalog
Speaker 9: and he says, see if you can get me three
Speaker 9: pair of these sweatsuits, Oh my gosh. And he says, okay,
Speaker 9: how get him? And he left and that's the kuy
Speaker 9: The guy. He was scared his own people to death.
Speaker 1: The fear he instilled in even his own men, including
Speaker 1: favorites like Pete Savino, was critical to his unrivaled control.
Speaker 1: Here's his daughter read it.
Speaker 10: Giganty, Vito Genovies and some of the others. They were
Speaker 10: ruthless and they would kill someone at the drop of
Speaker 10: a hat. My father was not that way, but he
Speaker 10: was very strict on There was a servant code and
Speaker 10: you had to follow the code, and if he didn't
Speaker 10: follow the code, there were consequences, which is why.
Speaker 1: When Paul Castellano was killed in front of Spark Steakhouse
Speaker 1: without commission approval, Giganty swore revenge against the men behind it,
Speaker 1: namely John Gotti, and while Gotti was able to escape retribution,
Speaker 1: his co conspirators were not so lucky. In other words,
Speaker 1: Vincent Giganti was not a man you wanted to cross. Ever,
Speaker 1: to even think about cooperating with law enforcement meant risking
Speaker 1: your life and possibly that of your families. But in
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty seven, that is exactly the dilemma Pete Savino
Speaker 1: found himself in after the FBI connected him to six
Speaker 1: drug related murders. Savino was given a simple ultimatum, agree
Speaker 1: to cooperate or you're going to jail. Here's former FBI
Speaker 1: agent might camp be Pete.
Speaker 5: Savino became a cooperating witness on the Windows case, so
Speaker 5: he was making recordings with regard to that whole window
Speaker 5: installation generated millions and millions of dollars for all families.
Speaker 1: Once the up and coming favorite of the Genevese Boss,
Speaker 1: Savino was now his biggest threat and if caught, it
Speaker 1: would likely cost him his life, but incredibly, wearing a
Speaker 1: wire was a risk he was willing to take, though
Speaker 1: there were some within the family who suspected that Savino
Speaker 1: had flipped. As Mike can't be discovered in a bugged
Speaker 1: conversation with a Genevie soldier.
Speaker 5: He was forewarned that Savino was a rat, and he
Speaker 5: was trying to warn others to stay away from him,
Speaker 5: but others, because of the money being generated in that industry,
Speaker 5: they ignored it.
Speaker 1: Savino's Windows racket was a winner, and each of the
Speaker 1: families had reason to protect it. But the real reason
Speaker 1: Savino was still alive was simple. He was Giganti's guide,
Speaker 1: and the Boss refused to believe he had been betrayed.
Speaker 10: He trusted a man that he shouldn't have trusted, and
Speaker 10: everybody told him, but he didn't listen.
Speaker 1: In May of nineteen ninety, thanks in large part are
Speaker 1: recorded conversations collected by Savino, fifteen mafia members from four
Speaker 1: families were indicted on a Rico enterprise charge. Giganti was
Speaker 1: arrested in his bathroom at his mother's apartment. Facing a trial,
Speaker 1: it was time to see if Gigante's elaborate Insanity Act
Speaker 1: would allow him to escape punishment for his crimes. Here's
Speaker 1: prosecutor Andrew Weisman.
Speaker 6: He had been indicted, but he had been severed from
Speaker 6: the case because there was this issue about whether he
Speaker 6: was competent to go to trial.
Speaker 1: Gigante's lawyers were quick to submit psychiatric evaluations, deeming Giganty
Speaker 1: to be mentally unfit to stand trial. While the court
Speaker 1: considered it's ruling on his sanity, Giganty was released on bond.
Speaker 1: He returned to Greenwich Village and to his bathrobe to
Speaker 1: run the wealthiest crime family in America.
Speaker 6: And so this whole case just sort of languished. He
Speaker 6: was out on bail, and the case just sat there
Speaker 6: with the idea that he was incompetent and couldn't go
Speaker 6: to trial.
Speaker 1: It was clear that Gigante's long con had worked. He
Speaker 1: had designed a sanity stalemate that would last decades. But
Speaker 1: other secrets could not be kept as long, and exposing
Speaker 1: them would ultimately prove to be his downfall. In the
Speaker 1: relentless investigation into Genevi's boss, Vincent Gigante, the FBI left
Speaker 1: nostone unturned, but they weren't the only ones uncovering family
Speaker 1: secrets about his double life.
Speaker 10: He did have another family, well, he had two other families.
Speaker 10: He had the street family, and then he also had
Speaker 10: another family that was living uptown.
Speaker 1: Rita would learn all about her father's infidelity when she
Speaker 1: was a teen. Despite all she knew about her dad,
Speaker 1: it was this betrayal that was the most shocking and
Speaker 1: most painful.
Speaker 7: The name of the woman is the same name as
Speaker 7: my mother, which is unheard of because it's not a
Speaker 7: common name, not at all. It's so bizarre.
Speaker 6: Vincent Giganty had a wife named Olympia in New Jersey.
Speaker 6: He also had a girlfriend who you can't make this up,
Speaker 6: was named Olympia.
Speaker 1: Coincidence maybe, But when it came to the odd father
Speaker 1: people were convinced that the Genevese boss left nothing to chance.
Speaker 1: Here's former prosecutor, Guilt Childers.
