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26_5ecb.xml_19 | train | ent | 26_5ecb.xml | 0 | A suspected Mafia leader has hanged himself in prison in Sicily hours after being arrested , Italian police say . | 6 | 6 | 36 | 43 | himself | HUM18441890442259339 | himself | ['suspect', 'mafia', 'leader', 'hang', 'prison', 'sicily', 'hour', 'arrest', 'italian', 'police'] | A suspected Mafia leader has hanged <m> himself </m> in prison in Sicily hours after being arrested , Italian police say . | A suspected Mafia leader has hanged <m> himself </m> in prison in Sicily hours after being arrested , Italian police say .
Police said Lo Presti , alleged boss of a Sicilian Mafia clan in a district of Palermo , hanged himself in his cell . |
26_5ecb.xml_20 | train | ent | 26_5ecb.xml | 1 | Police said Lo Presti , alleged boss of a Sicilian Mafia clan in a district of Palermo , hanged himself in his cell . | 2 | 3 | 12 | 21 | Lo Presti | HUM18441890442259339 | Presti | ['police', 'say', 'lo', 'presti', 'alleged', 'boss', 'sicilian', 'mafia', 'clan', 'district', 'palermo', 'hang', 'his', 'cell'] | Police said <m> Lo Presti </m> , alleged boss of a Sicilian Mafia clan in a district of Palermo , hanged himself in his cell . | A suspected Mafia leader has hanged himself in prison in Sicily hours after being arrested , Italian police say .
Police said <m> Lo Presti </m> , alleged boss of a Sicilian Mafia clan in a district of Palermo , hanged himself in his cell . |
26_5ecb.xml_21 | train | ent | 26_5ecb.xml | 1 | Police said Lo Presti , alleged boss of a Sicilian Mafia clan in a district of Palermo , hanged himself in his cell . | 19 | 19 | 96 | 103 | himself | HUM18441890442259339 | himself | ['police', 'say', 'lo', 'presti', 'alleged', 'boss', 'sicilian', 'mafia', 'clan', 'district', 'palermo', 'hang', 'his', 'cell'] | Police said Lo Presti , alleged boss of a Sicilian Mafia clan in a district of Palermo , hanged <m> himself </m> in his cell . | A suspected Mafia leader has hanged himself in prison in Sicily hours after being arrested , Italian police say .
Police said Lo Presti , alleged boss of a Sicilian Mafia clan in a district of Palermo , hanged <m> himself </m> in his cell . |
26_5ecb.xml_26 | train | ent | 26_5ecb.xml | 0 | A suspected Mafia leader has hanged himself in prison in Sicily hours after being arrested , Italian police say . | 7 | 10 | 44 | 63 | in prison in Sicily | LOC18441904201489761 | prison | ['suspect', 'mafia', 'leader', 'hang', 'prison', 'sicily', 'hour', 'arrest', 'italian', 'police'] | A suspected Mafia leader has hanged himself <m> in prison in Sicily </m> hours after being arrested , Italian police say . | A suspected Mafia leader has hanged himself <m> in prison in Sicily </m> hours after being arrested , Italian police say .
Police said Lo Presti , alleged boss of a Sicilian Mafia clan in a district of Palermo , hanged himself in his cell . |
26_5ecb.xml_25 | train | ent | 26_5ecb.xml | 1 | Police said Lo Presti , alleged boss of a Sicilian Mafia clan in a district of Palermo , hanged himself in his cell . | 20 | 22 | 104 | 115 | in his cell | LOC18441904201489761 | cell | ['police', 'say', 'lo', 'presti', 'alleged', 'boss', 'sicilian', 'mafia', 'clan', 'district', 'palermo', 'hang', 'his', 'cell'] | Police said Lo Presti , alleged boss of a Sicilian Mafia clan in a district of Palermo , hanged himself <m> in his cell </m> . | A suspected Mafia leader has hanged himself in prison in Sicily hours after being arrested , Italian police say .
Police said Lo Presti , alleged boss of a Sicilian Mafia clan in a district of Palermo , hanged himself <m> in his cell </m> . |
26_5ecb.xml_33 | train | ent | 26_5ecb.xml | 1 | Police said Lo Presti , alleged boss of a Sicilian Mafia clan in a district of Palermo , hanged himself in his cell . | 12 | 16 | 62 | 86 | in a district of Palermo | LOC18441954119583356 | district | ['police', 'say', 'lo', 'presti', 'alleged', 'boss', 'sicilian', 'mafia', 'clan', 'district', 'palermo', 'hang', 'his', 'cell'] | Police said Lo Presti , alleged boss of a Sicilian Mafia clan <m> in a district of Palermo </m> , hanged himself in his cell . | A suspected Mafia leader has hanged himself in prison in Sicily hours after being arrested , Italian police say .
Police said Lo Presti , alleged boss of a Sicilian Mafia clan <m> in a district of Palermo </m> , hanged himself in his cell . |
26_5ecb.xml_27 | train | ent | 26_5ecb.xml | 0 | A suspected Mafia leader has hanged himself in prison in Sicily hours after being arrested , Italian police say . | 11 | 11 | 64 | 69 | hours | TIM18442142154629810 | hour | ['suspect', 'mafia', 'leader', 'hang', 'prison', 'sicily', 'hour', 'arrest', 'italian', 'police'] | A suspected Mafia leader has hanged himself in prison in Sicily <m> hours </m> after being arrested , Italian police say . | A suspected Mafia leader has hanged himself in prison in Sicily <m> hours </m> after being arrested , Italian police say .
Police said Lo Presti , alleged boss of a Sicilian Mafia clan in a district of Palermo , hanged himself in his cell . |
26_5ecb.xml_28 | train | evt | 26_5ecb.xml | 0 | A suspected Mafia leader has hanged himself in prison in Sicily hours after being arrested , Italian police say . | 5 | 5 | 29 | 35 | hanged | ACT18441863532401006 | hang | ['suspect', 'mafia', 'leader', 'hang', 'prison', 'sicily', 'hour', 'arrest', 'italian', 'police'] | A suspected Mafia leader has <m> hanged </m> himself in prison in Sicily hours after being arrested , Italian police say . | A suspected Mafia leader has <m> hanged </m> himself in prison in Sicily hours after being arrested , Italian police say .
Police said Lo Presti , alleged boss of a Sicilian Mafia clan in a district of Palermo , hanged himself in his cell . |
26_5ecb.xml_29 | train | evt | 26_5ecb.xml | 0 | A suspected Mafia leader has hanged himself in prison in Sicily hours after being arrested , Italian police say . | 14 | 14 | 82 | 90 | arrested | ACT18441937963352466 | arrest | ['suspect', 'mafia', 'leader', 'hang', 'prison', 'sicily', 'hour', 'arrest', 'italian', 'police'] | A suspected Mafia leader has hanged himself in prison in Sicily hours after being <m> arrested </m> , Italian police say . | A suspected Mafia leader has hanged himself in prison in Sicily hours after being <m> arrested </m> , Italian police say .
Police said Lo Presti , alleged boss of a Sicilian Mafia clan in a district of Palermo , hanged himself in his cell . |
26_5ecb.xml_30 | train | evt | 26_5ecb.xml | 1 | Police said Lo Presti , alleged boss of a Sicilian Mafia clan in a district of Palermo , hanged himself in his cell . | 18 | 18 | 89 | 95 | hanged | ACT18441863532401006 | hang | ['police', 'say', 'lo', 'presti', 'alleged', 'boss', 'sicilian', 'mafia', 'clan', 'district', 'palermo', 'hang', 'his', 'cell'] | Police said Lo Presti , alleged boss of a Sicilian Mafia clan in a district of Palermo , <m> hanged </m> himself in his cell . | A suspected Mafia leader has hanged himself in prison in Sicily hours after being arrested , Italian police say .
Police said Lo Presti , alleged boss of a Sicilian Mafia clan in a district of Palermo , <m> hanged </m> himself in his cell . |
26_5ecb.xml_31 | train | evt | 26_5ecb.xml | 1 | Police said Lo Presti , alleged boss of a Sicilian Mafia clan in a district of Palermo , hanged himself in his cell . | 1 | 1 | 7 | 11 | said | ACT27338400145348157 | say | ['police', 'say', 'lo', 'presti', 'alleged', 'boss', 'sicilian', 'mafia', 'clan', 'district', 'palermo', 'hang', 'his', 'cell'] | Police <m> said </m> Lo Presti , alleged boss of a Sicilian Mafia clan in a district of Palermo , hanged himself in his cell . | A suspected Mafia leader has hanged himself in prison in Sicily hours after being arrested , Italian police say .
Police <m> said </m> Lo Presti , alleged boss of a Sicilian Mafia clan in a district of Palermo , hanged himself in his cell . |
26_5ecb.xml_32 | train | evt | 26_5ecb.xml | 0 | A suspected Mafia leader has hanged himself in prison in Sicily hours after being arrested , Italian police say . | 18 | 18 | 108 | 111 | say | ACT27338400145348157 | say | ['suspect', 'mafia', 'leader', 'hang', 'prison', 'sicily', 'hour', 'arrest', 'italian', 'police'] | A suspected Mafia leader has hanged himself in prison in Sicily hours after being arrested , Italian police <m> say </m> . | A suspected Mafia leader has hanged himself in prison in Sicily hours after being arrested , Italian police <m> say </m> .
Police said Lo Presti , alleged boss of a Sicilian Mafia clan in a district of Palermo , hanged himself in his cell . |
26_1ecb.xml_34 | train | ent | 26_1ecb.xml | 0 | Gaetano Lo Presti , one of 99 alleged Sicilian Mafia members seized on Tuesday , has apparently hanged himself with his belt in prison . | 8 | 9 | 38 | 52 | Sicilian Mafia | 10000000823 | Sicilian | ['gaetano', 'lo', 'presti', '99', 'allege', 'sicilian', 'mafia', 'member', 'seize', 'tuesday', 'apparently', 'hang', 'his', 'belt', 'prison'] | Gaetano Lo Presti , one of 99 alleged <m> Sicilian Mafia </m> members seized on Tuesday , has apparently hanged himself with his belt in prison . | Gaetano Lo Presti , one of 99 alleged <m> Sicilian Mafia </m> members seized on Tuesday , has apparently hanged himself with his belt in prison .
Lo Presti , 52 , head of Mafia clans in the Porta Nuova area of Palermo , was found dead in Pagliarelli prison only hours after his arrest . |
26_1ecb.xml_35 | train | ent | 26_1ecb.xml | 1 | Lo Presti , 52 , head of Mafia clans in the Porta Nuova area of Palermo , was found dead in Pagliarelli prison only hours after his arrest . | 8 | 8 | 31 | 36 | clans | 10000000824 | clan | ['lo', 'presti', '52', 'head', 'mafia', 'clan', 'porta', 'nuova', 'area', 'palermo', 'find', 'dead', 'pagliarelli', 'prison', 'hour', 'his', 'arrest'] | Lo Presti , 52 , head of Mafia <m> clans </m> in the Porta Nuova area of Palermo , was found dead in Pagliarelli prison only hours after his arrest . | Gaetano Lo Presti , one of 99 alleged Sicilian Mafia members seized on Tuesday , has apparently hanged himself with his belt in prison .
Lo Presti , 52 , head of Mafia <m> clans </m> in the Porta Nuova area of Palermo , was found dead in Pagliarelli prison only hours after his arrest . |
26_1ecb.xml_36 | train | ent | 26_1ecb.xml | 0 | Gaetano Lo Presti , one of 99 alleged Sicilian Mafia members seized on Tuesday , has apparently hanged himself with his belt in prison . | 4 | 4 | 20 | 23 | one | HUM18441890442259339 | one | ['gaetano', 'lo', 'presti', '99', 'allege', 'sicilian', 'mafia', 'member', 'seize', 'tuesday', 'apparently', 'hang', 'his', 'belt', 'prison'] | Gaetano Lo Presti , <m> one </m> of 99 alleged Sicilian Mafia members seized on Tuesday , has apparently hanged himself with his belt in prison . | Gaetano Lo Presti , <m> one </m> of 99 alleged Sicilian Mafia members seized on Tuesday , has apparently hanged himself with his belt in prison .
Lo Presti , 52 , head of Mafia clans in the Porta Nuova area of Palermo , was found dead in Pagliarelli prison only hours after his arrest . |
26_1ecb.xml_21 | train | ent | 26_1ecb.xml | 0 | Gaetano Lo Presti , one of 99 alleged Sicilian Mafia members seized on Tuesday , has apparently hanged himself with his belt in prison . | 0 | 2 | 0 | 17 | Gaetano Lo Presti | HUM18441890442259339 | Gaetano | ['gaetano', 'lo', 'presti', '99', 'allege', 'sicilian', 'mafia', 'member', 'seize', 'tuesday', 'apparently', 'hang', 'his', 'belt', 'prison'] | <m> Gaetano Lo Presti </m> , one of 99 alleged Sicilian Mafia members seized on Tuesday , has apparently hanged himself with his belt in prison . | <m> Gaetano Lo Presti </m> , one of 99 alleged Sicilian Mafia members seized on Tuesday , has apparently hanged himself with his belt in prison .
Lo Presti , 52 , head of Mafia clans in the Porta Nuova area of Palermo , was found dead in Pagliarelli prison only hours after his arrest . |
26_1ecb.xml_22 | train | ent | 26_1ecb.xml | 0 | Gaetano Lo Presti , one of 99 alleged Sicilian Mafia members seized on Tuesday , has apparently hanged himself with his belt in prison . | 10 | 10 | 53 | 60 | members | 10000000825 | member | ['gaetano', 'lo', 'presti', '99', 'allege', 'sicilian', 'mafia', 'member', 'seize', 'tuesday', 'apparently', 'hang', 'his', 'belt', 'prison'] | Gaetano Lo Presti , one of 99 alleged Sicilian Mafia <m> members </m> seized on Tuesday , has apparently hanged himself with his belt in prison . | Gaetano Lo Presti , one of 99 alleged Sicilian Mafia <m> members </m> seized on Tuesday , has apparently hanged himself with his belt in prison .
Lo Presti , 52 , head of Mafia clans in the Porta Nuova area of Palermo , was found dead in Pagliarelli prison only hours after his arrest . |
26_1ecb.xml_23 | train | ent | 26_1ecb.xml | 0 | Gaetano Lo Presti , one of 99 alleged Sicilian Mafia members seized on Tuesday , has apparently hanged himself with his belt in prison . | 18 | 18 | 103 | 110 | himself | HUM18441890442259339 | himself | ['gaetano', 'lo', 'presti', '99', 'allege', 'sicilian', 'mafia', 'member', 'seize', 'tuesday', 'apparently', 'hang', 'his', 'belt', 'prison'] | Gaetano Lo Presti , one of 99 alleged Sicilian Mafia members seized on Tuesday , has apparently hanged <m> himself </m> with his belt in prison . | Gaetano Lo Presti , one of 99 alleged Sicilian Mafia members seized on Tuesday , has apparently hanged <m> himself </m> with his belt in prison .
Lo Presti , 52 , head of Mafia clans in the Porta Nuova area of Palermo , was found dead in Pagliarelli prison only hours after his arrest . |
26_1ecb.xml_24 | train | ent | 26_1ecb.xml | 1 | Lo Presti , 52 , head of Mafia clans in the Porta Nuova area of Palermo , was found dead in Pagliarelli prison only hours after his arrest . | 0 | 1 | 0 | 9 | Lo Presti | HUM18441890442259339 | Presti | ['lo', 'presti', '52', 'head', 'mafia', 'clan', 'porta', 'nuova', 'area', 'palermo', 'find', 'dead', 'pagliarelli', 'prison', 'hour', 'his', 'arrest'] | <m> Lo Presti </m> , 52 , head of Mafia clans in the Porta Nuova area of Palermo , was found dead in Pagliarelli prison only hours after his arrest . | Gaetano Lo Presti , one of 99 alleged Sicilian Mafia members seized on Tuesday , has apparently hanged himself with his belt in prison .
<m> Lo Presti </m> , 52 , head of Mafia clans in the Porta Nuova area of Palermo , was found dead in Pagliarelli prison only hours after his arrest . |
26_1ecb.xml_29 | train | ent | 26_1ecb.xml | 0 | Gaetano Lo Presti , one of 99 alleged Sicilian Mafia members seized on Tuesday , has apparently hanged himself with his belt in prison . | 22 | 23 | 125 | 134 | in prison | LOC18441904201489761 | prison | ['gaetano', 'lo', 'presti', '99', 'allege', 'sicilian', 'mafia', 'member', 'seize', 'tuesday', 'apparently', 'hang', 'his', 'belt', 'prison'] | Gaetano Lo Presti , one of 99 alleged Sicilian Mafia members seized on Tuesday , has apparently hanged himself with his belt <m> in prison </m> . | Gaetano Lo Presti , one of 99 alleged Sicilian Mafia members seized on Tuesday , has apparently hanged himself with his belt <m> in prison </m> .
Lo Presti , 52 , head of Mafia clans in the Porta Nuova area of Palermo , was found dead in Pagliarelli prison only hours after his arrest . |
26_1ecb.xml_32 | train | ent | 26_1ecb.xml | 1 | Lo Presti , 52 , head of Mafia clans in the Porta Nuova area of Palermo , was found dead in Pagliarelli prison only hours after his arrest . | 20 | 22 | 89 | 110 | in Pagliarelli prison | LOC18441904201489761 | Pagliarelli | ['lo', 'presti', '52', 'head', 'mafia', 'clan', 'porta', 'nuova', 'area', 'palermo', 'find', 'dead', 'pagliarelli', 'prison', 'hour', 'his', 'arrest'] | Lo Presti , 52 , head of Mafia clans in the Porta Nuova area of Palermo , was found dead <m> in Pagliarelli prison </m> only hours after his arrest . | Gaetano Lo Presti , one of 99 alleged Sicilian Mafia members seized on Tuesday , has apparently hanged himself with his belt in prison .