Speaker 11: I thought that was the biggest piece of information that
Speaker 11: showed he wasn't nuts. He was very smart. He couldn't
Speaker 11: get the name wrong no matter which woman he was with.
Speaker 11: His mistress was on the Upper East Side of Manhattan,
Speaker 11: who he would spend more time with than actually his
Speaker 11: wife generally.
Speaker 1: According to Rita, Giganti's betrayal took a very heavy toll
Speaker 1: on her mom.
Speaker 10: My mom also experienced a lot of depression and anxiety.
Speaker 10: They put her on valume at age thirty seven because
Speaker 10: of the anxiety attacks that she was having because she
Speaker 10: felt ashamed.
Speaker 1: In addition to Olympia's five children, the other Olympia, Borgia Gante,
Speaker 1: two daughters and a son, Rita's mother had known about
Speaker 1: his second family for years, and along with as many
Speaker 1: other lies and crimes, she bore the burden of the
Speaker 1: secret until one day when she finally couldn't hold it
Speaker 1: in any longer and confided in her youngest daughter.
Speaker 7: I was like, no way, I just did not see
Speaker 7: my father as this guy.
Speaker 10: I don't know why it runs in that whole gamut
Speaker 10: of the world that he ran in, and yet I
Speaker 10: did not see him as this man.
Speaker 7: I just looked at her, like, what are we doing here?
Speaker 7: Why are you still doing this? Like get out, you know,
Speaker 7: like leave.
Speaker 10: And I think the most she lasted was maybe three weeks,
Speaker 10: and then she softened and missed him and went back
Speaker 10: to it. And I had to come to the realization
Speaker 10: that this is who she was. I had to accept that,
Speaker 10: and eventually I just stopped trying to help or make
Speaker 10: her see things a certain way, because I knew she
Speaker 10: was never walking away.
Speaker 1: For years, the FBI's Genov squad had been trying to
Speaker 1: keep taps on the Boss, but tailing him was no
Speaker 1: easy feat. Every night, his chauffeur engaged in dangerous street
Speaker 1: racing tactics, weaving his Cadillac through one way streets the
Speaker 1: wrong way, ignoring speed limits, and blowing through red lights.
Speaker 1: But he had one routine that was regular as clockwork,
Speaker 1: his visits uptown to the other Olympia. Eventually, the squad
Speaker 1: managed to follow him to the townhouse, and what they
Speaker 1: witnessed would prove to be the first chink in the
Speaker 1: Boss's armor.
Speaker 4: Jigante was observed walking or being driven to his usual
Speaker 4: neighborhood haunts, the Triangle Club on Sullivan Street or the
Speaker 4: Upper east Side townhouse of his longtime girlfriend Olympia Esposito.
Speaker 11: The surveillances would have him walking around the streets in
Speaker 11: his bathrobe doing all these crazy things, and then around
Speaker 11: eleven o'clock or midnight, he'd come out of the residence,
Speaker 11: not dressed in a bathrobe, but dressed in clothes, sometimes
Speaker 11: stepping out clothes and going up to his mistress and
Speaker 11: doing other things, acting like a normal person, I suppose
Speaker 11: to his daytime stick.
Speaker 1: When Gigante was uptown, the enigma in a bathrobe would
Speaker 1: drop the act and put on a whole new persona.
Speaker 4: The cop testify that Giganti walked on assisted had numerous
Speaker 4: conversations contradicting the claim that Giganti is a paranoid schizophrenic
Speaker 4: who needs constant attention.
Speaker 1: For the FBI, it was proof that Giganti was not
Speaker 1: just a liar or a philanderer, but that he was
Speaker 1: more than capable of standing trial and answering to his
Speaker 1: many crimes. For his daughter Rita. The revelations about his
Speaker 1: secret family proved to be a tipping point in her
Speaker 1: own life.
Speaker 10: I started to realize at a certain age that I
Speaker 10: didn't believe all the things they were telling me about family,
Speaker 10: about the Catholic religion and.
Speaker 12: All of that.
Speaker 1: In the midst her family chaos, Rita turned inward and
Speaker 1: revealed a secret of her own.
Speaker 10: I knew at a very young age that I was gay,
Speaker 10: and I also knew I couldn't speak to anybody about it,
Speaker 10: although they all knew, but nobody wanted to talk about it,
Speaker 10: and I was too afraid to come and talk about it.
Speaker 10: So the more I didn't talk about my own truth,
Speaker 10: the more sick I got. It's like, you either sacrifice
Speaker 10: yourself for the family and not have a life, or
Speaker 10: you make changes and you create a life for yourself.
Speaker 10: And physically, my body was always telling me something's got
Speaker 10: to change. At nineteen, I'm realizing there's so many secrets.
Speaker 7: That went on in this family. I don't want to
Speaker 7: carry any secrets.
Speaker 10: It's not who I am. So I was like, Okay,
Speaker 10: I'm going to do it. I'm going to just tell them.
Speaker 1: Rito was terrified, but she knew it was time.
Speaker 10: My father was visiting New Jersey at the time, and
Speaker 10: I'm a wreck I'm shaking, my hands are sweating, you know,
Speaker 10: my whole body's like forget it. But I knocked on
Speaker 10: the door and I said, can I come in? I
Speaker 10: really want to talk. They sat me down and they said,
Speaker 10: what is it.
Speaker 7: You look upset? What's going on?
Speaker 10: Very simply, I said, I like women, I says, I've
Speaker 10: always felt this connection. I said, and I really wanted
Speaker 10: to just tell you.
Speaker 7: And all of a sudden, I saw their faces.
Speaker 10: Right, it was like disbelief that I was actually saying it.
Speaker 10: My mother, especially because I said it in front of
Speaker 10: my father. I don't think she ever thought I would
Speaker 10: have the bulls to do it. And I was like,
Speaker 10: oh shit, oh god, if I could just pull the
Speaker 10: good words back of my mouth and not said anything.
Speaker 1: After an excruciating silence, Rita looked to her mother for support,
Speaker 1: but none came.
Speaker 10: She just looked at him, and all of a sudden,
Speaker 10: this calm came over him. I knew I was finished
Speaker 10: after this, and he said to me, you know what,
Speaker 10: all kids your age go through this. It's okay, You're
Speaker 10: just experimenting. I shut down after that because I knew
Speaker 10: he could not accept it. The minute he finished the
Speaker 10: first line I just shut down and said, you know what,
Speaker 10: You're right, I'm just going through something.
Speaker 7: I said, thank you.
Speaker 10: I got up and I walked out and I just
Speaker 10: went into my room assopped because I couldn't follow through.
Speaker 1: In Vincent Gigante's world, there was just no place for
Speaker 1: the truth. Survival had meant a lifetime of deception, but
Speaker 1: his house of cards was about to come crashing down,
Speaker 1: and my Campy was poised to knock the foundation right
Speaker 1: out from under him.
Speaker 5: My focus was like, Okay, who's the next power base?
Speaker 5: And if chin gets wrapped up in my case because
Speaker 5: somebody wants to cooperate, I'll deal with it.
Speaker 1: Then Campy and his fellow FEDS took aim at some
Speaker 1: of Gigante's underlings, a roster of kappos and underbosses.
Speaker 5: My pursuit was the acting administration. Jimmy Ida at that
Speaker 5: time was the consigliere, and you had Barney Bolomo as
Speaker 5: the acting boss and Mickey Domino is the acting Hunter Boss.
Speaker 5: And there was a social club at one Sevenue, one
Speaker 5: Mulberry Street controlled by Jimmy Ida at the time. It
Speaker 5: took a while for me to have a title three
Speaker 5: or bugs installed in that social club, but every day
Speaker 5: they're discussing crime.
Speaker 1: And if Giganti proved elusive, his brain trust proved to
Speaker 1: be anything. But their meetings provided the Feds with investigative gold,
Speaker 1: including the moment when one of their own, an associate
Speaker 1: named Ralph D. Simone, was singled out for elimination.
Speaker 5: When you're proposed for induction, that would also have to
Speaker 5: be coordinated with Chin And when Ralph D. Simone's name
Speaker 5: was passed around, the Lukeesi family identified him as being
Speaker 5: a rat and Mickey Domino made a gesture with his
Speaker 5: hand like a gun, saying we'll handle it. And it
Speaker 5: was like a week or so later DeSimone, who was dead.
Speaker 5: He was found in the trunk of a car at
Speaker 5: in the airport.
Speaker 1: It was more than enough evidence for prosecutors to work with,
Speaker 1: and with their next round of arrests, law enforcement delivered
Speaker 1: a massive blow to the Genovese organization.
Speaker 4: In New York, federal agents say for their first time
Speaker 4: they cracked the top tier of the reputed Genevieve's crime family.
Speaker 2: Among eighteen people.
Speaker 9: Under arrest is Barney Bellomo, the Mom's alleged number two.
Speaker 1: This indictment took down the genevese acting boss under a boss,
Speaker 1: and sixteen other members for a slew of rico charges.
Speaker 1: Gigante's power base was eroding. His insanity bluff had been called.
Speaker 1: The FEDS also had three new defectors with intimate knowledge
Speaker 1: of the at father's past, giving the courts an opportunity
Speaker 1: to rebuild the Windows case. So the Eastern District appointed
Speaker 1: Deputy Chief Andrew Weisman to breathe new life into the
Speaker 1: long dormant case.
Speaker 6: The two prosecutors of the case had since left the office,
Speaker 6: so it got reassigned to me and my colleague, George
Speaker 6: stan Bealitis. He and I had tried a whole slew
Speaker 6: of Columbus cases together. Obviously it was flattering to be
Speaker 6: given the case in the sense that it's the boss
Speaker 6: of incredibly powerful family. But the case had been languishing
Speaker 6: and we didn't know anything about its merits. We didn't
Speaker 6: know anything about the witnesses.
Speaker 12: You know.
Speaker 6: It was a little bit of a mixed blessing when
Speaker 6: we first heard it.
Speaker 1: Despite the nerves that come with a high profile case,
Speaker 1: Andrew and his trial partner George were up for the task.
Speaker 1: But before heading into court, the first turtle to jump
Speaker 1: was convincing a judge what they already knew that Vincent
Speaker 1: Gigante was mentally fit to stand trial.
Speaker 6: No judge had decided that issue. So our biggest issue
Speaker 6: when we first got the case was what is the
Speaker 6: proof that he's in competent or competent. We had this
Speaker 6: competency hearing. It lasted many months, lots of medical testimony.
Speaker 6: We had our own medical expert. We also had the
Speaker 6: defense's expert.