Lo Presti , 52 , head of Mafia clans in the Porta Nuova area of Palermo , was found dead <m> in Pagliarelli prison </m> only hours after his arrest . |
26_1ecb.xml_31 | train | ent | 26_1ecb.xml | 1 | Lo Presti , 52 , head of Mafia clans in the Porta Nuova area of Palermo , was found dead in Pagliarelli prison only hours after his arrest . | 9 | 15 | 37 | 71 | in the Porta Nuova area of Palermo | LOC18441954119583356 | Palermo | ['lo', 'presti', '52', 'head', 'mafia', 'clan', 'porta', 'nuova', 'area', 'palermo', 'find', 'dead', 'pagliarelli', 'prison', 'hour', 'his', 'arrest'] | Lo Presti , 52 , head of Mafia clans <m> in the Porta Nuova area of Palermo </m> , was found dead in Pagliarelli prison only hours after his arrest . | Gaetano Lo Presti , one of 99 alleged Sicilian Mafia members seized on Tuesday , has apparently hanged himself with his belt in prison .
Lo Presti , 52 , head of Mafia clans <m> in the Porta Nuova area of Palermo </m> , was found dead in Pagliarelli prison only hours after his arrest . |
26_1ecb.xml_28 | train | ent | 26_1ecb.xml | 0 | Gaetano Lo Presti , one of 99 alleged Sicilian Mafia members seized on Tuesday , has apparently hanged himself with his belt in prison . | 21 | 21 | 120 | 124 | belt | 10000000826 | belt | ['gaetano', 'lo', 'presti', '99', 'allege', 'sicilian', 'mafia', 'member', 'seize', 'tuesday', 'apparently', 'hang', 'his', 'belt', 'prison'] | Gaetano Lo Presti , one of 99 alleged Sicilian Mafia members seized on Tuesday , has apparently hanged himself with his <m> belt </m> in prison . | Gaetano Lo Presti , one of 99 alleged Sicilian Mafia members seized on Tuesday , has apparently hanged himself with his <m> belt </m> in prison .
Lo Presti , 52 , head of Mafia clans in the Porta Nuova area of Palermo , was found dead in Pagliarelli prison only hours after his arrest . |
26_1ecb.xml_30 | train | ent | 26_1ecb.xml | 0 | Gaetano Lo Presti , one of 99 alleged Sicilian Mafia members seized on Tuesday , has apparently hanged himself with his belt in prison . | 13 | 13 | 71 | 78 | Tuesday | TIM18441916830092148 | Tuesday | ['gaetano', 'lo', 'presti', '99', 'allege', 'sicilian', 'mafia', 'member', 'seize', 'tuesday', 'apparently', 'hang', 'his', 'belt', 'prison'] | Gaetano Lo Presti , one of 99 alleged Sicilian Mafia members seized on <m> Tuesday </m> , has apparently hanged himself with his belt in prison . | Gaetano Lo Presti , one of 99 alleged Sicilian Mafia members seized on <m> Tuesday </m> , has apparently hanged himself with his belt in prison .
Lo Presti , 52 , head of Mafia clans in the Porta Nuova area of Palermo , was found dead in Pagliarelli prison only hours after his arrest . |
26_1ecb.xml_33 | train | ent | 26_1ecb.xml | 1 | Lo Presti , 52 , head of Mafia clans in the Porta Nuova area of Palermo , was found dead in Pagliarelli prison only hours after his arrest . | 24 | 24 | 116 | 121 | hours | TIM18442142154629810 | hour | ['lo', 'presti', '52', 'head', 'mafia', 'clan', 'porta', 'nuova', 'area', 'palermo', 'find', 'dead', 'pagliarelli', 'prison', 'hour', 'his', 'arrest'] | Lo Presti , 52 , head of Mafia clans in the Porta Nuova area of Palermo , was found dead in Pagliarelli prison only <m> hours </m> after his arrest . | Gaetano Lo Presti , one of 99 alleged Sicilian Mafia members seized on Tuesday , has apparently hanged himself with his belt in prison .
Lo Presti , 52 , head of Mafia clans in the Porta Nuova area of Palermo , was found dead in Pagliarelli prison only <m> hours </m> after his arrest . |
26_1ecb.xml_37 | train | evt | 26_1ecb.xml | 1 | Lo Presti , 52 , head of Mafia clans in the Porta Nuova area of Palermo , was found dead in Pagliarelli prison only hours after his arrest . | 27 | 27 | 132 | 138 | arrest | ACT18441937963352466 | arrest | ['lo', 'presti', '52', 'head', 'mafia', 'clan', 'porta', 'nuova', 'area', 'palermo', 'find', 'dead', 'pagliarelli', 'prison', 'hour', 'his', 'arrest'] | Lo Presti , 52 , head of Mafia clans in the Porta Nuova area of Palermo , was found dead in Pagliarelli prison only hours after his <m> arrest </m> . | Gaetano Lo Presti , one of 99 alleged Sicilian Mafia members seized on Tuesday , has apparently hanged himself with his belt in prison .
Lo Presti , 52 , head of Mafia clans in the Porta Nuova area of Palermo , was found dead in Pagliarelli prison only hours after his <m> arrest </m> . |
26_1ecb.xml_25 | train | evt | 26_1ecb.xml | 0 | Gaetano Lo Presti , one of 99 alleged Sicilian Mafia members seized on Tuesday , has apparently hanged himself with his belt in prison . | 11 | 11 | 61 | 67 | seized | ACT18441863532401006 | seize | ['gaetano', 'lo', 'presti', '99', 'allege', 'sicilian', 'mafia', 'member', 'seize', 'tuesday', 'apparently', 'hang', 'his', 'belt', 'prison'] | Gaetano Lo Presti , one of 99 alleged Sicilian Mafia members <m> seized </m> on Tuesday , has apparently hanged himself with his belt in prison . | Gaetano Lo Presti , one of 99 alleged Sicilian Mafia members <m> seized </m> on Tuesday , has apparently hanged himself with his belt in prison .
Lo Presti , 52 , head of Mafia clans in the Porta Nuova area of Palermo , was found dead in Pagliarelli prison only hours after his arrest . |
26_1ecb.xml_26 | train | evt | 26_1ecb.xml | 0 | Gaetano Lo Presti , one of 99 alleged Sicilian Mafia members seized on Tuesday , has apparently hanged himself with his belt in prison . | 17 | 17 | 96 | 102 | hanged | ACT18441863532401006 | hang | ['gaetano', 'lo', 'presti', '99', 'allege', 'sicilian', 'mafia', 'member', 'seize', 'tuesday', 'apparently', 'hang', 'his', 'belt', 'prison'] | Gaetano Lo Presti , one of 99 alleged Sicilian Mafia members seized on Tuesday , has apparently <m> hanged </m> himself with his belt in prison . | Gaetano Lo Presti , one of 99 alleged Sicilian Mafia members seized on Tuesday , has apparently <m> hanged </m> himself with his belt in prison .
Lo Presti , 52 , head of Mafia clans in the Porta Nuova area of Palermo , was found dead in Pagliarelli prison only hours after his arrest . |
26_1ecb.xml_27 | train | evt | 26_1ecb.xml | 1 | Lo Presti , 52 , head of Mafia clans in the Porta Nuova area of Palermo , was found dead in Pagliarelli prison only hours after his arrest . | 18 | 18 | 78 | 83 | found | ACT18441980729373787 | find | ['lo', 'presti', '52', 'head', 'mafia', 'clan', 'porta', 'nuova', 'area', 'palermo', 'find', 'dead', 'pagliarelli', 'prison', 'hour', 'his', 'arrest'] | Lo Presti , 52 , head of Mafia clans in the Porta Nuova area of Palermo , was <m> found </m> dead in Pagliarelli prison only hours after his arrest . | Gaetano Lo Presti , one of 99 alleged Sicilian Mafia members seized on Tuesday , has apparently hanged himself with his belt in prison .
Lo Presti , 52 , head of Mafia clans in the Porta Nuova area of Palermo , was <m> found </m> dead in Pagliarelli prison only hours after his arrest . |
26_1ecb.xml_38 | train | evt | 26_1ecb.xml | 1 | Lo Presti , 52 , head of Mafia clans in the Porta Nuova area of Palermo , was found dead in Pagliarelli prison only hours after his arrest . | 19 | 19 | 84 | 88 | dead | ACT18441863532401006 | dead | ['lo', 'presti', '52', 'head', 'mafia', 'clan', 'porta', 'nuova', 'area', 'palermo', 'find', 'dead', 'pagliarelli', 'prison', 'hour', 'his', 'arrest'] | Lo Presti , 52 , head of Mafia clans in the Porta Nuova area of Palermo , was found <m> dead </m> in Pagliarelli prison only hours after his arrest . | Gaetano Lo Presti , one of 99 alleged Sicilian Mafia members seized on Tuesday , has apparently hanged himself with his belt in prison .
Lo Presti , 52 , head of Mafia clans in the Porta Nuova area of Palermo , was found <m> dead </m> in Pagliarelli prison only hours after his arrest . |
26_8ecb.xml_39 | train | ent | 26_8ecb.xml | 0 | A suspected Mafia leader committed suicide overnight after being arrested in a major police sweep , police in Palermo , Sicily , said on Wednesday . | 16 | 16 | 100 | 106 | police | HUM18441875401449335 | police | ['suspect', 'mafia', 'leader', 'commit', 'suicide', 'overnight', 'arrest', 'major', 'police', 'sweep', 'police', 'palermo', 'sicily', 'say', 'wednesday'] | A suspected Mafia leader committed suicide overnight after being arrested in a major police sweep , <m> police </m> in Palermo , Sicily , said on Wednesday . | A suspected Mafia leader committed suicide overnight after being arrested in a major police sweep , <m> police </m> in Palermo , Sicily , said on Wednesday .
He may have been driven to suicide because wiretapped conversations between him and other Mafia bosses helped lead to the police sweep on Tuesday in which 89 people were arrested following a nine-month probe , the Ansa news agency reported . |
26_8ecb.xml_40 | train | ent | 26_8ecb.xml | 1 | He may have been driven to suicide because wiretapped conversations between him and other Mafia bosses helped lead to the police sweep on Tuesday in which 89 people were arrested following a nine-month probe , the Ansa news agency reported . | 35 | 38 | 210 | 230 | the Ansa news agency | 10000000827 | agency | ['he', 'drive', 'suicide', 'wiretappe', 'conversation', 'he', 'mafia', 'boss', 'help', 'lead', 'police', 'sweep', 'tuesday', '89', 'people', 'arrest', 'follow', 'nine-month', 'probe', 'ansa', 'news', 'agency', 'report'] | He may have been driven to suicide because wiretapped conversations between him and other Mafia bosses helped lead to the police sweep on Tuesday in which 89 people were arrested following a nine-month probe , <m> the Ansa news agency </m> reported . | A suspected Mafia leader committed suicide overnight after being arrested in a major police sweep , police in Palermo , Sicily , said on Wednesday .
He may have been driven to suicide because wiretapped conversations between him and other Mafia bosses helped lead to the police sweep on Tuesday in which 89 people were arrested following a nine-month probe , <m> the Ansa news agency </m> reported . |
26_8ecb.xml_41 | train | ent | 26_8ecb.xml | 1 | He may have been driven to suicide because wiretapped conversations between him and other Mafia bosses helped lead to the police sweep on Tuesday in which 89 people were arrested following a nine-month probe , the Ansa news agency reported . | 14 | 15 | 90 | 102 | Mafia bosses | 10000000828 | boss | ['he', 'drive', 'suicide', 'wiretappe', 'conversation', 'he', 'mafia', 'boss', 'help', 'lead', 'police', 'sweep', 'tuesday', '89', 'people', 'arrest', 'follow', 'nine-month', 'probe', 'ansa', 'news', 'agency', 'report'] | He may have been driven to suicide because wiretapped conversations between him and other <m> Mafia bosses </m> helped lead to the police sweep on Tuesday in which 89 people were arrested following a nine-month probe , the Ansa news agency reported . | A suspected Mafia leader committed suicide overnight after being arrested in a major police sweep , police in Palermo , Sicily , said on Wednesday .
He may have been driven to suicide because wiretapped conversations between him and other <m> Mafia bosses </m> helped lead to the police sweep on Tuesday in which 89 people were arrested following a nine-month probe , the Ansa news agency reported . |
26_8ecb.xml_42 | train | ent | 26_8ecb.xml | 1 | He may have been driven to suicide because wiretapped conversations between him and other Mafia bosses helped lead to the police sweep on Tuesday in which 89 people were arrested following a nine-month probe , the Ansa news agency reported . | 27 | 27 | 158 | 164 | people | 10000000829 | people | ['he', 'drive', 'suicide', 'wiretappe', 'conversation', 'he', 'mafia', 'boss', 'help', 'lead', 'police', 'sweep', 'tuesday', '89', 'people', 'arrest', 'follow', 'nine-month', 'probe', 'ansa', 'news', 'agency', 'report'] | He may have been driven to suicide because wiretapped conversations between him and other Mafia bosses helped lead to the police sweep on Tuesday in which 89 <m> people </m> were arrested following a nine-month probe , the Ansa news agency reported . | A suspected Mafia leader committed suicide overnight after being arrested in a major police sweep , police in Palermo , Sicily , said on Wednesday .
He may have been driven to suicide because wiretapped conversations between him and other Mafia bosses helped lead to the police sweep on Tuesday in which 89 <m> people </m> were arrested following a nine-month probe , the Ansa news agency reported . |
26_8ecb.xml_24 | train | ent | 26_8ecb.xml | 0 | A suspected Mafia leader committed suicide overnight after being arrested in a major police sweep , police in Palermo , Sicily , said on Wednesday . | 2 | 3 | 12 | 24 | Mafia leader | HUM18441890442259339 | leader | ['suspect', 'mafia', 'leader', 'commit', 'suicide', 'overnight', 'arrest', 'major', 'police', 'sweep', 'police', 'palermo', 'sicily', 'say', 'wednesday'] | A suspected <m> Mafia leader </m> committed suicide overnight after being arrested in a major police sweep , police in Palermo , Sicily , said on Wednesday . | A suspected <m> Mafia leader </m> committed suicide overnight after being arrested in a major police sweep , police in Palermo , Sicily , said on Wednesday .
He may have been driven to suicide because wiretapped conversations between him and other Mafia bosses helped lead to the police sweep on Tuesday in which 89 people were arrested following a nine-month probe , the Ansa news agency reported . |
26_8ecb.xml_25 | train | ent | 26_8ecb.xml | 1 | He may have been driven to suicide because wiretapped conversations between him and other Mafia bosses helped lead to the police sweep on Tuesday in which 89 people were arrested following a nine-month probe , the Ansa news agency reported . | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | He | HUM18441890442259339 | he | ['he', 'drive', 'suicide', 'wiretappe', 'conversation', 'he', 'mafia', 'boss', 'help', 'lead', 'police', 'sweep', 'tuesday', '89', 'people', 'arrest', 'follow', 'nine-month', 'probe', 'ansa', 'news', 'agency', 'report'] | <m> He </m> may have been driven to suicide because wiretapped conversations between him and other Mafia bosses helped lead to the police sweep on Tuesday in which 89 people were arrested following a nine-month probe , the Ansa news agency reported . | A suspected Mafia leader committed suicide overnight after being arrested in a major police sweep , police in Palermo , Sicily , said on Wednesday .
<m> He </m> may have been driven to suicide because wiretapped conversations between him and other Mafia bosses helped lead to the police sweep on Tuesday in which 89 people were arrested following a nine-month probe , the Ansa news agency reported . |
26_8ecb.xml_26 | train | ent | 26_8ecb.xml | 1 | He may have been driven to suicide because wiretapped conversations between him and other Mafia bosses helped lead to the police sweep on Tuesday in which 89 people were arrested following a nine-month probe , the Ansa news agency reported . | 11 | 11 | 76 | 79 | him | HUM18441890442259339 | he | ['he', 'drive', 'suicide', 'wiretappe', 'conversation', 'he', 'mafia', 'boss', 'help', 'lead', 'police', 'sweep', 'tuesday', '89', 'people', 'arrest', 'follow', 'nine-month', 'probe', 'ansa', 'news', 'agency', 'report'] | He may have been driven to suicide because wiretapped conversations between <m> him </m> and other Mafia bosses helped lead to the police sweep on Tuesday in which 89 people were arrested following a nine-month probe , the Ansa news agency reported . | A suspected Mafia leader committed suicide overnight after being arrested in a major police sweep , police in Palermo , Sicily , said on Wednesday .
He may have been driven to suicide because wiretapped conversations between <m> him </m> and other Mafia bosses helped lead to the police sweep on Tuesday in which 89 people were arrested following a nine-month probe , the Ansa news agency reported . |
26_8ecb.xml_43 | train | ent | 26_8ecb.xml | 0 | A suspected Mafia leader committed suicide overnight after being arrested in a major police sweep , police in Palermo , Sicily , said on Wednesday . | 17 | 20 | 107 | 126 | in Palermo , Sicily | 10000000830 | Palermo | ['suspect', 'mafia', 'leader', 'commit', 'suicide', 'overnight', 'arrest', 'major', 'police', 'sweep', 'police', 'palermo', 'sicily', 'say', 'wednesday'] | A suspected Mafia leader committed suicide overnight after being arrested in a major police sweep , police <m> in Palermo , Sicily </m> , said on Wednesday . | A suspected Mafia leader committed suicide overnight after being arrested in a major police sweep , police <m> in Palermo , Sicily </m> , said on Wednesday .
He may have been driven to suicide because wiretapped conversations between him and other Mafia bosses helped lead to the police sweep on Tuesday in which 89 people were arrested following a nine-month probe , the Ansa news agency reported . |
26_8ecb.xml_27 | train | ent | 26_8ecb.xml | 1 | He may have been driven to suicide because wiretapped conversations between him and other Mafia bosses helped lead to the police sweep on Tuesday in which 89 people were arrested following a nine-month probe , the Ansa news agency reported . | 9 | 9 | 54 | 67 | conversations | 10000000831 | conversation | ['he', 'drive', 'suicide', 'wiretappe', 'conversation', 'he', 'mafia', 'boss', 'help', 'lead', 'police', 'sweep', 'tuesday', '89', 'people', 'arrest', 'follow', 'nine-month', 'probe', 'ansa', 'news', 'agency', 'report'] | He may have been driven to suicide because wiretapped <m> conversations </m> between him and other Mafia bosses helped lead to the police sweep on Tuesday in which 89 people were arrested following a nine-month probe , the Ansa news agency reported . | A suspected Mafia leader committed suicide overnight after being arrested in a major police sweep , police in Palermo , Sicily , said on Wednesday .