Speaker 1: The competency hearing was a culmination of years of back
Speaker 1: and forth legal wrangling stemming from Giganti's first indictment back
Speaker 1: in nineteen ninety.
Speaker 6: So the evidence that was presented by the defense was
Speaker 6: that Vincent Giganti it was basically a vegetable. For the
Speaker 6: last twenty five years. He couldn't read, he couldn't count,
Speaker 6: and his condition had stayed the same. We then presented
Speaker 6: our own evidence through cooperating witnesses who said at the
Speaker 6: time that you had just heard he was supposed to
Speaker 6: be a vegetable. He was having conversations with him. We
Speaker 6: had Pizzaviino within the Genevese family, Salvato Garvano from the
Speaker 6: Gambino family. He had had interactions personally in commission meetings
Speaker 6: with Vincent Scanty, so we had cooperating withnesses who could
Speaker 6: talk about the fact that he was not incompetent, but
Speaker 6: that would require the judge to believe our cooperating witnesses.
Speaker 1: A common line of defense for Gigante's lawyers was if
Speaker 1: throughout these gangsters' lives they would lie, cheat, and steal,
Speaker 1: how could you possibly believe them. Now, we had.
Speaker 6: A really fantastic piece of evidence that put this entire
Speaker 6: issue to bed. One day, I'm sitting in my office
Speaker 6: and I remember an agent in the Columbus squad came
Speaker 6: in and said, well, I assume you're going to call
Speaker 6: Charlie Bodwin in your competency hearing, and I'm like, what's
Speaker 6: a Charlie Bodwin. Charlie Bodwin was an FBI agent with
Speaker 6: very good eyesight who was on the Genevies squad and
Speaker 6: years earlier, the FBI wanted to go up on a
Speaker 6: bug in this townhouse that Vince Scanty lived in from
Speaker 6: time to time with his girlfriend.
Speaker 1: To get a wire tap, approved, agents had to show
Speaker 1: probable cause that illegal activity was occurring in the townhouse,
Speaker 1: which they did not have so the government went old
Speaker 1: school and used street surveillance.
Speaker 6: Charlie Bodwin's job for about three months was to at
Speaker 6: night go to the townhouses on the back side of
Speaker 6: that street and look into the back of the townhouse
Speaker 6: with a patent pencil and just record what he was seeing.
Speaker 1: And what the surveillance team observed was not the bumbling
Speaker 1: odd father of Greenwich Village.
Speaker 6: I remember Charlie when he came to my office was saying,
Speaker 6: I don't know that this is going to help you.
Speaker 6: I didn't see anything criminal, and I said, don't worry
Speaker 6: about that. Tell me what kind of things you saw,
Speaker 6: and he's like, well, you know, he was talking to people,
Speaker 6: he was reading the newspaper, he was counting.
Speaker 1: Money, hardly the activities of a man in a vegetative state.
Speaker 6: He was doing things that were completely inconsistent with what
Speaker 6: the defense doctor said it and we had already got
Speaker 6: the defense doctors to agree that if he could do
Speaker 6: those things, they had been fooled. So we put him
Speaker 6: on in the competency hearing and it was basically game
Speaker 6: over because not only was a very credible witness, but
Speaker 6: he had contemporaneous notes.
Speaker 1: You had to record all of this in court, Gigante's
Speaker 1: defense attorney tried to undermine this surveillance agent's credibility unsuccessfully.
Speaker 6: Barry Slotnik, who was representing Vincent Scanty at the time,
Speaker 6: went to the back of the courtroom and said, is
Speaker 6: this about how far the distance was? And I remember
Speaker 6: Charlie going, yeah, it's about right, like thirty yards away.
Speaker 6: And I remember Judge Nickerson then putting on the record
Speaker 6: exactly how big the courtroom is, and Charlie was only
Speaker 6: like a foot off. He kept on digging and making
Speaker 6: it worse because Barry then held up a US note
Speaker 6: to see whether Charlie could see what it is, and
Speaker 6: he holds up this bill. I couldn't see it. Charlie goes, oh, yeah,
Speaker 6: that's a twenty dollars bill. Back of the courtroom and
Speaker 6: Charlie's on the witness stand and Judge Nickerson goes, mister Slotnick,
Speaker 6: come up here. We're going to mark that as an exhibit.
Speaker 6: It's very slot that thinks, okay, maybe he just got lucky,
Speaker 6: and he tries it again and goes, what's this and
Speaker 6: he goes, that's a five dollar bill, And at some
Speaker 6: point Judge Nickerson goes mister Slotnick how much money are
Speaker 6: you going to lose? It was just devastating. So the
Speaker 6: judge ruled that he was competent, so we were off
Speaker 6: to the races in terms of then preparing the case
Speaker 6: for trial.
Speaker 1: There was just one more hitch. Giganty was scheduled for
Speaker 1: heart valve replacement surgery and the trial wouldn't be able
Speaker 1: to start for another year, pending his recovery. According to Rita,
Speaker 1: this wasn't another charade, and although she wouldn't put it
Speaker 1: past him, her father's heart condition was real.
Speaker 10: We saw him before he actually went in for the
Speaker 10: heart surgery, we saw him in the hospital when he
Speaker 10: was recovering. But then he decided to go stay with
Speaker 10: the other family.