He may have been driven to suicide because wiretapped <m> conversations </m> between him and other Mafia bosses helped lead to the police sweep on Tuesday in which 89 people were arrested following a nine-month probe , the Ansa news agency reported . |
26_8ecb.xml_44 | train | ent | 26_8ecb.xml | 0 | A suspected Mafia leader committed suicide overnight after being arrested in a major police sweep , police in Palermo , Sicily , said on Wednesday . | 24 | 24 | 137 | 146 | Wednesday | TIM18442419387533474 | Wednesday | ['suspect', 'mafia', 'leader', 'commit', 'suicide', 'overnight', 'arrest', 'major', 'police', 'sweep', 'police', 'palermo', 'sicily', 'say', 'wednesday'] | A suspected Mafia leader committed suicide overnight after being arrested in a major police sweep , police in Palermo , Sicily , said on <m> Wednesday </m> . | A suspected Mafia leader committed suicide overnight after being arrested in a major police sweep , police in Palermo , Sicily , said on <m> Wednesday </m> .
He may have been driven to suicide because wiretapped conversations between him and other Mafia bosses helped lead to the police sweep on Tuesday in which 89 people were arrested following a nine-month probe , the Ansa news agency reported . |
26_8ecb.xml_45 | train | ent | 26_8ecb.xml | 1 | He may have been driven to suicide because wiretapped conversations between him and other Mafia bosses helped lead to the police sweep on Tuesday in which 89 people were arrested following a nine-month probe , the Ansa news agency reported . | 23 | 23 | 138 | 145 | Tuesday | TIM18441916830092148 | Tuesday | ['he', 'drive', 'suicide', 'wiretappe', 'conversation', 'he', 'mafia', 'boss', 'help', 'lead', 'police', 'sweep', 'tuesday', '89', 'people', 'arrest', 'follow', 'nine-month', 'probe', 'ansa', 'news', 'agency', 'report'] | He may have been driven to suicide because wiretapped conversations between him and other Mafia bosses helped lead to the police sweep on <m> Tuesday </m> in which 89 people were arrested following a nine-month probe , the Ansa news agency reported . | A suspected Mafia leader committed suicide overnight after being arrested in a major police sweep , police in Palermo , Sicily , said on Wednesday .
He may have been driven to suicide because wiretapped conversations between him and other Mafia bosses helped lead to the police sweep on <m> Tuesday </m> in which 89 people were arrested following a nine-month probe , the Ansa news agency reported . |
26_8ecb.xml_32 | train | evt | 26_8ecb.xml | 1 | He may have been driven to suicide because wiretapped conversations between him and other Mafia bosses helped lead to the police sweep on Tuesday in which 89 people were arrested following a nine-month probe , the Ansa news agency reported . | 17 | 17 | 110 | 114 | lead | 10000000832 | lead | ['he', 'drive', 'suicide', 'wiretappe', 'conversation', 'he', 'mafia', 'boss', 'help', 'lead', 'police', 'sweep', 'tuesday', '89', 'people', 'arrest', 'follow', 'nine-month', 'probe', 'ansa', 'news', 'agency', 'report'] | He may have been driven to suicide because wiretapped conversations between him and other Mafia bosses helped <m> lead </m> to the police sweep on Tuesday in which 89 people were arrested following a nine-month probe , the Ansa news agency reported . | A suspected Mafia leader committed suicide overnight after being arrested in a major police sweep , police in Palermo , Sicily , said on Wednesday .
He may have been driven to suicide because wiretapped conversations between him and other Mafia bosses helped <m> lead </m> to the police sweep on Tuesday in which 89 people were arrested following a nine-month probe , the Ansa news agency reported . |
26_8ecb.xml_33 | train | evt | 26_8ecb.xml | 1 | He may have been driven to suicide because wiretapped conversations between him and other Mafia bosses helped lead to the police sweep on Tuesday in which 89 people were arrested following a nine-month probe , the Ansa news agency reported . | 21 | 21 | 129 | 134 | sweep | ACT27337443408187958 | sweep | ['he', 'drive', 'suicide', 'wiretappe', 'conversation', 'he', 'mafia', 'boss', 'help', 'lead', 'police', 'sweep', 'tuesday', '89', 'people', 'arrest', 'follow', 'nine-month', 'probe', 'ansa', 'news', 'agency', 'report'] | He may have been driven to suicide because wiretapped conversations between him and other Mafia bosses helped lead to the police <m> sweep </m> on Tuesday in which 89 people were arrested following a nine-month probe , the Ansa news agency reported . | A suspected Mafia leader committed suicide overnight after being arrested in a major police sweep , police in Palermo , Sicily , said on Wednesday .
He may have been driven to suicide because wiretapped conversations between him and other Mafia bosses helped lead to the police <m> sweep </m> on Tuesday in which 89 people were arrested following a nine-month probe , the Ansa news agency reported . |
26_8ecb.xml_34 | train | evt | 26_8ecb.xml | 1 | He may have been driven to suicide because wiretapped conversations between him and other Mafia bosses helped lead to the police sweep on Tuesday in which 89 people were arrested following a nine-month probe , the Ansa news agency reported . | 29 | 29 | 170 | 178 | arrested | 10000000833 | arrest | ['he', 'drive', 'suicide', 'wiretappe', 'conversation', 'he', 'mafia', 'boss', 'help', 'lead', 'police', 'sweep', 'tuesday', '89', 'people', 'arrest', 'follow', 'nine-month', 'probe', 'ansa', 'news', 'agency', 'report'] | He may have been driven to suicide because wiretapped conversations between him and other Mafia bosses helped lead to the police sweep on Tuesday in which 89 people were <m> arrested </m> following a nine-month probe , the Ansa news agency reported . | A suspected Mafia leader committed suicide overnight after being arrested in a major police sweep , police in Palermo , Sicily , said on Wednesday .
He may have been driven to suicide because wiretapped conversations between him and other Mafia bosses helped lead to the police sweep on Tuesday in which 89 people were <m> arrested </m> following a nine-month probe , the Ansa news agency reported . |
26_8ecb.xml_35 | train | evt | 26_8ecb.xml | 1 | He may have been driven to suicide because wiretapped conversations between him and other Mafia bosses helped lead to the police sweep on Tuesday in which 89 people were arrested following a nine-month probe , the Ansa news agency reported . | 33 | 33 | 202 | 207 | probe | 10000000834 | probe | ['he', 'drive', 'suicide', 'wiretappe', 'conversation', 'he', 'mafia', 'boss', 'help', 'lead', 'police', 'sweep', 'tuesday', '89', 'people', 'arrest', 'follow', 'nine-month', 'probe', 'ansa', 'news', 'agency', 'report'] | He may have been driven to suicide because wiretapped conversations between him and other Mafia bosses helped lead to the police sweep on Tuesday in which 89 people were arrested following a nine-month <m> probe </m> , the Ansa news agency reported . | A suspected Mafia leader committed suicide overnight after being arrested in a major police sweep , police in Palermo , Sicily , said on Wednesday .
He may have been driven to suicide because wiretapped conversations between him and other Mafia bosses helped lead to the police sweep on Tuesday in which 89 people were arrested following a nine-month <m> probe </m> , the Ansa news agency reported . |
26_8ecb.xml_36 | train | evt | 26_8ecb.xml | 0 | A suspected Mafia leader committed suicide overnight after being arrested in a major police sweep , police in Palermo , Sicily , said on Wednesday . | 9 | 9 | 65 | 73 | arrested | ACT18441937963352466 | arrest | ['suspect', 'mafia', 'leader', 'commit', 'suicide', 'overnight', 'arrest', 'major', 'police', 'sweep', 'police', 'palermo', 'sicily', 'say', 'wednesday'] | A suspected Mafia leader committed suicide overnight after being <m> arrested </m> in a major police sweep , police in Palermo , Sicily , said on Wednesday . | A suspected Mafia leader committed suicide overnight after being <m> arrested </m> in a major police sweep , police in Palermo , Sicily , said on Wednesday .
He may have been driven to suicide because wiretapped conversations between him and other Mafia bosses helped lead to the police sweep on Tuesday in which 89 people were arrested following a nine-month probe , the Ansa news agency reported . |
26_8ecb.xml_28 | train | evt | 26_8ecb.xml | 0 | A suspected Mafia leader committed suicide overnight after being arrested in a major police sweep , police in Palermo , Sicily , said on Wednesday . | 5 | 5 | 35 | 42 | suicide | ACT18441863532401006 | suicide | ['suspect', 'mafia', 'leader', 'commit', 'suicide', 'overnight', 'arrest', 'major', 'police', 'sweep', 'police', 'palermo', 'sicily', 'say', 'wednesday'] | A suspected Mafia leader committed <m> suicide </m> overnight after being arrested in a major police sweep , police in Palermo , Sicily , said on Wednesday . | A suspected Mafia leader committed <m> suicide </m> overnight after being arrested in a major police sweep , police in Palermo , Sicily , said on Wednesday .
He may have been driven to suicide because wiretapped conversations between him and other Mafia bosses helped lead to the police sweep on Tuesday in which 89 people were arrested following a nine-month probe , the Ansa news agency reported . |
26_8ecb.xml_29 | train | evt | 26_8ecb.xml | 0 | A suspected Mafia leader committed suicide overnight after being arrested in a major police sweep , police in Palermo , Sicily , said on Wednesday . | 14 | 14 | 92 | 97 | sweep | ACT27337443408187958 | sweep | ['suspect', 'mafia', 'leader', 'commit', 'suicide', 'overnight', 'arrest', 'major', 'police', 'sweep', 'police', 'palermo', 'sicily', 'say', 'wednesday'] | A suspected Mafia leader committed suicide overnight after being arrested in a major police <m> sweep </m> , police in Palermo , Sicily , said on Wednesday . | A suspected Mafia leader committed suicide overnight after being arrested in a major police <m> sweep </m> , police in Palermo , Sicily , said on Wednesday .
He may have been driven to suicide because wiretapped conversations between him and other Mafia bosses helped lead to the police sweep on Tuesday in which 89 people were arrested following a nine-month probe , the Ansa news agency reported . |
26_8ecb.xml_30 | train | evt | 26_8ecb.xml | 1 | He may have been driven to suicide because wiretapped conversations between him and other Mafia bosses helped lead to the police sweep on Tuesday in which 89 people were arrested following a nine-month probe , the Ansa news agency reported . | 4 | 4 | 17 | 23 | driven | 10000000835 | drive | ['he', 'drive', 'suicide', 'wiretappe', 'conversation', 'he', 'mafia', 'boss', 'help', 'lead', 'police', 'sweep', 'tuesday', '89', 'people', 'arrest', 'follow', 'nine-month', 'probe', 'ansa', 'news', 'agency', 'report'] | He may have been <m> driven </m> to suicide because wiretapped conversations between him and other Mafia bosses helped lead to the police sweep on Tuesday in which 89 people were arrested following a nine-month probe , the Ansa news agency reported . | A suspected Mafia leader committed suicide overnight after being arrested in a major police sweep , police in Palermo , Sicily , said on Wednesday .
He may have been <m> driven </m> to suicide because wiretapped conversations between him and other Mafia bosses helped lead to the police sweep on Tuesday in which 89 people were arrested following a nine-month probe , the Ansa news agency reported . |
26_8ecb.xml_31 | train | evt | 26_8ecb.xml | 1 | He may have been driven to suicide because wiretapped conversations between him and other Mafia bosses helped lead to the police sweep on Tuesday in which 89 people were arrested following a nine-month probe , the Ansa news agency reported . | 6 | 6 | 27 | 34 | suicide | ACT18441863532401006 | suicide | ['he', 'drive', 'suicide', 'wiretappe', 'conversation', 'he', 'mafia', 'boss', 'help', 'lead', 'police', 'sweep', 'tuesday', '89', 'people', 'arrest', 'follow', 'nine-month', 'probe', 'ansa', 'news', 'agency', 'report'] | He may have been driven to <m> suicide </m> because wiretapped conversations between him and other Mafia bosses helped lead to the police sweep on Tuesday in which 89 people were arrested following a nine-month probe , the Ansa news agency reported . | A suspected Mafia leader committed suicide overnight after being arrested in a major police sweep , police in Palermo , Sicily , said on Wednesday .
He may have been driven to <m> suicide </m> because wiretapped conversations between him and other Mafia bosses helped lead to the police sweep on Tuesday in which 89 people were arrested following a nine-month probe , the Ansa news agency reported . |
26_8ecb.xml_37 | train | evt | 26_8ecb.xml | 1 | He may have been driven to suicide because wiretapped conversations between him and other Mafia bosses helped lead to the police sweep on Tuesday in which 89 people were arrested following a nine-month probe , the Ansa news agency reported . | 39 | 39 | 231 | 239 | reported | 10000000836 | report | ['he', 'drive', 'suicide', 'wiretappe', 'conversation', 'he', 'mafia', 'boss', 'help', 'lead', 'police', 'sweep', 'tuesday', '89', 'people', 'arrest', 'follow', 'nine-month', 'probe', 'ansa', 'news', 'agency', 'report'] | He may have been driven to suicide because wiretapped conversations between him and other Mafia bosses helped lead to the police sweep on Tuesday in which 89 people were arrested following a nine-month probe , the Ansa news agency <m> reported </m> . | A suspected Mafia leader committed suicide overnight after being arrested in a major police sweep , police in Palermo , Sicily , said on Wednesday .
He may have been driven to suicide because wiretapped conversations between him and other Mafia bosses helped lead to the police sweep on Tuesday in which 89 people were arrested following a nine-month probe , the Ansa news agency <m> reported </m> . |
26_8ecb.xml_38 | train | evt | 26_8ecb.xml | 0 | A suspected Mafia leader committed suicide overnight after being arrested in a major police sweep , police in Palermo , Sicily , said on Wednesday . | 22 | 22 | 129 | 133 | said | ACT27338400145348157 | say | ['suspect', 'mafia', 'leader', 'commit', 'suicide', 'overnight', 'arrest', 'major', 'police', 'sweep', 'police', 'palermo', 'sicily', 'say', 'wednesday'] | A suspected Mafia leader committed suicide overnight after being arrested in a major police sweep , police in Palermo , Sicily , <m> said </m> on Wednesday . | A suspected Mafia leader committed suicide overnight after being arrested in a major police sweep , police in Palermo , Sicily , <m> said </m> on Wednesday .
He may have been driven to suicide because wiretapped conversations between him and other Mafia bosses helped lead to the police sweep on Tuesday in which 89 people were arrested following a nine-month probe , the Ansa news agency reported . |
26_4ecb.xml_45 | train | ent | 26_4ecb.xml | 1 | Carabinieri paramilitary police in Palermo said Gaetano Lo Presti , 52 , hanged himself in his cell in a Palermo jail Tuesday evening , hours after he was arrested in the raid . | 2 | 2 | 25 | 31 | police | HUM18441875401449335 | police | ['carabinieri', 'paramilitary', 'police', 'palermo', 'say', 'gaetano', 'lo', 'presti', '52', 'hang', 'his', 'cell', 'palermo', 'jail', 'tuesday', 'evening', 'hour', 'he', 'arrest', 'raid'] | Carabinieri paramilitary <m> police </m> in Palermo said Gaetano Lo Presti , 52 , hanged himself in his cell in a Palermo jail Tuesday evening , hours after he was arrested in the raid . | The alleged Mafia boss of a Palermo neighborhood hanged himself in jail , hours after he was arrested in a blitz against Cosa Nostra , police in Sicily said Wednesday .
Carabinieri paramilitary <m> police </m> in Palermo said Gaetano Lo Presti , 52 , hanged himself in his cell in a Palermo jail Tuesday evening , hours after he was arrested in the raid . |
26_4ecb.xml_46 | train | ent | 26_4ecb.xml | 0 | The alleged Mafia boss of a Palermo neighborhood hanged himself in jail , hours after he was arrested in a blitz against Cosa Nostra , police in Sicily said Wednesday . | 25 | 25 | 135 | 141 | police | HUM18441875401449335 | police | ['alleged', 'mafia', 'boss', 'palermo', 'neighborhood', 'hang', 'jail', 'hour', 'he', 'arrest', 'blitz', 'cosa', 'nostra', 'police', 'sicily', 'say', 'wednesday'] | The alleged Mafia boss of a Palermo neighborhood hanged himself in jail , hours after he was arrested in a blitz against Cosa Nostra , <m> police </m> in Sicily said Wednesday . | The alleged Mafia boss of a Palermo neighborhood hanged himself in jail , hours after he was arrested in a blitz against Cosa Nostra , <m> police </m> in Sicily said Wednesday .
Carabinieri paramilitary police in Palermo said Gaetano Lo Presti , 52 , hanged himself in his cell in a Palermo jail Tuesday evening , hours after he was arrested in the raid . |
26_4ecb.xml_47 | train | ent | 26_4ecb.xml | 0 | The alleged Mafia boss of a Palermo neighborhood hanged himself in jail , hours after he was arrested in a blitz against Cosa Nostra , police in Sicily said Wednesday . | 22 | 23 | 121 | 132 | Cosa Nostra | 10000000837 | Nostra | ['alleged', 'mafia', 'boss', 'palermo', 'neighborhood', 'hang', 'jail', 'hour', 'he', 'arrest', 'blitz', 'cosa', 'nostra', 'police', 'sicily', 'say', 'wednesday'] | The alleged Mafia boss of a Palermo neighborhood hanged himself in jail , hours after he was arrested in a blitz against <m> Cosa Nostra </m> , police in Sicily said Wednesday . | The alleged Mafia boss of a Palermo neighborhood hanged himself in jail , hours after he was arrested in a blitz against <m> Cosa Nostra </m> , police in Sicily said Wednesday .
Carabinieri paramilitary police in Palermo said Gaetano Lo Presti , 52 , hanged himself in his cell in a Palermo jail Tuesday evening , hours after he was arrested in the raid . |
26_4ecb.xml_30 | train | ent | 26_4ecb.xml | 0 | The alleged Mafia boss of a Palermo neighborhood hanged himself in jail , hours after he was arrested in a blitz against Cosa Nostra , police in Sicily said Wednesday . | 2 | 3 | 12 | 22 | Mafia boss | HUM18441890442259339 | Mafia | ['alleged', 'mafia', 'boss', 'palermo', 'neighborhood', 'hang', 'jail', 'hour', 'he', 'arrest', 'blitz', 'cosa', 'nostra', 'police', 'sicily', 'say', 'wednesday'] | The alleged <m> Mafia boss </m> of a Palermo neighborhood hanged himself in jail , hours after he was arrested in a blitz against Cosa Nostra , police in Sicily said Wednesday . | The alleged <m> Mafia boss </m> of a Palermo neighborhood hanged himself in jail , hours after he was arrested in a blitz against Cosa Nostra , police in Sicily said Wednesday .
Carabinieri paramilitary police in Palermo said Gaetano Lo Presti , 52 , hanged himself in his cell in a Palermo jail Tuesday evening , hours after he was arrested in the raid . |
26_4ecb.xml_32 | train | ent | 26_4ecb.xml | 0 | The alleged Mafia boss of a Palermo neighborhood hanged himself in jail , hours after he was arrested in a blitz against Cosa Nostra , police in Sicily said Wednesday . | 9 | 9 | 56 | 63 | himself | HUM18441890442259339 | himself | ['alleged', 'mafia', 'boss', 'palermo', 'neighborhood', 'hang', 'jail', 'hour', 'he', 'arrest', 'blitz', 'cosa', 'nostra', 'police', 'sicily', 'say', 'wednesday'] | The alleged Mafia boss of a Palermo neighborhood hanged <m> himself </m> in jail , hours after he was arrested in a blitz against Cosa Nostra , police in Sicily said Wednesday . | The alleged Mafia boss of a Palermo neighborhood hanged <m> himself </m> in jail , hours after he was arrested in a blitz against Cosa Nostra , police in Sicily said Wednesday .
Carabinieri paramilitary police in Palermo said Gaetano Lo Presti , 52 , hanged himself in his cell in a Palermo jail Tuesday evening , hours after he was arrested in the raid . |
26_4ecb.xml_33 | train | ent | 26_4ecb.xml | 0 | The alleged Mafia boss of a Palermo neighborhood hanged himself in jail , hours after he was arrested in a blitz against Cosa Nostra , police in Sicily said Wednesday . | 15 | 15 | 86 | 88 | he | HUM18441890442259339 | he | ['alleged', 'mafia', 'boss', 'palermo', 'neighborhood', 'hang', 'jail', 'hour', 'he', 'arrest', 'blitz', 'cosa', 'nostra', 'police', 'sicily', 'say', 'wednesday'] | The alleged Mafia boss of a Palermo neighborhood hanged himself in jail , hours after <m> he </m> was arrested in a blitz against Cosa Nostra , police in Sicily said Wednesday . | The alleged Mafia boss of a Palermo neighborhood hanged himself in jail , hours after <m> he </m> was arrested in a blitz against Cosa Nostra , police in Sicily said Wednesday .
Carabinieri paramilitary police in Palermo said Gaetano Lo Presti , 52 , hanged himself in his cell in a Palermo jail Tuesday evening , hours after he was arrested in the raid . |
26_4ecb.xml_34 | train | ent | 26_4ecb.xml | 1 | Carabinieri paramilitary police in Palermo said Gaetano Lo Presti , 52 , hanged himself in his cell in a Palermo jail Tuesday evening , hours after he was arrested in the raid . | 6 | 8 | 48 | 65 | Gaetano Lo Presti | HUM18441890442259339 | Gaetano | ['carabinieri', 'paramilitary', 'police', 'palermo', 'say', 'gaetano', 'lo', 'presti', '52', 'hang', 'his', 'cell', 'palermo', 'jail', 'tuesday', 'evening', 'hour', 'he', 'arrest', 'raid'] | Carabinieri paramilitary police in Palermo said <m> Gaetano Lo Presti </m> , 52 , hanged himself in his cell in a Palermo jail Tuesday evening , hours after he was arrested in the raid . | The alleged Mafia boss of a Palermo neighborhood hanged himself in jail , hours after he was arrested in a blitz against Cosa Nostra , police in Sicily said Wednesday .
Carabinieri paramilitary police in Palermo said <m> Gaetano Lo Presti </m> , 52 , hanged himself in his cell in a Palermo jail Tuesday evening , hours after he was arrested in the raid . |
26_4ecb.xml_35 | train | ent | 26_4ecb.xml | 1 | Carabinieri paramilitary police in Palermo said Gaetano Lo Presti , 52 , hanged himself in his cell in a Palermo jail Tuesday evening , hours after he was arrested in the raid . | 13 | 13 | 80 | 87 | himself | HUM18441890442259339 | himself | ['carabinieri', 'paramilitary', 'police', 'palermo', 'say', 'gaetano', 'lo', 'presti', '52', 'hang', 'his', 'cell', 'palermo', 'jail', 'tuesday', 'evening', 'hour', 'he', 'arrest', 'raid'] | Carabinieri paramilitary police in Palermo said Gaetano Lo Presti , 52 , hanged <m> himself </m> in his cell in a Palermo jail Tuesday evening , hours after he was arrested in the raid . | The alleged Mafia boss of a Palermo neighborhood hanged himself in jail , hours after he was arrested in a blitz against Cosa Nostra , police in Sicily said Wednesday .
Carabinieri paramilitary police in Palermo said Gaetano Lo Presti , 52 , hanged <m> himself </m> in his cell in a Palermo jail Tuesday evening , hours after he was arrested in the raid . |
26_4ecb.xml_36 | train | ent | 26_4ecb.xml | 1 | Carabinieri paramilitary police in Palermo said Gaetano Lo Presti , 52 , hanged himself in his cell in a Palermo jail Tuesday evening , hours after he was arrested in the raid . | 26 | 26 | 148 | 150 | he | HUM18441890442259339 | he | ['carabinieri', 'paramilitary', 'police', 'palermo', 'say', 'gaetano', 'lo', 'presti', '52', 'hang', 'his', 'cell', 'palermo', 'jail', 'tuesday', 'evening', 'hour', 'he', 'arrest', 'raid'] | Carabinieri paramilitary police in Palermo said Gaetano Lo Presti , 52 , hanged himself in his cell in a Palermo jail Tuesday evening , hours after <m> he </m> was arrested in the raid . | The alleged Mafia boss of a Palermo neighborhood hanged himself in jail , hours after he was arrested in a blitz against Cosa Nostra , police in Sicily said Wednesday .
Carabinieri paramilitary police in Palermo said Gaetano Lo Presti , 52 , hanged himself in his cell in a Palermo jail Tuesday evening , hours after <m> he </m> was arrested in the raid . |
26_4ecb.xml_54 | train | ent | 26_4ecb.xml | 1 | Carabinieri paramilitary police in Palermo said Gaetano Lo Presti , 52 , hanged himself in his cell in a Palermo jail Tuesday evening , hours after he was arrested in the raid . | 14 | 20 | 88 | 117 | in his cell in a Palermo jail | LOC18441904201489761 | Palermo | ['carabinieri', 'paramilitary', 'police', 'palermo', 'say', 'gaetano', 'lo', 'presti', '52', 'hang', 'his', 'cell', 'palermo', 'jail', 'tuesday', 'evening', 'hour', 'he', 'arrest', 'raid'] | Carabinieri paramilitary police in Palermo said Gaetano Lo Presti , 52 , hanged himself <m> in his cell in a Palermo jail </m> Tuesday evening , hours after he was arrested in the raid . | The alleged Mafia boss of a Palermo neighborhood hanged himself in jail , hours after he was arrested in a blitz against Cosa Nostra , police in Sicily said Wednesday .
Carabinieri paramilitary police in Palermo said Gaetano Lo Presti , 52 , hanged himself <m> in his cell in a Palermo jail </m> Tuesday evening , hours after he was arrested in the raid . |
26_4ecb.xml_55 | train | ent | 26_4ecb.xml | 0 | The alleged Mafia boss of a Palermo neighborhood hanged himself in jail , hours after he was arrested in a blitz against Cosa Nostra , police in Sicily said Wednesday . | 11 | 11 | 67 | 71 | jail | LOC18441904201489761 | jail | ['alleged', 'mafia', 'boss', 'palermo', 'neighborhood', 'hang', 'jail', 'hour', 'he', 'arrest', 'blitz', 'cosa', 'nostra', 'police', 'sicily', 'say', 'wednesday'] | The alleged Mafia boss of a Palermo neighborhood hanged himself in <m> jail </m> , hours after he was arrested in a blitz against Cosa Nostra , police in Sicily said Wednesday . | The alleged Mafia boss of a Palermo neighborhood hanged himself in <m> jail </m> , hours after he was arrested in a blitz against Cosa Nostra , police in Sicily said Wednesday .
Carabinieri paramilitary police in Palermo said Gaetano Lo Presti , 52 , hanged himself in his cell in a Palermo jail Tuesday evening , hours after he was arrested in the raid . |
26_4ecb.xml_48 | train | ent | 26_4ecb.xml | 0 | The alleged Mafia boss of a Palermo neighborhood hanged himself in jail , hours after he was arrested in a blitz against Cosa Nostra , police in Sicily said Wednesday . | 27 | 27 | 145 | 151 | Sicily | 10000000838 | Sicily | ['alleged', 'mafia', 'boss', 'palermo', 'neighborhood', 'hang', 'jail', 'hour', 'he', 'arrest', 'blitz', 'cosa', 'nostra', 'police', 'sicily', 'say', 'wednesday'] | The alleged Mafia boss of a Palermo neighborhood hanged himself in jail , hours after he was arrested in a blitz against Cosa Nostra , police in <m> Sicily </m> said Wednesday . | The alleged Mafia boss of a Palermo neighborhood hanged himself in jail , hours after he was arrested in a blitz against Cosa Nostra , police in <m> Sicily </m> said Wednesday .
Carabinieri paramilitary police in Palermo said Gaetano Lo Presti , 52 , hanged himself in his cell in a Palermo jail Tuesday evening , hours after he was arrested in the raid . |
26_4ecb.xml_49 | train | ent | 26_4ecb.xml | 1 | Carabinieri paramilitary police in Palermo said Gaetano Lo Presti , 52 , hanged himself in his cell in a Palermo jail Tuesday evening , hours after he was arrested in the raid . | 4 | 4 | 35 | 42 | Palermo | 10000000839 | Palermo | ['carabinieri', 'paramilitary', 'police', 'palermo', 'say', 'gaetano', 'lo', 'presti', '52', 'hang', 'his', 'cell', 'palermo', 'jail', 'tuesday', 'evening', 'hour', 'he', 'arrest', 'raid'] | Carabinieri paramilitary police in <m> Palermo </m> said Gaetano Lo Presti , 52 , hanged himself in his cell in a Palermo jail Tuesday evening , hours after he was arrested in the raid . | The alleged Mafia boss of a Palermo neighborhood hanged himself in jail , hours after he was arrested in a blitz against Cosa Nostra , police in Sicily said Wednesday .
Carabinieri paramilitary police in <m> Palermo </m> said Gaetano Lo Presti , 52 , hanged himself in his cell in a Palermo jail Tuesday evening , hours after he was arrested in the raid . |
26_4ecb.xml_31 | train | ent | 26_4ecb.xml | 0 | The alleged Mafia boss of a Palermo neighborhood hanged himself in jail , hours after he was arrested in a blitz against Cosa Nostra , police in Sicily said Wednesday . | 5 | 7 | 26 | 48 | a Palermo neighborhood | LOC18441954119583356 | neighborhood | ['alleged', 'mafia', 'boss', 'palermo', 'neighborhood', 'hang', 'jail', 'hour', 'he', 'arrest', 'blitz', 'cosa', 'nostra', 'police', 'sicily', 'say', 'wednesday'] | The alleged Mafia boss of <m> a Palermo neighborhood </m> hanged himself in jail , hours after he was arrested in a blitz against Cosa Nostra , police in Sicily said Wednesday . | The alleged Mafia boss of <m> a Palermo neighborhood </m> hanged himself in jail , hours after he was arrested in a blitz against Cosa Nostra , police in Sicily said Wednesday .
Carabinieri paramilitary police in Palermo said Gaetano Lo Presti , 52 , hanged himself in his cell in a Palermo jail Tuesday evening , hours after he was arrested in the raid . |
26_4ecb.xml_52 | train | ent | 26_4ecb.xml | 0 | The alleged Mafia boss of a Palermo neighborhood hanged himself in jail , hours after he was arrested in a blitz against Cosa Nostra , police in Sicily said Wednesday . | 29 | 29 | 157 | 166 | Wednesday | TIM18442419387533474 | Wednesday | ['alleged', 'mafia', 'boss', 'palermo', 'neighborhood', 'hang', 'jail', 'hour', 'he', 'arrest', 'blitz', 'cosa', 'nostra', 'police', 'sicily', 'say', 'wednesday'] | The alleged Mafia boss of a Palermo neighborhood hanged himself in jail , hours after he was arrested in a blitz against Cosa Nostra , police in Sicily said <m> Wednesday </m> . | The alleged Mafia boss of a Palermo neighborhood hanged himself in jail , hours after he was arrested in a blitz against Cosa Nostra , police in Sicily said <m> Wednesday </m> .
Carabinieri paramilitary police in Palermo said Gaetano Lo Presti , 52 , hanged himself in his cell in a Palermo jail Tuesday evening , hours after he was arrested in the raid . |
26_4ecb.xml_38 | train | ent | 26_4ecb.xml | 1 | Carabinieri paramilitary police in Palermo said Gaetano Lo Presti , 52 , hanged himself in his cell in a Palermo jail Tuesday evening , hours after he was arrested in the raid . | 24 | 24 | 136 | 141 | hours | TIM18442142154629810 | hour | ['carabinieri', 'paramilitary', 'police', 'palermo', 'say', 'gaetano', 'lo', 'presti', '52', 'hang', 'his', 'cell', 'palermo', 'jail', 'tuesday', 'evening', 'hour', 'he', 'arrest', 'raid'] | Carabinieri paramilitary police in Palermo said Gaetano Lo Presti , 52 , hanged himself in his cell in a Palermo jail Tuesday evening , <m> hours </m> after he was arrested in the raid . | The alleged Mafia boss of a Palermo neighborhood hanged himself in jail , hours after he was arrested in a blitz against Cosa Nostra , police in Sicily said Wednesday .
Carabinieri paramilitary police in Palermo said Gaetano Lo Presti , 52 , hanged himself in his cell in a Palermo jail Tuesday evening , <m> hours </m> after he was arrested in the raid . |
26_4ecb.xml_37 | train | ent | 26_4ecb.xml | 0 | The alleged Mafia boss of a Palermo neighborhood hanged himself in jail , hours after he was arrested in a blitz against Cosa Nostra , police in Sicily said Wednesday . | 13 | 13 | 74 | 79 | hours | TIM18442142154629810 | hour | ['alleged', 'mafia', 'boss', 'palermo', 'neighborhood', 'hang', 'jail', 'hour', 'he', 'arrest', 'blitz', 'cosa', 'nostra', 'police', 'sicily', 'say', 'wednesday'] | The alleged Mafia boss of a Palermo neighborhood hanged himself in jail , <m> hours </m> after he was arrested in a blitz against Cosa Nostra , police in Sicily said Wednesday . | The alleged Mafia boss of a Palermo neighborhood hanged himself in jail , <m> hours </m> after he was arrested in a blitz against Cosa Nostra , police in Sicily said Wednesday .
Carabinieri paramilitary police in Palermo said Gaetano Lo Presti , 52 , hanged himself in his cell in a Palermo jail Tuesday evening , hours after he was arrested in the raid . |
26_4ecb.xml_53 | train | ent | 26_4ecb.xml | 1 | Carabinieri paramilitary police in Palermo said Gaetano Lo Presti , 52 , hanged himself in his cell in a Palermo jail Tuesday evening , hours after he was arrested in the raid . | 21 | 22 | 118 | 133 | Tuesday evening | TIM18442492397502925 | Tuesday | ['carabinieri', 'paramilitary', 'police', 'palermo', 'say', 'gaetano', 'lo', 'presti', '52', 'hang', 'his', 'cell', 'palermo', 'jail', 'tuesday', 'evening', 'hour', 'he', 'arrest', 'raid'] | Carabinieri paramilitary police in Palermo said Gaetano Lo Presti , 52 , hanged himself in his cell in a Palermo jail <m> Tuesday evening </m> , hours after he was arrested in the raid . | The alleged Mafia boss of a Palermo neighborhood hanged himself in jail , hours after he was arrested in a blitz against Cosa Nostra , police in Sicily said Wednesday .
Carabinieri paramilitary police in Palermo said Gaetano Lo Presti , 52 , hanged himself in his cell in a Palermo jail <m> Tuesday evening </m> , hours after he was arrested in the raid . |
26_4ecb.xml_39 | train | evt | 26_4ecb.xml | 0 | The alleged Mafia boss of a Palermo neighborhood hanged himself in jail , hours after he was arrested in a blitz against Cosa Nostra , police in Sicily said Wednesday . | 8 | 8 | 49 | 55 | hanged | ACT18441863532401006 | hang | ['alleged', 'mafia', 'boss', 'palermo', 'neighborhood', 'hang', 'jail', 'hour', 'he', 'arrest', 'blitz', 'cosa', 'nostra', 'police', 'sicily', 'say', 'wednesday'] | The alleged Mafia boss of a Palermo neighborhood <m> hanged </m> himself in jail , hours after he was arrested in a blitz against Cosa Nostra , police in Sicily said Wednesday . | The alleged Mafia boss of a Palermo neighborhood <m> hanged </m> himself in jail , hours after he was arrested in a blitz against Cosa Nostra , police in Sicily said Wednesday .