Speaker 1: Just a few weeks before the trial was finally set
Speaker 1: to start, Giganty and his defense team took one last
Speaker 1: shot at proving his incompetency, but this time around they
Speaker 1: crossed a line.
Speaker 6: A new application comes in saying that their client has
Speaker 6: advanced Alzheimer's, to which I still want to Judge Nickerson saying,
Speaker 6: and you just noticed you don't just happen to get
Speaker 6: advanced Alzheimer's. Judge Nickerson decides that he just could not
Speaker 6: deal with hearing evidence about that because his wife at
Speaker 6: the time had advanced Alzheimer's.
Speaker 7: Which is a brutal disease.
Speaker 6: Brutal and brutal. To watch somebody you love going through that,
Speaker 6: I think it's a very very hard decision for Judge Nickerson,
Speaker 6: and I think he just could not put himself through it.
Speaker 6: So the case got reassigned to Judge Weinstein, who the
Speaker 6: two of them had known each other for decades. We
Speaker 6: go to court the first appearance before Judge Weinstein and
Speaker 6: he says, okay, would the defense like to be heard
Speaker 6: on the motion with respect to his condition? And they said, Judge,
Speaker 6: are we withdraw that?
Speaker 13: What?
Speaker 12: Yeah?
Speaker 6: I mean it was so despicable. George Weinstein says, okay,
Speaker 6: is there anything else from the defense? No, your honor, okay,
Speaker 6: the defendant is remanded.
Speaker 1: Getting remanded means being imprisoned while waiting for the trial.
Speaker 1: The defense may have caused one judge to voluntarily leave
Speaker 1: the case, but the rules of law would prevail and
Speaker 1: the case moved forward without further delays. The trial e
Speaker 1: Vincent Giguanty would finally begin, and the list of charges
Speaker 1: against him was formidable Giganty faced charge charges that included
Speaker 1: being the boss of the Genevese crime family, the windows
Speaker 1: extortion racket, authorizing six murders in Philadelphia, and the attempted
Speaker 1: murder of John Gottie for his daughter Rita. Gigante's criminal
Speaker 1: resume was staggering.
Speaker 10: They had a list. I remember reading the list and
Speaker 10: I remember thinking, holy shit.
Speaker 7: It was just.
Speaker 10: Unbelievable for me to actually say, Wow, he did all
Speaker 10: of this, even if he didn't pull a trigger.
Speaker 7: He gave an order to do that.
Speaker 1: On June twenty fifth, nineteen ninety seven, seven years after
Speaker 1: the original indictment, court came to order in the trial
Speaker 1: of Geneve's boss, Vincent Gigante.
Speaker 6: I still remember the first day of the actual criminal
Speaker 6: trial of friend of a jury. He showed up wheelchair
Speaker 6: and to Kane and they placed him right in front
Speaker 6: of the jury. We started the trial by putting on
Speaker 6: all the evidence that he was faking. By day three,
Speaker 6: they had him as far away from the jury as possible.
Speaker 1: It became apparent that his insanity act was losing steam,
Speaker 1: but there was no turning back now. Day in and
Speaker 1: day out, Gigante stared blankly into space, mumbling to himself
Speaker 1: as the prosecution played tapes of multiple mobsters, including John Gotti,
Speaker 1: identifying him as the boss. But the biggest hurdle for
Speaker 1: the prosecution remained the fact that Giganty himself was never
Speaker 1: caught on a recording. According to co operator Piete Savino,
Speaker 1: it was because Gigante was so careful when they needed
Speaker 1: to talk business. The Boss would take him into the bathroom,
Speaker 1: turn on the water faucet, and whisper into his ear.
Speaker 1: Andrew would have to convince the jury of Gigante's guilt
Speaker 1: without the proverbial smoking gun.
Speaker 4: Miles of audio tapes, some barely audible, that was secretly
Speaker 4: recorded by the FBI at mob clubs contain obscure references
Speaker 4: to the chin, but so far, not one agent has
Speaker 4: admitted hearing Gigante's voice on tape or observing him in
Speaker 4: the vicinity of their surveillances.
Speaker 1: One of the strongest pieces of evidence came from a
Speaker 1: recording made from Savino's wire when he was meeting with
Speaker 1: Gigante's underboss Benny Eggs Mgano. Before that fateful meeting, Savino's
Speaker 1: FBI handler asked him to purposely break a Genovie's cardinal rule.
Speaker 6: We had him mention Vincent's name. He did that, and
Speaker 6: then what we got on tape was Mengano saying, don't
Speaker 6: ever do that. That's a violation. That was really good
Speaker 6: evidence that it was sort of useful as establishing his
Speaker 6: role and this rule in the organized crime family.
Speaker 1: Next came the star witnesses. First up was the former
Speaker 1: Lucia underboss Al Diarco.
Speaker 6: Al Diarco, he came in because people in his family
Speaker 6: thought that he was cooperating when he wasn't, and there
Speaker 6: were efforts underway to kill him because of that. He
Speaker 6: was like, these people are so despicable. I wasn't a rat,
Speaker 6: but now I was being called a rat. Those were
Speaker 6: his words, and he's just like, that's it. I'm done.
Speaker 1: On the stand, Diarco's candor about the mafia proved invaluable
Speaker 1: to the prosecution's case. Asked what the mob would do
Speaker 1: with somebody that was mentally incompetent, Diarco didn't mince words.