Carabinieri paramilitary police in Palermo said Gaetano Lo Presti , 52 , hanged himself in his cell in a Palermo jail Tuesday evening , hours after he was arrested in the raid . |
26_4ecb.xml_40 | train | evt | 26_4ecb.xml | 0 | The alleged Mafia boss of a Palermo neighborhood hanged himself in jail , hours after he was arrested in a blitz against Cosa Nostra , police in Sicily said Wednesday . | 17 | 17 | 93 | 101 | arrested | ACT18441937963352466 | arrest | ['alleged', 'mafia', 'boss', 'palermo', 'neighborhood', 'hang', 'jail', 'hour', 'he', 'arrest', 'blitz', 'cosa', 'nostra', 'police', 'sicily', 'say', 'wednesday'] | The alleged Mafia boss of a Palermo neighborhood hanged himself in jail , hours after he was <m> arrested </m> in a blitz against Cosa Nostra , police in Sicily said Wednesday . | The alleged Mafia boss of a Palermo neighborhood hanged himself in jail , hours after he was <m> arrested </m> in a blitz against Cosa Nostra , police in Sicily said Wednesday .
Carabinieri paramilitary police in Palermo said Gaetano Lo Presti , 52 , hanged himself in his cell in a Palermo jail Tuesday evening , hours after he was arrested in the raid . |
26_4ecb.xml_41 | train | evt | 26_4ecb.xml | 0 | The alleged Mafia boss of a Palermo neighborhood hanged himself in jail , hours after he was arrested in a blitz against Cosa Nostra , police in Sicily said Wednesday . | 20 | 20 | 107 | 112 | blitz | ACT27337443408187958 | blitz | ['alleged', 'mafia', 'boss', 'palermo', 'neighborhood', 'hang', 'jail', 'hour', 'he', 'arrest', 'blitz', 'cosa', 'nostra', 'police', 'sicily', 'say', 'wednesday'] | The alleged Mafia boss of a Palermo neighborhood hanged himself in jail , hours after he was arrested in a <m> blitz </m> against Cosa Nostra , police in Sicily said Wednesday . | The alleged Mafia boss of a Palermo neighborhood hanged himself in jail , hours after he was arrested in a <m> blitz </m> against Cosa Nostra , police in Sicily said Wednesday .
Carabinieri paramilitary police in Palermo said Gaetano Lo Presti , 52 , hanged himself in his cell in a Palermo jail Tuesday evening , hours after he was arrested in the raid . |
26_4ecb.xml_42 | train | evt | 26_4ecb.xml | 1 | Carabinieri paramilitary police in Palermo said Gaetano Lo Presti , 52 , hanged himself in his cell in a Palermo jail Tuesday evening , hours after he was arrested in the raid . | 12 | 12 | 73 | 79 | hanged | ACT18441863532401006 | hang | ['carabinieri', 'paramilitary', 'police', 'palermo', 'say', 'gaetano', 'lo', 'presti', '52', 'hang', 'his', 'cell', 'palermo', 'jail', 'tuesday', 'evening', 'hour', 'he', 'arrest', 'raid'] | Carabinieri paramilitary police in Palermo said Gaetano Lo Presti , 52 , <m> hanged </m> himself in his cell in a Palermo jail Tuesday evening , hours after he was arrested in the raid . | The alleged Mafia boss of a Palermo neighborhood hanged himself in jail , hours after he was arrested in a blitz against Cosa Nostra , police in Sicily said Wednesday .
Carabinieri paramilitary police in Palermo said Gaetano Lo Presti , 52 , <m> hanged </m> himself in his cell in a Palermo jail Tuesday evening , hours after he was arrested in the raid . |
26_4ecb.xml_43 | train | evt | 26_4ecb.xml | 1 | Carabinieri paramilitary police in Palermo said Gaetano Lo Presti , 52 , hanged himself in his cell in a Palermo jail Tuesday evening , hours after he was arrested in the raid . | 28 | 28 | 155 | 163 | arrested | ACT18441937963352466 | arrest | ['carabinieri', 'paramilitary', 'police', 'palermo', 'say', 'gaetano', 'lo', 'presti', '52', 'hang', 'his', 'cell', 'palermo', 'jail', 'tuesday', 'evening', 'hour', 'he', 'arrest', 'raid'] | Carabinieri paramilitary police in Palermo said Gaetano Lo Presti , 52 , hanged himself in his cell in a Palermo jail Tuesday evening , hours after he was <m> arrested </m> in the raid . | The alleged Mafia boss of a Palermo neighborhood hanged himself in jail , hours after he was arrested in a blitz against Cosa Nostra , police in Sicily said Wednesday .
Carabinieri paramilitary police in Palermo said Gaetano Lo Presti , 52 , hanged himself in his cell in a Palermo jail Tuesday evening , hours after he was <m> arrested </m> in the raid . |
26_4ecb.xml_44 | train | evt | 26_4ecb.xml | 1 | Carabinieri paramilitary police in Palermo said Gaetano Lo Presti , 52 , hanged himself in his cell in a Palermo jail Tuesday evening , hours after he was arrested in the raid . | 31 | 31 | 171 | 175 | raid | ACT27337443408187958 | raid | ['carabinieri', 'paramilitary', 'police', 'palermo', 'say', 'gaetano', 'lo', 'presti', '52', 'hang', 'his', 'cell', 'palermo', 'jail', 'tuesday', 'evening', 'hour', 'he', 'arrest', 'raid'] | Carabinieri paramilitary police in Palermo said Gaetano Lo Presti , 52 , hanged himself in his cell in a Palermo jail Tuesday evening , hours after he was arrested in the <m> raid </m> . | The alleged Mafia boss of a Palermo neighborhood hanged himself in jail , hours after he was arrested in a blitz against Cosa Nostra , police in Sicily said Wednesday .
Carabinieri paramilitary police in Palermo said Gaetano Lo Presti , 52 , hanged himself in his cell in a Palermo jail Tuesday evening , hours after he was arrested in the <m> raid </m> . |
26_4ecb.xml_50 | train | evt | 26_4ecb.xml | 1 | Carabinieri paramilitary police in Palermo said Gaetano Lo Presti , 52 , hanged himself in his cell in a Palermo jail Tuesday evening , hours after he was arrested in the raid . | 5 | 5 | 43 | 47 | said | ACT27338400145348157 | say | ['carabinieri', 'paramilitary', 'police', 'palermo', 'say', 'gaetano', 'lo', 'presti', '52', 'hang', 'his', 'cell', 'palermo', 'jail', 'tuesday', 'evening', 'hour', 'he', 'arrest', 'raid'] | Carabinieri paramilitary police in Palermo <m> said </m> Gaetano Lo Presti , 52 , hanged himself in his cell in a Palermo jail Tuesday evening , hours after he was arrested in the raid . | The alleged Mafia boss of a Palermo neighborhood hanged himself in jail , hours after he was arrested in a blitz against Cosa Nostra , police in Sicily said Wednesday .
Carabinieri paramilitary police in Palermo <m> said </m> Gaetano Lo Presti , 52 , hanged himself in his cell in a Palermo jail Tuesday evening , hours after he was arrested in the raid . |
26_4ecb.xml_51 | train | evt | 26_4ecb.xml | 0 | The alleged Mafia boss of a Palermo neighborhood hanged himself in jail , hours after he was arrested in a blitz against Cosa Nostra , police in Sicily said Wednesday . | 28 | 28 | 152 | 156 | said | ACT27338400145348157 | say | ['alleged', 'mafia', 'boss', 'palermo', 'neighborhood', 'hang', 'jail', 'hour', 'he', 'arrest', 'blitz', 'cosa', 'nostra', 'police', 'sicily', 'say', 'wednesday'] | The alleged Mafia boss of a Palermo neighborhood hanged himself in jail , hours after he was arrested in a blitz against Cosa Nostra , police in Sicily <m> said </m> Wednesday . | The alleged Mafia boss of a Palermo neighborhood hanged himself in jail , hours after he was arrested in a blitz against Cosa Nostra , police in Sicily <m> said </m> Wednesday .
Carabinieri paramilitary police in Palermo said Gaetano Lo Presti , 52 , hanged himself in his cell in a Palermo jail Tuesday evening , hours after he was arrested in the raid . |
26_1ecbplus.xml_9 | train | ent | 26_1ecbplus.xml | 6 | Officials at the prison medical center where he died did not provide the cause of death but noted that he suffered from heart disease . | 19 | 19 | 103 | 105 | he | HUM18440698565277092 | he | ['official', 'prison', 'medical', 'center', 'he', 'die', 'provide', 'cause', 'death', 'note', 'he', 'suffer', 'heart', 'disease'] | Officials at the prison medical center where he died did not provide the cause of death but noted that <m> he </m> suffered from heart disease . | http : / / www . nytimes . com / 2005 / 12 / 19 / obituaries / 19cnd - gigante . html ? pagewanted=all
Vincent Gigante , Mafia Leader Who Feigned Insanity , Dies at 77
Published : December 19 , 2005
Vincent Gigante , who feigned mental illness for decades to camouflage his position as one of the nation's most influential and dangerous Mafia leaders , died today in federal prison in Springfield , Mo . , officials told The Associated Press .
He was 77 .
Mr . Gigante died while serving a 12 - year sentence imposed in 1997 after he was convicted of racketeering and conspiring to kill other mobsters .
Officials at the prison medical center where he died did not provide the cause of death but noted that <m> he </m> suffered from heart disease .
Mr . Gigante , whose nickname was "Chin , " painstakingly maintained the fiction that he was incompetent until April 2003 , when he appeared before Judge I . Leo Glasser in Federal District Court in Brooklyn and pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice .
Specifically , he acknowledged running a con on the legal system that delayed his racketeering trial from 1990 to 1997 while his sanity was being examined .
As part of the plea , three more years were added to his prison term , but he avoided a lengthy trial on the other charges , which amounted to an accusation - long denied or sidestepped by Mr . Gigante - that he headed the Genovese organized crime family .
His lawyer , Benjamin Brafman , offered the explanation that "I think you get to a point in life - I think everyone does - where you become too old and too sick and too tired to fight . "
For Mr . Gigante , the guise that he adopted in the mid - 1960's - behavior that won him the nickname Oddfather - took considerable effort to maintain .
He could often be seen shuffling around his Greenwich Village neighborhood in pajamas , bathrobe and slippers , mumbling to himself and appearing to be a disturbed but harmless person .
Law - enforcement agents , prosecutors and Mafia defectors described his behavior as a staged performance calculated to evade prosecution for his activities as head of a crime family that under his leadership became the wealthiest and most powerful in the nation .
Based on information from informers and electronic eavesdropping on gangsters , F . B . I . and New York City law - enforcement officials ranked Mr . Gigante as the pre - eminent Mafia leader in the early and mid - 1990's , and prosecutors identified him as the dominant force in the early 1990's inside the Commission , the Mafia's ruling body , which resolves significant disputes among the five major families in the New York region .
His reach , law - enforcement officials said , extended as well to Philadelphia and New England , where he exercised veto power over the appointments of mob bosses in those areas .
Salvatore Gravano , the No . 2 figure in the Gambino crime family before he defected in 1991 , testified that even Mr . Gigante's archrival , John Gotti , grudgingly acknowledged Mr . Gigante's craftiness .
"He's crazy like a fox , " Mr . Gravano quoted Mr . Gotti as saying of Mr . Gigante after a summit meeting of New York City mob leaders in 1988 .
Mr . Gotti was the boss of the Gambino family until his own imprisonment forced him to relinquish undisputed control in the late 1990's .
He , too , died in a prison hospital , of cancer in June 2002 .
Federal Bureau of Investigation agents and federal and state prosecutors regarded Mr . Gigante as the most elusive Mafia leader of his era and the most difficult to bring to trial .
"He was probably the most clever organized - crime figure I have ever seen , " said John S . Pritchard 3rd , a former F . B . I . supervisor , who led a squad that investigated the Genovese family in the 1980's .
Disputing the government's contentions , Mr . Gigante's lawyers and relatives maintained that he had been mentally disabled since the late 1960's , with a below - normal I . Q . of 69 to 72 .
His defenders steadfastly denied that he was associated with the Mafia , asserting that it was ludicrous to believe that someone so mentally subpar was capable of heading a major crime organization .
The Rev . Louis Gigante , a Roman Catholic priest , former New York city councilman and a builder of low - income housing in the Bronx , characterized the relentless investigations of his older brother as persecution by agents and prosecutors who were biased against Italian - Americans .
Organized - crime experts and mob turncoats said that Mr . Gigante was apparently willing to humiliate himself publicly as the price for escaping the long prison sentences that were being meted out to other Mafia leaders .
According to federal and state investigators , each of the family's 200 "made" or inducted soldiers and about 1 , 000 associates - the name for others who voluntarily cooperate in illegal activities but who are not sworn members - were obligated to funnel part of their loot to Mr . Gigante , as much as $100 million a year in the early 1990's .
The family's fortune , the experts said , flowed largely from a vast network of bookmaking and loansharking rings and from extortions of construction companies in the New York City area seeking labor peace or sweetheart contracts from carpenters , teamsters and laborers' unions that were dominated by Mr . Gigante's lieutenants .
Mob deserters in the mid - 1990's testified in criminal and civil cases that the Genovese gang's other lucrative enterprises included the control of cartels that rigged bids and inflated prices in the private garbage - hauling industries of New York City and Westchester County ; kickbacks from shipping and trucking companies on the New Jersey waterfront in exchange for labor peace ; protection payoffs from merchants at the Fulton Fish Market ; and the control of many union jobs at the Jacob K . Javits Convention Center in Manhattan .
Mr . Gigante's influence even extended over the San Gennaro Street Festival in Little Italy until a 1995 crackdown by New York City officials and federal prosecutors resulted in allegations that the Genovese family operated gambling games at the festival , extorted payoffs from venders and pocketed thousands of dollars donated to a neighborhood church .
In the 1980's , after the authorities said Mr . Gigante had assumed undisputed command of the Genovese family , he conducted his activities in a starkly unorthodox fashion for a Mafia leader .
Most days , in the early evening , Mr . Gigante , a hulking man who was about six feet tall and weighed 200 pounds , would emerge from his mother's walkup apartment building on Sullivan Street in Greenwich Village .
Sometimes dressed in a bathrobe and pajamas and sometimes wearing a windbreaker and shabby trousers and always accompanied by one or two bodyguards , he gingerly crossed the street to the Triangle Civic Improvement Association , a dingy storefront club that served as his headquarters .
Inside , he played pinochle and held whispered conversations with men who agents said were his trusted confederates .
After midnight , according to F . B . I . surveillance reports , he would be driven to a townhouse near Park Avenue at East 77th Street , that was owned by Olympia Esposito , who was characterized by Mr . Gigante's lawyers as his common - law wife and the mother of three of his eight children , Vincent , Lucia and Carmella Esposito .
F . B . I . agents , who in 1986 observed the townhouse from a nearby rooftop post , said that soon after arriving , Mr . Gigante would change into more elegant clothes , carry on conversations with associates , and read or watch television before retiring .
About 9 or 10 the next morning , he would reappear in his shabby downtown clothes and be driven back to Sullivan Street or a nearby apartment occupied by his relatives at 505 LaGuardia Place .
"It was hard to understand what enjoyment he got out of being a mob boss , " said Ronald Goldstock , the former director of the New York State Organized Crime Task Force .
"His only pleasure appeared to be the pure power he exercised . "
Vincent Gigante ( pronounced ji - GANT - tee ) was born on March 29 , 1928 , in New York City and grew up on the same streets in Greenwich Village where he would spend most of his adult life .
He was one of five sons of Salvatore Gigante , a watchmaker , and Yolanda Gigante , a seamstress , both of whom had immigrated from Naples .
His mother usually addressed him as "Cincenzo , " a diminutive of Vincente , and his boyhood friends shortened that into his lifelong nickname , "Chin . "
A lackadaisical student , Mr . Gigante graduated from P . S . 3 , an elementary school in Greenwich Village and dropped out of Textile High School in Manhattan in the ninth grade .
Police detectives said that as a teen - ager , he became a prot�g� of Vito Genovese , who was a potent Mafia leader in the United States and in Italy from the 1930's to the 1960's and whose name still describes the organized - crime group he headed until his death in 1969 .
The gang was founded in the 1930's by one of the nation's most notorious criminals , Charles ( Lucky ) Luciano , who was deported to Italy and who died in 1962 .
Mr . Genovese is believed to have endeared himself to the Gigantes when Vincent was a boy with a loan to pay for surgery needed by Mrs . Gigante .
Between age 17 and 25 , Mr . Gigante was arrested seven times on an array of charges : receiving stolen goods , possession of an unlicensed handgun , auto theft , arson and bookmaking .
Most were dismissed or resolved by fines .
His only jail sentence in that period was 60 days for a gambling conviction .
When arrested in his early 20's , he listed his occupation as a tailor .
But as a strapping youth with quick fists , he was better known as a prize fighter .
Mr . Gigante , from age 16 to 19 , fought as a light heavyweight in clubs around town , winning 21 of 25 light - heavyweight bouts , according to Nat Fleischer's Ring Record Book .
Club boxers in those days fought four - and six - round contests in neighborhood arenas , usually getting a percentage of the tickets they themselves sold .
One of Mr . Gigante's managers was a Greenwich Village neighbor , Thomas ( Tommy Ryan ) Eboli , who later became the boss of the Genovese family .
Former New York City detectives who were assigned to organized - crime intelligence units said that Mr . Gigante earned his Mafia spurs as an enforcer in the 1950's .
But his prominence in the underworld surged in 1957 , when Mr . Genovese wrested control of a mob family from Frank Costello , who had been a close friend of Lucky Luciano and Meyer Lansky and was one of the best - known underworld figures in America .
Mr . Costello retired abruptly as a boss after a gunman grazed his scalp with a bullet in the vestibule of his apartment building on Central Park West .
A doorman identified the 29 - year - old Mr . Gigante as the shooter , but Mr . Costello testified that he was unable to recognize his assailant and Mr . Gigante was acquitted in 1958 on charges of attempted murder .
A year later , he was convicted with Mr . Genovese in Manhattan on federal charges of heroin trafficking .
Mr . Gigante , who listed his profession as the superintendent of a tenement on Bleecker Street , was sentenced to seven years in prison .
The sentencing judge said he would have imposed a longer sentence but was swayed by a flood of letters from residents of Greenwich Village and Little Italy attesting to Mr . Gigante's good character and his work on behalf of juveniles .
He was paroled after five years and detectives said that soon afterward he was promoted from soldier to the rank of capo , or captain , overseeing a group of Mafia gangsters known as a crew , in Greenwich Village .
Although his headquarters was in Lower Manhattan and he spent his nights farther uptown , Mr . Gigante had a home in Old Tappan , N . J . , where he lived with his wife , the former Olympia Grippa , and their three daughters and two sons .
They are Yolanda Fyfe , Roseanne D'Cola and Rita Gigante , and Salvatore and Andrew .
In 1969 , he was indicted in New Jersey on a charge of conspiracy to bribe the entire five - member Old Tappan police force to alert him to surveillance operations by law enforcement agencies .
The accusation was dropped after Mr . Gigante's lawyers presented reports from psychiatrists that he was mentally unfit to stand trial .
Mafia informers and defectors said that Mr . Gigante gained control of the Genovese family in a peaceful transition in the early 1980's when the group's acting boss , Philip Lombardo , stepped down because of ill health , and Mr . Gigante's main rival , Anthony Salerno , was imprisoned for life on racketeering charges .
Mr . Salerno died in federal prison in 1992 .
As a new godfather , Mr . Gigante quickly imposed extraordinary security measures .
Genovese soldiers and associates were forbidden to utter his name or nickname in conversations or telephone calls .
When references to him had to be made , capos and soldiers would silently point to their chins or form the letter "C" with their fingers .
Mr . Gigante was indicted in 1990 with 14 others on federal charges in Brooklyn that they had conspired to rig bids and extort payoffs from contractors on multimillion - dollar contracts with the New York City Housing Authority to install windows .
At his arraignment , he appeared in court in his familiar pajamas and bathrobe and a peaked cap .
Because of defense contentions that he was mentally and physically impaired , his case was severed from the other defendants and legal battles ensued for seven years over his competence to stand trial .
A superseding indictment in 1993 brought more serious accusations against him .
Mr . Gigante was charged with being the head of the Genovese family and sanctioning the murders of six mobsters and conspiring to kill three others , including John Gotti , the boss of the Gambino family .
Mr . Gigante , the indictment asserted , wanted Mr . Gotti eliminated because he had violated Mafia protocol by arranging the assassination of the previous Gambino boss , Paul Castellano , without seeking Mr . Gigante's approval .
The evidence in both indictments stemmed mainly from deserters from the Genovese and other mob families who entered the Government's Witness Protection Program .
At sanity hearings in March 1996 , Mr . Gravano of the Gambino family , and Alphonse D'Arco , the former acting boss of another New York Mafia organization , the Lucchese crime family , testified that Mr . Gigante was lucid during top - level Mafia meetings and that he had acknowledged to other gangsters that his eccentric behavior was a pretense .
Mr . Gigante's lawyers elicited testimony and reports from psychiatrists and psychologists that from 1969 to 1995 , he had been confined 28 times in hospitals for treatment of hallucinations and that he suffered from "dementia rooted in organic brain damage . "
In August 1996 , Judge Eugene H . Nickerson of Federal District Court in Brooklyn ruled that Mr . Gigante was mentally competent to stand trial on murder and racketeering charges .
The judge found that at least until 1991 , Mr . Gigante had engaged in an "elaborate deception" with the help of his relatives to deceive psychiatrists about his condition .
Before the trial began , Mr . Gigante , who had open - heart surgery in 1988 , had another cardiac operation in December 1996 , putting his fitness to stand trial in doubt once again .
Mr . Gigante had pleaded not guilty and had been free for years on $1 million bond .
During the monthlong trial in 1997 , a gaunt - looking Mr . Gigante sat in a wheelchair , looking blankly into space as witnesses testified and lawyers argued .
He did not testify .
After three days of deliberations , the jury on July 25 , 1997 , convicted him on charges of running multimillion - dollar rackets as the Genovese family chief and of conspiring unsuccessfully in the late 1980's to murder Mr . Gotti and a Genovese family defector .
But he was acquitted of ordering three other gangland slayings and the jury was deadlocked on accusations that he ordered four other murders .
Imposing a sentence of 12 years - instead of a possible maximum of 27 years - and a $1 . 25 million fine , Judge Jack B . Weinstein of Federal District Court in Brooklyn reflected in December 1997 on Mr . Gigante's career .
"He is a shadow of his former self , " the judge said , "an old man finally brought to bay in his declining years after decades of vicious criminal tyranny . " |
26_1ecbplus.xml_1 | train | ent | 26_1ecbplus.xml | 1 | Vincent Gigante , Mafia Leader Who Feigned Insanity , Dies at 77 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 15 | Vincent Gigante | HUM18440698565277092 | Vincent | ['vincent', 'gigante', 'mafia', 'leader', 'feign', 'insanity', 'die', '77'] | <m> Vincent Gigante </m> , Mafia Leader Who Feigned Insanity , Dies at 77 | http : / / www . nytimes . com / 2005 / 12 / 19 / obituaries / 19cnd - gigante . html ? pagewanted=all
<m> Vincent Gigante </m> , Mafia Leader Who Feigned Insanity , Dies at 77
Published : December 19 , 2005
Vincent Gigante , who feigned mental illness for decades to camouflage his position as one of the nation's most influential and dangerous Mafia leaders , died today in federal prison in Springfield , Mo . , officials told The Associated Press .
He was 77 .
Mr . Gigante died while serving a 12 - year sentence imposed in 1997 after he was convicted of racketeering and conspiring to kill other mobsters .
Officials at the prison medical center where he died did not provide the cause of death but noted that he suffered from heart disease .
Mr . Gigante , whose nickname was "Chin , " painstakingly maintained the fiction that he was incompetent until April 2003 , when he appeared before Judge I . Leo Glasser in Federal District Court in Brooklyn and pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice .
Specifically , he acknowledged running a con on the legal system that delayed his racketeering trial from 1990 to 1997 while his sanity was being examined .
As part of the plea , three more years were added to his prison term , but he avoided a lengthy trial on the other charges , which amounted to an accusation - long denied or sidestepped by Mr . Gigante - that he headed the Genovese organized crime family .
His lawyer , Benjamin Brafman , offered the explanation that "I think you get to a point in life - I think everyone does - where you become too old and too sick and too tired to fight . "
For Mr . Gigante , the guise that he adopted in the mid - 1960's - behavior that won him the nickname Oddfather - took considerable effort to maintain .
He could often be seen shuffling around his Greenwich Village neighborhood in pajamas , bathrobe and slippers , mumbling to himself and appearing to be a disturbed but harmless person .
Law - enforcement agents , prosecutors and Mafia defectors described his behavior as a staged performance calculated to evade prosecution for his activities as head of a crime family that under his leadership became the wealthiest and most powerful in the nation .
Based on information from informers and electronic eavesdropping on gangsters , F . B . I . and New York City law - enforcement officials ranked Mr . Gigante as the pre - eminent Mafia leader in the early and mid - 1990's , and prosecutors identified him as the dominant force in the early 1990's inside the Commission , the Mafia's ruling body , which resolves significant disputes among the five major families in the New York region .
His reach , law - enforcement officials said , extended as well to Philadelphia and New England , where he exercised veto power over the appointments of mob bosses in those areas .
Salvatore Gravano , the No . 2 figure in the Gambino crime family before he defected in 1991 , testified that even Mr . Gigante's archrival , John Gotti , grudgingly acknowledged Mr . Gigante's craftiness .
"He's crazy like a fox , " Mr . Gravano quoted Mr . Gotti as saying of Mr . Gigante after a summit meeting of New York City mob leaders in 1988 .
Mr . Gotti was the boss of the Gambino family until his own imprisonment forced him to relinquish undisputed control in the late 1990's .
He , too , died in a prison hospital , of cancer in June 2002 .
Federal Bureau of Investigation agents and federal and state prosecutors regarded Mr . Gigante as the most elusive Mafia leader of his era and the most difficult to bring to trial .
"He was probably the most clever organized - crime figure I have ever seen , " said John S . Pritchard 3rd , a former F . B . I . supervisor , who led a squad that investigated the Genovese family in the 1980's .
Disputing the government's contentions , Mr . Gigante's lawyers and relatives maintained that he had been mentally disabled since the late 1960's , with a below - normal I . Q . of 69 to 72 .
His defenders steadfastly denied that he was associated with the Mafia , asserting that it was ludicrous to believe that someone so mentally subpar was capable of heading a major crime organization .
The Rev . Louis Gigante , a Roman Catholic priest , former New York city councilman and a builder of low - income housing in the Bronx , characterized the relentless investigations of his older brother as persecution by agents and prosecutors who were biased against Italian - Americans .
Organized - crime experts and mob turncoats said that Mr . Gigante was apparently willing to humiliate himself publicly as the price for escaping the long prison sentences that were being meted out to other Mafia leaders .
According to federal and state investigators , each of the family's 200 "made" or inducted soldiers and about 1 , 000 associates - the name for others who voluntarily cooperate in illegal activities but who are not sworn members - were obligated to funnel part of their loot to Mr . Gigante , as much as $100 million a year in the early 1990's .
The family's fortune , the experts said , flowed largely from a vast network of bookmaking and loansharking rings and from extortions of construction companies in the New York City area seeking labor peace or sweetheart contracts from carpenters , teamsters and laborers' unions that were dominated by Mr . Gigante's lieutenants .
Mob deserters in the mid - 1990's testified in criminal and civil cases that the Genovese gang's other lucrative enterprises included the control of cartels that rigged bids and inflated prices in the private garbage - hauling industries of New York City and Westchester County ; kickbacks from shipping and trucking companies on the New Jersey waterfront in exchange for labor peace ; protection payoffs from merchants at the Fulton Fish Market ; and the control of many union jobs at the Jacob K . Javits Convention Center in Manhattan .
Mr . Gigante's influence even extended over the San Gennaro Street Festival in Little Italy until a 1995 crackdown by New York City officials and federal prosecutors resulted in allegations that the Genovese family operated gambling games at the festival , extorted payoffs from venders and pocketed thousands of dollars donated to a neighborhood church .
In the 1980's , after the authorities said Mr . Gigante had assumed undisputed command of the Genovese family , he conducted his activities in a starkly unorthodox fashion for a Mafia leader .
Most days , in the early evening , Mr . Gigante , a hulking man who was about six feet tall and weighed 200 pounds , would emerge from his mother's walkup apartment building on Sullivan Street in Greenwich Village .
Sometimes dressed in a bathrobe and pajamas and sometimes wearing a windbreaker and shabby trousers and always accompanied by one or two bodyguards , he gingerly crossed the street to the Triangle Civic Improvement Association , a dingy storefront club that served as his headquarters .
Inside , he played pinochle and held whispered conversations with men who agents said were his trusted confederates .
After midnight , according to F . B . I . surveillance reports , he would be driven to a townhouse near Park Avenue at East 77th Street , that was owned by Olympia Esposito , who was characterized by Mr . Gigante's lawyers as his common - law wife and the mother of three of his eight children , Vincent , Lucia and Carmella Esposito .
F . B . I . agents , who in 1986 observed the townhouse from a nearby rooftop post , said that soon after arriving , Mr . Gigante would change into more elegant clothes , carry on conversations with associates , and read or watch television before retiring .
About 9 or 10 the next morning , he would reappear in his shabby downtown clothes and be driven back to Sullivan Street or a nearby apartment occupied by his relatives at 505 LaGuardia Place .
"It was hard to understand what enjoyment he got out of being a mob boss , " said Ronald Goldstock , the former director of the New York State Organized Crime Task Force .
"His only pleasure appeared to be the pure power he exercised . "
Vincent Gigante ( pronounced ji - GANT - tee ) was born on March 29 , 1928 , in New York City and grew up on the same streets in Greenwich Village where he would spend most of his adult life .
He was one of five sons of Salvatore Gigante , a watchmaker , and Yolanda Gigante , a seamstress , both of whom had immigrated from Naples .
His mother usually addressed him as "Cincenzo , " a diminutive of Vincente , and his boyhood friends shortened that into his lifelong nickname , "Chin . "
A lackadaisical student , Mr . Gigante graduated from P . S . 3 , an elementary school in Greenwich Village and dropped out of Textile High School in Manhattan in the ninth grade .
Police detectives said that as a teen - ager , he became a prot�g� of Vito Genovese , who was a potent Mafia leader in the United States and in Italy from the 1930's to the 1960's and whose name still describes the organized - crime group he headed until his death in 1969 .
The gang was founded in the 1930's by one of the nation's most notorious criminals , Charles ( Lucky ) Luciano , who was deported to Italy and who died in 1962 .
Mr . Genovese is believed to have endeared himself to the Gigantes when Vincent was a boy with a loan to pay for surgery needed by Mrs . Gigante .
Between age 17 and 25 , Mr . Gigante was arrested seven times on an array of charges : receiving stolen goods , possession of an unlicensed handgun , auto theft , arson and bookmaking .
Most were dismissed or resolved by fines .
His only jail sentence in that period was 60 days for a gambling conviction .
When arrested in his early 20's , he listed his occupation as a tailor .
But as a strapping youth with quick fists , he was better known as a prize fighter .
Mr . Gigante , from age 16 to 19 , fought as a light heavyweight in clubs around town , winning 21 of 25 light - heavyweight bouts , according to Nat Fleischer's Ring Record Book .
Club boxers in those days fought four - and six - round contests in neighborhood arenas , usually getting a percentage of the tickets they themselves sold .
One of Mr . Gigante's managers was a Greenwich Village neighbor , Thomas ( Tommy Ryan ) Eboli , who later became the boss of the Genovese family .
Former New York City detectives who were assigned to organized - crime intelligence units said that Mr . Gigante earned his Mafia spurs as an enforcer in the 1950's .
But his prominence in the underworld surged in 1957 , when Mr . Genovese wrested control of a mob family from Frank Costello , who had been a close friend of Lucky Luciano and Meyer Lansky and was one of the best - known underworld figures in America .
Mr . Costello retired abruptly as a boss after a gunman grazed his scalp with a bullet in the vestibule of his apartment building on Central Park West .
A doorman identified the 29 - year - old Mr . Gigante as the shooter , but Mr . Costello testified that he was unable to recognize his assailant and Mr . Gigante was acquitted in 1958 on charges of attempted murder .
A year later , he was convicted with Mr . Genovese in Manhattan on federal charges of heroin trafficking .
Mr . Gigante , who listed his profession as the superintendent of a tenement on Bleecker Street , was sentenced to seven years in prison .
The sentencing judge said he would have imposed a longer sentence but was swayed by a flood of letters from residents of Greenwich Village and Little Italy attesting to Mr . Gigante's good character and his work on behalf of juveniles .
He was paroled after five years and detectives said that soon afterward he was promoted from soldier to the rank of capo , or captain , overseeing a group of Mafia gangsters known as a crew , in Greenwich Village .
Although his headquarters was in Lower Manhattan and he spent his nights farther uptown , Mr . Gigante had a home in Old Tappan , N . J . , where he lived with his wife , the former Olympia Grippa , and their three daughters and two sons .
They are Yolanda Fyfe , Roseanne D'Cola and Rita Gigante , and Salvatore and Andrew .
In 1969 , he was indicted in New Jersey on a charge of conspiracy to bribe the entire five - member Old Tappan police force to alert him to surveillance operations by law enforcement agencies .
The accusation was dropped after Mr . Gigante's lawyers presented reports from psychiatrists that he was mentally unfit to stand trial .
Mafia informers and defectors said that Mr . Gigante gained control of the Genovese family in a peaceful transition in the early 1980's when the group's acting boss , Philip Lombardo , stepped down because of ill health , and Mr . Gigante's main rival , Anthony Salerno , was imprisoned for life on racketeering charges .
Mr . Salerno died in federal prison in 1992 .
As a new godfather , Mr . Gigante quickly imposed extraordinary security measures .
Genovese soldiers and associates were forbidden to utter his name or nickname in conversations or telephone calls .
When references to him had to be made , capos and soldiers would silently point to their chins or form the letter "C" with their fingers .
Mr . Gigante was indicted in 1990 with 14 others on federal charges in Brooklyn that they had conspired to rig bids and extort payoffs from contractors on multimillion - dollar contracts with the New York City Housing Authority to install windows .
At his arraignment , he appeared in court in his familiar pajamas and bathrobe and a peaked cap .
Because of defense contentions that he was mentally and physically impaired , his case was severed from the other defendants and legal battles ensued for seven years over his competence to stand trial .
A superseding indictment in 1993 brought more serious accusations against him .
Mr . Gigante was charged with being the head of the Genovese family and sanctioning the murders of six mobsters and conspiring to kill three others , including John Gotti , the boss of the Gambino family .
Mr . Gigante , the indictment asserted , wanted Mr . Gotti eliminated because he had violated Mafia protocol by arranging the assassination of the previous Gambino boss , Paul Castellano , without seeking Mr . Gigante's approval .
The evidence in both indictments stemmed mainly from deserters from the Genovese and other mob families who entered the Government's Witness Protection Program .
At sanity hearings in March 1996 , Mr . Gravano of the Gambino family , and Alphonse D'Arco , the former acting boss of another New York Mafia organization , the Lucchese crime family , testified that Mr . Gigante was lucid during top - level Mafia meetings and that he had acknowledged to other gangsters that his eccentric behavior was a pretense .
Mr . Gigante's lawyers elicited testimony and reports from psychiatrists and psychologists that from 1969 to 1995 , he had been confined 28 times in hospitals for treatment of hallucinations and that he suffered from "dementia rooted in organic brain damage . "
In August 1996 , Judge Eugene H . Nickerson of Federal District Court in Brooklyn ruled that Mr . Gigante was mentally competent to stand trial on murder and racketeering charges .