Speaker 6: He said, oh, we would have killed them. And we're
Speaker 6: like why, and he said, we couldn't take the risk
Speaker 6: that they would go to the police or they'd say
Speaker 6: something that would implicate people, especially somebody who was a leader,
Speaker 6: who would know all of those secrets. And I remember
Speaker 6: looking over in one of the jurors was writing that
Speaker 6: down and I thought, Okay, that's a good sign.
Speaker 1: To Gante's attorneys attempted to discredit to your go by
Speaker 1: highlighting his long list of past crimes.
Speaker 6: Altiarca. I think was so hard to cross examine because
Speaker 6: he was so open about who he was and what
Speaker 6: he regretted in his life. Very very good defense lawyer
Speaker 6: Gus Newman kept on going over all of the things
Speaker 6: he'd done, and who was like, you murdered this person,
Speaker 6: you murdered that person, You did these awful things. So
Speaker 6: of course he's admitting everything. And I looked over at
Speaker 6: the jury and the jury looked bored as hell. They
Speaker 6: were like, we know he was the acting boss of
Speaker 6: the Ukasey family. None of this is surprising.
Speaker 1: Ever since the commission trial, the mafias sworn oath of silence,
Speaker 1: Omerta had been slowly eroding, and as the FBI closed in,
Speaker 1: mobsters like Diarco and Savina were opting for self preservation
Speaker 1: over loyalty to the family, and there was perhaps no
Speaker 1: bigger turncoat than the one about to take the stand.
Speaker 12: My name is Salvatore Gravano. I became a made member
Speaker 12: of the Gambino family in nineteen six. At that time,
Speaker 12: pol Castellano was the boss of the Gambino family. John
Speaker 12: Gotti I, along with some others, murdered Pole Castellano. We
Speaker 12: took over the family. I decided to cooperate before we
Speaker 12: went to trial.
Speaker 1: Sammy the Bull Gravano was a Gambino underboss and a
Speaker 1: newly minted media darling due to his testimony in John
Speaker 1: Gotti's trial five years before.
Speaker 6: Federal prosecutor said they planned to call Sammy the Bull
Speaker 6: Gravano to the stand to testify against the Gin. He's
Speaker 6: the mob rat whose testimony said John Gotti away for life.
Speaker 1: Gravano was scheduled to fly in the night before he testified,
Speaker 1: leaving Andrew very little time to prepare his witness.
Speaker 6: There was a huge storm. Sammy was late coming into
Speaker 6: the city because of the storm. I ended up with
Speaker 6: about one hour to meet with Sammy to go over
Speaker 6: what questions they're going to ask him. But once Sammy's
Speaker 6: on the stand, he was an extremely effective, good witness.
Speaker 6: Say he was completely candidate about organized crime, about the
Speaker 6: life he was in, and didn't make excuses for it
Speaker 6: at all.
Speaker 4: Gravano told a jury that he first met Fitza Gigante
Speaker 4: in nineteen seventy six. According to Gravano, although the chin
Speaker 4: was unshaven and wore pajamas in a row at this meeting,
Speaker 4: he spoke normally.
Speaker 10: Sammy the Bull testified. All these people are testified. They
Speaker 10: turned state seven as they rated all of this. These
Speaker 10: are people that are walking around that murdered thirty thirty
Speaker 10: five people. You know, like, how do I understand? Like
Speaker 10: what makes that okay? It still doesn't sit right with me.
Speaker 10: They all did what they did. But you're going to
Speaker 10: let one go because he gives you this one. That's
Speaker 10: just how it went. That's how they did it.
Speaker 4: Giganti is charged with six murders and conspiracy to commit
Speaker 4: several others. The star witness against him is Sammy the
Speaker 4: Bull Gravano, an admitted killer of nineteen people.
Speaker 9: You're a Jura, you're listening to this and say, wait
Speaker 9: a minute. Here's a guy who did nineteen homicides and.
Speaker 11: He's accusing this guy won and he's on the streets
Speaker 11: and they want to pull him in.
Speaker 1: Darco and Gravano were high ranking mobsters, pointing the finger
Speaker 1: at Gigante as the boss of bosses, but it was
Speaker 1: Pete Savino, the low level Genevie's associate, whose testimony proved
Speaker 1: most compelling.
Speaker 6: He was dying. He would really wanted to testify, but
Speaker 6: by the time this case went to trial, he was
Speaker 6: in a hospital. The doctors would not let him travel.
Speaker 1: Savino was bedridden with cancer and could barely speak. So
Speaker 1: prosecutors came up with an innovative idea.
Speaker 6: Remember this is nineteen ninety seven. There was no zoom,
Speaker 6: that technology didn't exist, and we proposed to the court
Speaker 6: that there be a closed circuit television where there would
Speaker 6: be a camera on Peter Savino in his hospital. A
Speaker 6: defense lawyer and a prosecutor would be there. They would
Speaker 6: bring exhibits and things that they wanted to show him
Speaker 6: and that would get beamed into the courtroom, and there
Speaker 6: were television sets all around the courtroom.
Speaker 1: In an attempt to avoid sympathy end level the playing
Speaker 1: field for the defense, Judge Weinstein gave the prosecution a
Speaker 1: strict directive.