The judge found that at least until 1991 , Mr . Gigante had engaged in an "elaborate deception" with the help of his relatives to deceive psychiatrists about his condition .
Before the trial began , Mr . Gigante , who had open - heart surgery in 1988 , had another cardiac operation in December 1996 , putting his fitness to stand trial in doubt once again .
Mr . Gigante had pleaded not guilty and had been free for years on $1 million bond .
During the monthlong trial in 1997 , a gaunt - looking Mr . Gigante sat in a wheelchair , looking blankly into space as witnesses testified and lawyers argued .
He did not testify .
After three days of deliberations , the jury on July 25 , 1997 , convicted him on charges of running multimillion - dollar rackets as the Genovese family chief and of conspiring unsuccessfully in the late 1980's to murder Mr . Gotti and a Genovese family defector .
But he was acquitted of ordering three other gangland slayings and the jury was deadlocked on accusations that he ordered four other murders .
Imposing a sentence of 12 years - instead of a possible maximum of 27 years - and a $1 . 25 million fine , Judge Jack B . Weinstein of Federal District Court in Brooklyn reflected in December 1997 on Mr . Gigante's career .
"He is a shadow of his former self , " the judge said , "an old man finally brought to bay in his declining years after decades of vicious criminal tyranny . " |
26_1ecbplus.xml_2 | train | ent | 26_1ecbplus.xml | 1 | Vincent Gigante , Mafia Leader Who Feigned Insanity , Dies at 77 | 3 | 4 | 18 | 30 | Mafia Leader | HUM18440698565277092 | Leader | ['vincent', 'gigante', 'mafia', 'leader', 'feign', 'insanity', 'die', '77'] | Vincent Gigante , <m> Mafia Leader </m> Who Feigned Insanity , Dies at 77 | http : / / www . nytimes . com / 2005 / 12 / 19 / obituaries / 19cnd - gigante . html ? pagewanted=all
Vincent Gigante , <m> Mafia Leader </m> Who Feigned Insanity , Dies at 77
Published : December 19 , 2005
Vincent Gigante , who feigned mental illness for decades to camouflage his position as one of the nation's most influential and dangerous Mafia leaders , died today in federal prison in Springfield , Mo . , officials told The Associated Press .
He was 77 .
Mr . Gigante died while serving a 12 - year sentence imposed in 1997 after he was convicted of racketeering and conspiring to kill other mobsters .
Officials at the prison medical center where he died did not provide the cause of death but noted that he suffered from heart disease .
Mr . Gigante , whose nickname was "Chin , " painstakingly maintained the fiction that he was incompetent until April 2003 , when he appeared before Judge I . Leo Glasser in Federal District Court in Brooklyn and pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice .
Specifically , he acknowledged running a con on the legal system that delayed his racketeering trial from 1990 to 1997 while his sanity was being examined .
As part of the plea , three more years were added to his prison term , but he avoided a lengthy trial on the other charges , which amounted to an accusation - long denied or sidestepped by Mr . Gigante - that he headed the Genovese organized crime family .
His lawyer , Benjamin Brafman , offered the explanation that "I think you get to a point in life - I think everyone does - where you become too old and too sick and too tired to fight . "
For Mr . Gigante , the guise that he adopted in the mid - 1960's - behavior that won him the nickname Oddfather - took considerable effort to maintain .
He could often be seen shuffling around his Greenwich Village neighborhood in pajamas , bathrobe and slippers , mumbling to himself and appearing to be a disturbed but harmless person .
Law - enforcement agents , prosecutors and Mafia defectors described his behavior as a staged performance calculated to evade prosecution for his activities as head of a crime family that under his leadership became the wealthiest and most powerful in the nation .
Based on information from informers and electronic eavesdropping on gangsters , F . B . I . and New York City law - enforcement officials ranked Mr . Gigante as the pre - eminent Mafia leader in the early and mid - 1990's , and prosecutors identified him as the dominant force in the early 1990's inside the Commission , the Mafia's ruling body , which resolves significant disputes among the five major families in the New York region .
His reach , law - enforcement officials said , extended as well to Philadelphia and New England , where he exercised veto power over the appointments of mob bosses in those areas .
Salvatore Gravano , the No . 2 figure in the Gambino crime family before he defected in 1991 , testified that even Mr . Gigante's archrival , John Gotti , grudgingly acknowledged Mr . Gigante's craftiness .
"He's crazy like a fox , " Mr . Gravano quoted Mr . Gotti as saying of Mr . Gigante after a summit meeting of New York City mob leaders in 1988 .
Mr . Gotti was the boss of the Gambino family until his own imprisonment forced him to relinquish undisputed control in the late 1990's .
He , too , died in a prison hospital , of cancer in June 2002 .
Federal Bureau of Investigation agents and federal and state prosecutors regarded Mr . Gigante as the most elusive Mafia leader of his era and the most difficult to bring to trial .
"He was probably the most clever organized - crime figure I have ever seen , " said John S . Pritchard 3rd , a former F . B . I . supervisor , who led a squad that investigated the Genovese family in the 1980's .
Disputing the government's contentions , Mr . Gigante's lawyers and relatives maintained that he had been mentally disabled since the late 1960's , with a below - normal I . Q . of 69 to 72 .
His defenders steadfastly denied that he was associated with the Mafia , asserting that it was ludicrous to believe that someone so mentally subpar was capable of heading a major crime organization .
The Rev . Louis Gigante , a Roman Catholic priest , former New York city councilman and a builder of low - income housing in the Bronx , characterized the relentless investigations of his older brother as persecution by agents and prosecutors who were biased against Italian - Americans .
Organized - crime experts and mob turncoats said that Mr . Gigante was apparently willing to humiliate himself publicly as the price for escaping the long prison sentences that were being meted out to other Mafia leaders .
According to federal and state investigators , each of the family's 200 "made" or inducted soldiers and about 1 , 000 associates - the name for others who voluntarily cooperate in illegal activities but who are not sworn members - were obligated to funnel part of their loot to Mr . Gigante , as much as $100 million a year in the early 1990's .
The family's fortune , the experts said , flowed largely from a vast network of bookmaking and loansharking rings and from extortions of construction companies in the New York City area seeking labor peace or sweetheart contracts from carpenters , teamsters and laborers' unions that were dominated by Mr . Gigante's lieutenants .
Mob deserters in the mid - 1990's testified in criminal and civil cases that the Genovese gang's other lucrative enterprises included the control of cartels that rigged bids and inflated prices in the private garbage - hauling industries of New York City and Westchester County ; kickbacks from shipping and trucking companies on the New Jersey waterfront in exchange for labor peace ; protection payoffs from merchants at the Fulton Fish Market ; and the control of many union jobs at the Jacob K . Javits Convention Center in Manhattan .
Mr . Gigante's influence even extended over the San Gennaro Street Festival in Little Italy until a 1995 crackdown by New York City officials and federal prosecutors resulted in allegations that the Genovese family operated gambling games at the festival , extorted payoffs from venders and pocketed thousands of dollars donated to a neighborhood church .
In the 1980's , after the authorities said Mr . Gigante had assumed undisputed command of the Genovese family , he conducted his activities in a starkly unorthodox fashion for a Mafia leader .
Most days , in the early evening , Mr . Gigante , a hulking man who was about six feet tall and weighed 200 pounds , would emerge from his mother's walkup apartment building on Sullivan Street in Greenwich Village .
Sometimes dressed in a bathrobe and pajamas and sometimes wearing a windbreaker and shabby trousers and always accompanied by one or two bodyguards , he gingerly crossed the street to the Triangle Civic Improvement Association , a dingy storefront club that served as his headquarters .
Inside , he played pinochle and held whispered conversations with men who agents said were his trusted confederates .
After midnight , according to F . B . I . surveillance reports , he would be driven to a townhouse near Park Avenue at East 77th Street , that was owned by Olympia Esposito , who was characterized by Mr . Gigante's lawyers as his common - law wife and the mother of three of his eight children , Vincent , Lucia and Carmella Esposito .
F . B . I . agents , who in 1986 observed the townhouse from a nearby rooftop post , said that soon after arriving , Mr . Gigante would change into more elegant clothes , carry on conversations with associates , and read or watch television before retiring .
About 9 or 10 the next morning , he would reappear in his shabby downtown clothes and be driven back to Sullivan Street or a nearby apartment occupied by his relatives at 505 LaGuardia Place .
"It was hard to understand what enjoyment he got out of being a mob boss , " said Ronald Goldstock , the former director of the New York State Organized Crime Task Force .
"His only pleasure appeared to be the pure power he exercised . "
Vincent Gigante ( pronounced ji - GANT - tee ) was born on March 29 , 1928 , in New York City and grew up on the same streets in Greenwich Village where he would spend most of his adult life .
He was one of five sons of Salvatore Gigante , a watchmaker , and Yolanda Gigante , a seamstress , both of whom had immigrated from Naples .
His mother usually addressed him as "Cincenzo , " a diminutive of Vincente , and his boyhood friends shortened that into his lifelong nickname , "Chin . "
A lackadaisical student , Mr . Gigante graduated from P . S . 3 , an elementary school in Greenwich Village and dropped out of Textile High School in Manhattan in the ninth grade .
Police detectives said that as a teen - ager , he became a prot�g� of Vito Genovese , who was a potent Mafia leader in the United States and in Italy from the 1930's to the 1960's and whose name still describes the organized - crime group he headed until his death in 1969 .
The gang was founded in the 1930's by one of the nation's most notorious criminals , Charles ( Lucky ) Luciano , who was deported to Italy and who died in 1962 .
Mr . Genovese is believed to have endeared himself to the Gigantes when Vincent was a boy with a loan to pay for surgery needed by Mrs . Gigante .
Between age 17 and 25 , Mr . Gigante was arrested seven times on an array of charges : receiving stolen goods , possession of an unlicensed handgun , auto theft , arson and bookmaking .
Most were dismissed or resolved by fines .
His only jail sentence in that period was 60 days for a gambling conviction .
When arrested in his early 20's , he listed his occupation as a tailor .
But as a strapping youth with quick fists , he was better known as a prize fighter .
Mr . Gigante , from age 16 to 19 , fought as a light heavyweight in clubs around town , winning 21 of 25 light - heavyweight bouts , according to Nat Fleischer's Ring Record Book .
Club boxers in those days fought four - and six - round contests in neighborhood arenas , usually getting a percentage of the tickets they themselves sold .
One of Mr . Gigante's managers was a Greenwich Village neighbor , Thomas ( Tommy Ryan ) Eboli , who later became the boss of the Genovese family .
Former New York City detectives who were assigned to organized - crime intelligence units said that Mr . Gigante earned his Mafia spurs as an enforcer in the 1950's .
But his prominence in the underworld surged in 1957 , when Mr . Genovese wrested control of a mob family from Frank Costello , who had been a close friend of Lucky Luciano and Meyer Lansky and was one of the best - known underworld figures in America .
Mr . Costello retired abruptly as a boss after a gunman grazed his scalp with a bullet in the vestibule of his apartment building on Central Park West .
A doorman identified the 29 - year - old Mr . Gigante as the shooter , but Mr . Costello testified that he was unable to recognize his assailant and Mr . Gigante was acquitted in 1958 on charges of attempted murder .
A year later , he was convicted with Mr . Genovese in Manhattan on federal charges of heroin trafficking .
Mr . Gigante , who listed his profession as the superintendent of a tenement on Bleecker Street , was sentenced to seven years in prison .
The sentencing judge said he would have imposed a longer sentence but was swayed by a flood of letters from residents of Greenwich Village and Little Italy attesting to Mr . Gigante's good character and his work on behalf of juveniles .
He was paroled after five years and detectives said that soon afterward he was promoted from soldier to the rank of capo , or captain , overseeing a group of Mafia gangsters known as a crew , in Greenwich Village .
Although his headquarters was in Lower Manhattan and he spent his nights farther uptown , Mr . Gigante had a home in Old Tappan , N . J . , where he lived with his wife , the former Olympia Grippa , and their three daughters and two sons .
They are Yolanda Fyfe , Roseanne D'Cola and Rita Gigante , and Salvatore and Andrew .
In 1969 , he was indicted in New Jersey on a charge of conspiracy to bribe the entire five - member Old Tappan police force to alert him to surveillance operations by law enforcement agencies .
The accusation was dropped after Mr . Gigante's lawyers presented reports from psychiatrists that he was mentally unfit to stand trial .
Mafia informers and defectors said that Mr . Gigante gained control of the Genovese family in a peaceful transition in the early 1980's when the group's acting boss , Philip Lombardo , stepped down because of ill health , and Mr . Gigante's main rival , Anthony Salerno , was imprisoned for life on racketeering charges .
Mr . Salerno died in federal prison in 1992 .
As a new godfather , Mr . Gigante quickly imposed extraordinary security measures .
Genovese soldiers and associates were forbidden to utter his name or nickname in conversations or telephone calls .
When references to him had to be made , capos and soldiers would silently point to their chins or form the letter "C" with their fingers .
Mr . Gigante was indicted in 1990 with 14 others on federal charges in Brooklyn that they had conspired to rig bids and extort payoffs from contractors on multimillion - dollar contracts with the New York City Housing Authority to install windows .
At his arraignment , he appeared in court in his familiar pajamas and bathrobe and a peaked cap .
Because of defense contentions that he was mentally and physically impaired , his case was severed from the other defendants and legal battles ensued for seven years over his competence to stand trial .
A superseding indictment in 1993 brought more serious accusations against him .
Mr . Gigante was charged with being the head of the Genovese family and sanctioning the murders of six mobsters and conspiring to kill three others , including John Gotti , the boss of the Gambino family .
Mr . Gigante , the indictment asserted , wanted Mr . Gotti eliminated because he had violated Mafia protocol by arranging the assassination of the previous Gambino boss , Paul Castellano , without seeking Mr . Gigante's approval .
The evidence in both indictments stemmed mainly from deserters from the Genovese and other mob families who entered the Government's Witness Protection Program .
At sanity hearings in March 1996 , Mr . Gravano of the Gambino family , and Alphonse D'Arco , the former acting boss of another New York Mafia organization , the Lucchese crime family , testified that Mr . Gigante was lucid during top - level Mafia meetings and that he had acknowledged to other gangsters that his eccentric behavior was a pretense .
Mr . Gigante's lawyers elicited testimony and reports from psychiatrists and psychologists that from 1969 to 1995 , he had been confined 28 times in hospitals for treatment of hallucinations and that he suffered from "dementia rooted in organic brain damage . "
In August 1996 , Judge Eugene H . Nickerson of Federal District Court in Brooklyn ruled that Mr . Gigante was mentally competent to stand trial on murder and racketeering charges .
The judge found that at least until 1991 , Mr . Gigante had engaged in an "elaborate deception" with the help of his relatives to deceive psychiatrists about his condition .
Before the trial began , Mr . Gigante , who had open - heart surgery in 1988 , had another cardiac operation in December 1996 , putting his fitness to stand trial in doubt once again .
Mr . Gigante had pleaded not guilty and had been free for years on $1 million bond .
During the monthlong trial in 1997 , a gaunt - looking Mr . Gigante sat in a wheelchair , looking blankly into space as witnesses testified and lawyers argued .
He did not testify .
After three days of deliberations , the jury on July 25 , 1997 , convicted him on charges of running multimillion - dollar rackets as the Genovese family chief and of conspiring unsuccessfully in the late 1980's to murder Mr . Gotti and a Genovese family defector .
But he was acquitted of ordering three other gangland slayings and the jury was deadlocked on accusations that he ordered four other murders .
Imposing a sentence of 12 years - instead of a possible maximum of 27 years - and a $1 . 25 million fine , Judge Jack B . Weinstein of Federal District Court in Brooklyn reflected in December 1997 on Mr . Gigante's career .
"He is a shadow of his former self , " the judge said , "an old man finally brought to bay in his declining years after decades of vicious criminal tyranny . " |
26_1ecbplus.xml_7 | train | ent | 26_1ecbplus.xml | 6 | Officials at the prison medical center where he died did not provide the cause of death but noted that he suffered from heart disease . | 0 | 0 | 0 | 9 | Officials | 10000000840 | official | ['official', 'prison', 'medical', 'center', 'he', 'die', 'provide', 'cause', 'death', 'note', 'he', 'suffer', 'heart', 'disease'] | <m> Officials </m> at the prison medical center where he died did not provide the cause of death but noted that he suffered from heart disease . | http : / / www . nytimes . com / 2005 / 12 / 19 / obituaries / 19cnd - gigante . html ? pagewanted=all
Vincent Gigante , Mafia Leader Who Feigned Insanity , Dies at 77
Published : December 19 , 2005
Vincent Gigante , who feigned mental illness for decades to camouflage his position as one of the nation's most influential and dangerous Mafia leaders , died today in federal prison in Springfield , Mo . , officials told The Associated Press .
He was 77 .
Mr . Gigante died while serving a 12 - year sentence imposed in 1997 after he was convicted of racketeering and conspiring to kill other mobsters .
<m> Officials </m> at the prison medical center where he died did not provide the cause of death but noted that he suffered from heart disease .
Mr . Gigante , whose nickname was "Chin , " painstakingly maintained the fiction that he was incompetent until April 2003 , when he appeared before Judge I . Leo Glasser in Federal District Court in Brooklyn and pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice .
Specifically , he acknowledged running a con on the legal system that delayed his racketeering trial from 1990 to 1997 while his sanity was being examined .
As part of the plea , three more years were added to his prison term , but he avoided a lengthy trial on the other charges , which amounted to an accusation - long denied or sidestepped by Mr . Gigante - that he headed the Genovese organized crime family .
His lawyer , Benjamin Brafman , offered the explanation that "I think you get to a point in life - I think everyone does - where you become too old and too sick and too tired to fight . "
For Mr . Gigante , the guise that he adopted in the mid - 1960's - behavior that won him the nickname Oddfather - took considerable effort to maintain .
He could often be seen shuffling around his Greenwich Village neighborhood in pajamas , bathrobe and slippers , mumbling to himself and appearing to be a disturbed but harmless person .