Speaker 6: We were not allowed to tell the jury that Peter
Speaker 6: Savina was dying. That judge said it would be too prejudicial,
Speaker 6: and what he meant by that was it would be
Speaker 6: too damning that he was clearly telling the truth, you know,
Speaker 6: if he was about to die, Like, why would you
Speaker 6: lie about this?
Speaker 1: Savino suffered through questioning and did very well, but he
Speaker 1: constantly needed breaks. He appeared a shadow of his former self,
Speaker 1: but with his image projected throughout the courtroom, he delivered
Speaker 1: the final blow against Gigante.
Speaker 6: I remember Peter was wearing a red shirt, and so
Speaker 6: all around the room there were these screens with this
Speaker 6: bright red shirt. He looked terrible, drunk down his testimony
Speaker 6: to be as concise as possible. At every break, I
Speaker 6: just remember the judge going, you have to go faster.
Speaker 6: At lunchtime, he goes, you need to end your direct
Speaker 6: We need to get to cross. This witness cannot go past.
Speaker 1: Today Savino became the most convincing witness of the trial.
Speaker 6: Peter was so happy that he was able to do
Speaker 6: this because he had been living with us for so long.
Speaker 6: He wanted to do it before he died, and within
Speaker 6: a month after the verdict he was dead.
Speaker 1: Andrew made sure the jury understood the full measure of
Speaker 1: the reco charge, and.
Speaker 6: I remember making that point insummation and saying, don't let
Speaker 6: a boss get off just because he wasn't at the
Speaker 6: scene of the crime. That is the advantage of being
Speaker 6: the boss.
Speaker 1: But as the defense was quick to point out, how
Speaker 1: could the government prosecute Deganty as the boss, insisting that
Speaker 1: fat Tony Salerno was the boss. During the commission trial
Speaker 1: twelve years before, Andrew decided to address the issue head on.
Speaker 6: And I said, look, at the time that that happened,
Speaker 6: Sammy Gravano was not a cooperating witness. Aldi Arco was
Speaker 6: not a cooperating witness. Peter Savina was not a cooperating witness.
Speaker 6: They didn't have these tape recordings. But that's not really
Speaker 6: what's going on. You know what is absolutely true. The
Speaker 6: government does make mistakes. No one's going to sit here
Speaker 6: and tell you the government doesn't get things wrong. But
Speaker 6: you have seen all of the evidence. I just explained
Speaker 6: that to the jury. We had such a good jury,
Speaker 6: they were so smart, it didn't cause them any concern
Speaker 6: at all. And I do think that's a real lesson
Speaker 6: of don't hide from issues and just be straight with
Speaker 6: the jury and trust their intelligence.
Speaker 1: Concluding a month long trial, the anonymous jury filed into
Speaker 1: the jury room for deliberations, and after three days they
Speaker 1: returned with a verdict.
Speaker 6: When the jury comes out, you can tell there's a
Speaker 6: conviction because I have noticed that the jury is more
Speaker 6: dressed up on the day of the verdict, which always
Speaker 6: to me is a sort of sign of the solemnity,
Speaker 6: And they don't look at the defendant as they're walking out,
Speaker 6: so you have a very good tell on both fronts.
Speaker 1: Giganty rolled his eyes as the fore women announced the verdict.
Speaker 1: He was found guilty for his role as boss of
Speaker 1: the Genopes family, for the window scheme and conspiring to
Speaker 1: murder his rival John Gottie, but he was acquitted for
Speaker 1: the six Philadelphia gangland murders, which proved to be little consolation.
Speaker 1: After decades of unimpeded criminal Tyranny Vincent the Jin Giganty
Speaker 1: was finally brought to bay, and while grateful that justice
Speaker 1: was served, many had to tip their hats out of
Speaker 1: respect for the odd father, including James Leonard.
Speaker 13: His run was absolutely legendary. The matter in which he
Speaker 13: fooled the FBI and the matter in which he evaded
Speaker 13: the criminal justice system for decades.
Speaker 2: There's a guy.
Speaker 13: If there is a mount rushmore of gangsters, that should
Speaker 13: be the first face etched into it. Vincent the Chin Gigante,
Speaker 13: absolutely Hall of Fame gangster.
Speaker 1: After a lifetime of lies, Rita Giganty had vowed to
Speaker 1: never go to the uptown home of her father's mistress,
Speaker 1: but in the end, she did visit the townhouse once
Speaker 1: where she saw her ailing father for the very last time.
Speaker 10: One time, my mother begged me to go and see
Speaker 10: him before they put him away. So I went once
Speaker 10: to their townhouse. I would not go unless I knew
Speaker 10: nobody was home, especially the other woman, because I would
Speaker 10: never disrespect my mother.
Speaker 7: But I went to visit him there After that.
Speaker 10: It was letters that went back and forth, or sometimes
Speaker 10: he would call on the phone and it would be
Speaker 10: like when I was a kid, how do you feel?
Speaker 7: How's your mother to carry your mother? That would be it.
Speaker 1: With all the bizarre happenings brought by the Gigante saga,
Speaker 1: it wouldn't be complete without one more surprise, which came
Speaker 1: at his sentencing.
Speaker 6: Jech Weinstein at sentencing did something a little odd. Vincent
Speaker 6: Giganti was relatively old at the time, but not ancient
Speaker 6: did judge sort of looked at the actuarial tables and
Speaker 6: based his sentence off of that and gave him.
Speaker 4: Twelve years, Calling Giganty an inveterate gangster who committed his
Speaker 4: life to crime and not getting caught dodging legal bullets
Speaker 4: left and right. The sixty nine year old head of
Speaker 4: the Genovies crime family, the most powerful mobster in the nation,
Speaker 4: was sentenced to twelve years in jail and a one
Speaker 4: and a quarter million dollar fine.
Speaker 6: But the sense that was called for was life, So
Speaker 6: I disagreed with him on the sentence in the Eastern
Speaker 6: District of New York, though out of respect for the
Speaker 6: role of the court and sentencing, we were trained that
Speaker 6: that is a court function. Our job was to present
Speaker 6: the evidence, but we did not take a position on
Speaker 6: what sentence should be given by the court.
Speaker 10: The surprise was twelve years. We thought definitely he was
Speaker 10: going in for life. Everybody was like, oh my god,
Speaker 10: he could still get out. You know, we never thought
Speaker 10: we would getting a gift like that.
Speaker 1: Despite the short sentence, Andrew was proud of what they'd
Speaker 1: achieved and grateful he'd been chosen for the task.
Speaker 6: I don't know that there's anybody who's been an assistant
Speaker 6: the United States Attorney who doesn't say the same thing
Speaker 6: about the first time you stand up in front of
Speaker 6: a jury and you say, my name is Andrew Weisman,
Speaker 6: I represent the United States, that you don't feel to
Speaker 6: your core the enormous privilege and responsibility that comes with
Speaker 6: that statement.
Speaker 1: As the years continued to pass, Rita slowly became ready
Speaker 1: to live life on her own terms.
Speaker 10: Not until I was twenty four did I actually fully
Speaker 10: come into my own where that was concerned.
Speaker 7: I had to make the choice.
Speaker 10: If I could have stayed in that victim energy and
Speaker 10: said this is what they did to me, this is
Speaker 10: why I am who I am today and hold on
Speaker 10: to that, or I could have chosen to move forward,
Speaker 10: and that's what I did. I went to my mother
Speaker 10: and I said, you could tell him. They don't have
Speaker 10: to tell him. I says, I don't want to speak
Speaker 10: to him about it. I said, but this is my
Speaker 10: life and I'm living it. She hugged me and she
Speaker 10: said she understood, although she prayed every day that I
Speaker 10: would change my ways because she.
Speaker 7: Was so afraid of my soul. That's what it was.
Speaker 10: She was so embedded in the Catholic religion and all
Speaker 10: of that that she was more afraid of my soul
Speaker 10: than she was anything. And she loved everyone that came
Speaker 10: into me life. All the women that came into my
Speaker 10: life she loved, and my wife being the last that
Speaker 10: she know, just adored her.
Speaker 1: Reflecting on her father's half century climb from the streets
Speaker 1: little Italy to the top seat on the Mafia Commission,
Speaker 1: Rita couldn't help but wonder what it was all for.
Speaker 10: You know, he was always looking over his shoulder. I mean,
Speaker 10: the man went on vacation once in his life, on
Speaker 10: his honeymoon, three weeks and that was the end of it.
Speaker 7: They went to Florida, came home.
Speaker 1: He never left, which is interesting because he had so
Speaker 1: much money.
Speaker 10: Well, the money never matted as much as the power.
Speaker 10: Money was his way of keeping people close and being
Speaker 10: able to manipulate them. But to have that kind of
Speaker 10: power that he wielded, the ego just immediately took over.
Speaker 1: It was an ego that earned him millions of dollars,
Speaker 1: respect from the criminal underworld and a prison sentence that
Speaker 1: would keep him locked away for the rest of his life.
Speaker 1: But there was still some fight left the seventy year
Speaker 1: old mobster, and rumor had it that Giganti was determined
Speaker 1: to run the Genovese family from behind bars, with his
Speaker 1: own son serving as his intermediary. But there was someone
Speaker 1: else poised to take Giganti's crown, a man who had
Speaker 1: been steadily amassing power for over a decade, the very
Speaker 1: man who helped orchestrate the nineteen seventy nine slang of
Speaker 1: Carmine Galante. His name was Joe Messino, and in time
Speaker 1: he would be known as the last down.
Speaker 2: Next time on Law and Order Criminal Justice System.
Speaker 7: They needed something to keep him there, otherwise he was
Speaker 7: getting out.
Speaker 6: We ended up bringing a second charge against Gigante for
Speaker 6: lying repeatedly about his mental condition. The bananas were an
Speaker 6: absolute mess. To put it buoyantly, they had had problems
Speaker 6: going back to the nineteen sixties.
Speaker 5: The gun was so close to Durso's head, at the
Speaker 5: speed of the bullet, as soon as it hit the
Speaker 5: scullt came down his.
Speaker 6: Neck, everybody knew there was a lot more to it
Speaker 6: than just some guy got shot in the social club.
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 Nicolazi.
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 Alkali. This season is executive produced by Anna Sega Nicolazi,
Speaker 2: story producer Walker Lamond. Our researchers are Caroline Talmadge and
Speaker 2: Luke's Dents. Editing and sound designed by Jesse Funk. 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 Zernkelton. Special thanks to Fox five in New York,
Speaker 2: A b C and CBS for providing archival material for
Speaker 2: the show. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio and Wolf Entertainment,
Speaker 2: visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
Speaker 2: to your favorite shows. Thanks for listening.