Law - enforcement agents , prosecutors and Mafia defectors described his behavior as a staged performance calculated to evade prosecution for his activities as head of a crime family that under his leadership became the wealthiest and most powerful in the nation .
Based on information from informers and electronic eavesdropping on gangsters , F . B . I . and New York City law - enforcement officials ranked Mr . Gigante as the pre - eminent Mafia leader in the early and mid - 1990's , and prosecutors identified him as the dominant force in the early 1990's inside the Commission , the Mafia's ruling body , which resolves significant disputes among the five major families in the New York region .
His reach , law - enforcement officials said , extended as well to Philadelphia and New England , where he exercised veto power over the appointments of mob bosses in those areas .
Salvatore Gravano , the No . 2 figure in the Gambino crime family before he defected in 1991 , testified that even Mr . Gigante's archrival , John Gotti , grudgingly acknowledged Mr . Gigante's craftiness .
"He's crazy like a fox , " Mr . Gravano quoted Mr . Gotti as saying of Mr . Gigante after a summit meeting of New York City mob leaders in 1988 .
Mr . Gotti was the boss of the Gambino family until his own imprisonment forced him to relinquish undisputed control in the late 1990's .
He , too , died in a prison hospital , of cancer in June 2002 .
Federal Bureau of Investigation agents and federal and state prosecutors regarded Mr . Gigante as the most elusive Mafia leader of his era and the most difficult to bring to trial .
"He was probably the most clever organized - crime figure I have ever seen , " said John S . Pritchard 3rd , a former F . B . I . supervisor , who led a squad that investigated the Genovese family in the 1980's .
Disputing the government's contentions , Mr . Gigante's lawyers and relatives maintained that he had been mentally disabled since the late 1960's , with a below - normal I . Q . of 69 to 72 .
His defenders steadfastly denied that he was associated with the Mafia , asserting that it was ludicrous to believe that someone so mentally subpar was capable of heading a major crime organization .
The Rev . Louis Gigante , a Roman Catholic priest , former New York city councilman and a builder of low - income housing in the Bronx , characterized the relentless investigations of his older brother as persecution by agents and prosecutors who were biased against Italian - Americans .
Organized - crime experts and mob turncoats said that Mr . Gigante was apparently willing to humiliate himself publicly as the price for escaping the long prison sentences that were being meted out to other Mafia leaders .
According to federal and state investigators , each of the family's 200 "made" or inducted soldiers and about 1 , 000 associates - the name for others who voluntarily cooperate in illegal activities but who are not sworn members - were obligated to funnel part of their loot to Mr . Gigante , as much as $100 million a year in the early 1990's .
The family's fortune , the experts said , flowed largely from a vast network of bookmaking and loansharking rings and from extortions of construction companies in the New York City area seeking labor peace or sweetheart contracts from carpenters , teamsters and laborers' unions that were dominated by Mr . Gigante's lieutenants .
Mob deserters in the mid - 1990's testified in criminal and civil cases that the Genovese gang's other lucrative enterprises included the control of cartels that rigged bids and inflated prices in the private garbage - hauling industries of New York City and Westchester County ; kickbacks from shipping and trucking companies on the New Jersey waterfront in exchange for labor peace ; protection payoffs from merchants at the Fulton Fish Market ; and the control of many union jobs at the Jacob K . Javits Convention Center in Manhattan .
Mr . Gigante's influence even extended over the San Gennaro Street Festival in Little Italy until a 1995 crackdown by New York City officials and federal prosecutors resulted in allegations that the Genovese family operated gambling games at the festival , extorted payoffs from venders and pocketed thousands of dollars donated to a neighborhood church .
In the 1980's , after the authorities said Mr . Gigante had assumed undisputed command of the Genovese family , he conducted his activities in a starkly unorthodox fashion for a Mafia leader .
Most days , in the early evening , Mr . Gigante , a hulking man who was about six feet tall and weighed 200 pounds , would emerge from his mother's walkup apartment building on Sullivan Street in Greenwich Village .
Sometimes dressed in a bathrobe and pajamas and sometimes wearing a windbreaker and shabby trousers and always accompanied by one or two bodyguards , he gingerly crossed the street to the Triangle Civic Improvement Association , a dingy storefront club that served as his headquarters .
Inside , he played pinochle and held whispered conversations with men who agents said were his trusted confederates .
After midnight , according to F . B . I . surveillance reports , he would be driven to a townhouse near Park Avenue at East 77th Street , that was owned by Olympia Esposito , who was characterized by Mr . Gigante's lawyers as his common - law wife and the mother of three of his eight children , Vincent , Lucia and Carmella Esposito .
F . B . I . agents , who in 1986 observed the townhouse from a nearby rooftop post , said that soon after arriving , Mr . Gigante would change into more elegant clothes , carry on conversations with associates , and read or watch television before retiring .
About 9 or 10 the next morning , he would reappear in his shabby downtown clothes and be driven back to Sullivan Street or a nearby apartment occupied by his relatives at 505 LaGuardia Place .
"It was hard to understand what enjoyment he got out of being a mob boss , " said Ronald Goldstock , the former director of the New York State Organized Crime Task Force .
"His only pleasure appeared to be the pure power he exercised . "
Vincent Gigante ( pronounced ji - GANT - tee ) was born on March 29 , 1928 , in New York City and grew up on the same streets in Greenwich Village where he would spend most of his adult life .
He was one of five sons of Salvatore Gigante , a watchmaker , and Yolanda Gigante , a seamstress , both of whom had immigrated from Naples .
His mother usually addressed him as "Cincenzo , " a diminutive of Vincente , and his boyhood friends shortened that into his lifelong nickname , "Chin . "
A lackadaisical student , Mr . Gigante graduated from P . S . 3 , an elementary school in Greenwich Village and dropped out of Textile High School in Manhattan in the ninth grade .
Police detectives said that as a teen - ager , he became a prot�g� of Vito Genovese , who was a potent Mafia leader in the United States and in Italy from the 1930's to the 1960's and whose name still describes the organized - crime group he headed until his death in 1969 .
The gang was founded in the 1930's by one of the nation's most notorious criminals , Charles ( Lucky ) Luciano , who was deported to Italy and who died in 1962 .
Mr . Genovese is believed to have endeared himself to the Gigantes when Vincent was a boy with a loan to pay for surgery needed by Mrs . Gigante .
Between age 17 and 25 , Mr . Gigante was arrested seven times on an array of charges : receiving stolen goods , possession of an unlicensed handgun , auto theft , arson and bookmaking .
Most were dismissed or resolved by fines .
His only jail sentence in that period was 60 days for a gambling conviction .
When arrested in his early 20's , he listed his occupation as a tailor .
But as a strapping youth with quick fists , he was better known as a prize fighter .
Mr . Gigante , from age 16 to 19 , fought as a light heavyweight in clubs around town , winning 21 of 25 light - heavyweight bouts , according to Nat Fleischer's Ring Record Book .
Club boxers in those days fought four - and six - round contests in neighborhood arenas , usually getting a percentage of the tickets they themselves sold .
One of Mr . Gigante's managers was a Greenwich Village neighbor , Thomas ( Tommy Ryan ) Eboli , who later became the boss of the Genovese family .
Former New York City detectives who were assigned to organized - crime intelligence units said that Mr . Gigante earned his Mafia spurs as an enforcer in the 1950's .
But his prominence in the underworld surged in 1957 , when Mr . Genovese wrested control of a mob family from Frank Costello , who had been a close friend of Lucky Luciano and Meyer Lansky and was one of the best - known underworld figures in America .
Mr . Costello retired abruptly as a boss after a gunman grazed his scalp with a bullet in the vestibule of his apartment building on Central Park West .
A doorman identified the 29 - year - old Mr . Gigante as the shooter , but Mr . Costello testified that he was unable to recognize his assailant and Mr . Gigante was acquitted in 1958 on charges of attempted murder .
A year later , he was convicted with Mr . Genovese in Manhattan on federal charges of heroin trafficking .
Mr . Gigante , who listed his profession as the superintendent of a tenement on Bleecker Street , was sentenced to seven years in prison .
The sentencing judge said he would have imposed a longer sentence but was swayed by a flood of letters from residents of Greenwich Village and Little Italy attesting to Mr . Gigante's good character and his work on behalf of juveniles .
He was paroled after five years and detectives said that soon afterward he was promoted from soldier to the rank of capo , or captain , overseeing a group of Mafia gangsters known as a crew , in Greenwich Village .
Although his headquarters was in Lower Manhattan and he spent his nights farther uptown , Mr . Gigante had a home in Old Tappan , N . J . , where he lived with his wife , the former Olympia Grippa , and their three daughters and two sons .
They are Yolanda Fyfe , Roseanne D'Cola and Rita Gigante , and Salvatore and Andrew .
In 1969 , he was indicted in New Jersey on a charge of conspiracy to bribe the entire five - member Old Tappan police force to alert him to surveillance operations by law enforcement agencies .
The accusation was dropped after Mr . Gigante's lawyers presented reports from psychiatrists that he was mentally unfit to stand trial .
Mafia informers and defectors said that Mr . Gigante gained control of the Genovese family in a peaceful transition in the early 1980's when the group's acting boss , Philip Lombardo , stepped down because of ill health , and Mr . Gigante's main rival , Anthony Salerno , was imprisoned for life on racketeering charges .
Mr . Salerno died in federal prison in 1992 .
As a new godfather , Mr . Gigante quickly imposed extraordinary security measures .
Genovese soldiers and associates were forbidden to utter his name or nickname in conversations or telephone calls .
When references to him had to be made , capos and soldiers would silently point to their chins or form the letter "C" with their fingers .
Mr . Gigante was indicted in 1990 with 14 others on federal charges in Brooklyn that they had conspired to rig bids and extort payoffs from contractors on multimillion - dollar contracts with the New York City Housing Authority to install windows .
At his arraignment , he appeared in court in his familiar pajamas and bathrobe and a peaked cap .
Because of defense contentions that he was mentally and physically impaired , his case was severed from the other defendants and legal battles ensued for seven years over his competence to stand trial .
A superseding indictment in 1993 brought more serious accusations against him .
Mr . Gigante was charged with being the head of the Genovese family and sanctioning the murders of six mobsters and conspiring to kill three others , including John Gotti , the boss of the Gambino family .
Mr . Gigante , the indictment asserted , wanted Mr . Gotti eliminated because he had violated Mafia protocol by arranging the assassination of the previous Gambino boss , Paul Castellano , without seeking Mr . Gigante's approval .
The evidence in both indictments stemmed mainly from deserters from the Genovese and other mob families who entered the Government's Witness Protection Program .
At sanity hearings in March 1996 , Mr . Gravano of the Gambino family , and Alphonse D'Arco , the former acting boss of another New York Mafia organization , the Lucchese crime family , testified that Mr . Gigante was lucid during top - level Mafia meetings and that he had acknowledged to other gangsters that his eccentric behavior was a pretense .
Mr . Gigante's lawyers elicited testimony and reports from psychiatrists and psychologists that from 1969 to 1995 , he had been confined 28 times in hospitals for treatment of hallucinations and that he suffered from "dementia rooted in organic brain damage . "
In August 1996 , Judge Eugene H . Nickerson of Federal District Court in Brooklyn ruled that Mr . Gigante was mentally competent to stand trial on murder and racketeering charges .
The judge found that at least until 1991 , Mr . Gigante had engaged in an "elaborate deception" with the help of his relatives to deceive psychiatrists about his condition .
Before the trial began , Mr . Gigante , who had open - heart surgery in 1988 , had another cardiac operation in December 1996 , putting his fitness to stand trial in doubt once again .
Mr . Gigante had pleaded not guilty and had been free for years on $1 million bond .
During the monthlong trial in 1997 , a gaunt - looking Mr . Gigante sat in a wheelchair , looking blankly into space as witnesses testified and lawyers argued .
He did not testify .
After three days of deliberations , the jury on July 25 , 1997 , convicted him on charges of running multimillion - dollar rackets as the Genovese family chief and of conspiring unsuccessfully in the late 1980's to murder Mr . Gotti and a Genovese family defector .
But he was acquitted of ordering three other gangland slayings and the jury was deadlocked on accusations that he ordered four other murders .
Imposing a sentence of 12 years - instead of a possible maximum of 27 years - and a $1 . 25 million fine , Judge Jack B . Weinstein of Federal District Court in Brooklyn reflected in December 1997 on Mr . Gigante's career .
"He is a shadow of his former self , " the judge said , "an old man finally brought to bay in his declining years after decades of vicious criminal tyranny . " |
26_1ecbplus.xml_8 | train | ent | 26_1ecbplus.xml | 6 | Officials at the prison medical center where he died did not provide the cause of death but noted that he suffered from heart disease . | 7 | 7 | 45 | 47 | he | HUM18440698565277092 | he | ['official', 'prison', 'medical', 'center', 'he', 'die', 'provide', 'cause', 'death', 'note', 'he', 'suffer', 'heart', 'disease'] | Officials at the prison medical center where <m> he </m> died did not provide the cause of death but noted that he suffered from heart disease . | http : / / www . nytimes . com / 2005 / 12 / 19 / obituaries / 19cnd - gigante . html ? pagewanted=all
Vincent Gigante , Mafia Leader Who Feigned Insanity , Dies at 77
Published : December 19 , 2005
Vincent Gigante , who feigned mental illness for decades to camouflage his position as one of the nation's most influential and dangerous Mafia leaders , died today in federal prison in Springfield , Mo . , officials told The Associated Press .
He was 77 .
Mr . Gigante died while serving a 12 - year sentence imposed in 1997 after he was convicted of racketeering and conspiring to kill other mobsters .
Officials at the prison medical center where <m> he </m> died did not provide the cause of death but noted that he suffered from heart disease .
Mr . Gigante , whose nickname was "Chin , " painstakingly maintained the fiction that he was incompetent until April 2003 , when he appeared before Judge I . Leo Glasser in Federal District Court in Brooklyn and pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice .
Specifically , he acknowledged running a con on the legal system that delayed his racketeering trial from 1990 to 1997 while his sanity was being examined .
As part of the plea , three more years were added to his prison term , but he avoided a lengthy trial on the other charges , which amounted to an accusation - long denied or sidestepped by Mr . Gigante - that he headed the Genovese organized crime family .
His lawyer , Benjamin Brafman , offered the explanation that "I think you get to a point in life - I think everyone does - where you become too old and too sick and too tired to fight . "
For Mr . Gigante , the guise that he adopted in the mid - 1960's - behavior that won him the nickname Oddfather - took considerable effort to maintain .
He could often be seen shuffling around his Greenwich Village neighborhood in pajamas , bathrobe and slippers , mumbling to himself and appearing to be a disturbed but harmless person .
Law - enforcement agents , prosecutors and Mafia defectors described his behavior as a staged performance calculated to evade prosecution for his activities as head of a crime family that under his leadership became the wealthiest and most powerful in the nation .
Based on information from informers and electronic eavesdropping on gangsters , F . B . I . and New York City law - enforcement officials ranked Mr . Gigante as the pre - eminent Mafia leader in the early and mid - 1990's , and prosecutors identified him as the dominant force in the early 1990's inside the Commission , the Mafia's ruling body , which resolves significant disputes among the five major families in the New York region .
His reach , law - enforcement officials said , extended as well to Philadelphia and New England , where he exercised veto power over the appointments of mob bosses in those areas .
Salvatore Gravano , the No . 2 figure in the Gambino crime family before he defected in 1991 , testified that even Mr . Gigante's archrival , John Gotti , grudgingly acknowledged Mr . Gigante's craftiness .
"He's crazy like a fox , " Mr . Gravano quoted Mr . Gotti as saying of Mr . Gigante after a summit meeting of New York City mob leaders in 1988 .
Mr . Gotti was the boss of the Gambino family until his own imprisonment forced him to relinquish undisputed control in the late 1990's .
He , too , died in a prison hospital , of cancer in June 2002 .
Federal Bureau of Investigation agents and federal and state prosecutors regarded Mr . Gigante as the most elusive Mafia leader of his era and the most difficult to bring to trial .
"He was probably the most clever organized - crime figure I have ever seen , " said John S . Pritchard 3rd , a former F . B . I . supervisor , who led a squad that investigated the Genovese family in the 1980's .
Disputing the government's contentions , Mr . Gigante's lawyers and relatives maintained that he had been mentally disabled since the late 1960's , with a below - normal I . Q . of 69 to 72 .
His defenders steadfastly denied that he was associated with the Mafia , asserting that it was ludicrous to believe that someone so mentally subpar was capable of heading a major crime organization .
The Rev . Louis Gigante , a Roman Catholic priest , former New York city councilman and a builder of low - income housing in the Bronx , characterized the relentless investigations of his older brother as persecution by agents and prosecutors who were biased against Italian - Americans .
Organized - crime experts and mob turncoats said that Mr . Gigante was apparently willing to humiliate himself publicly as the price for escaping the long prison sentences that were being meted out to other Mafia leaders .
According to federal and state investigators , each of the family's 200 "made" or inducted soldiers and about 1 , 000 associates - the name for others who voluntarily cooperate in illegal activities but who are not sworn members - were obligated to funnel part of their loot to Mr . Gigante , as much as $100 million a year in the early 1990's .
The family's fortune , the experts said , flowed largely from a vast network of bookmaking and loansharking rings and from extortions of construction companies in the New York City area seeking labor peace or sweetheart contracts from carpenters , teamsters and laborers' unions that were dominated by Mr . Gigante's lieutenants .
Mob deserters in the mid - 1990's testified in criminal and civil cases that the Genovese gang's other lucrative enterprises included the control of cartels that rigged bids and inflated prices in the private garbage - hauling industries of New York City and Westchester County ; kickbacks from shipping and trucking companies on the New Jersey waterfront in exchange for labor peace ; protection payoffs from merchants at the Fulton Fish Market ; and the control of many union jobs at the Jacob K . Javits Convention Center in Manhattan .
Mr . Gigante's influence even extended over the San Gennaro Street Festival in Little Italy until a 1995 crackdown by New York City officials and federal prosecutors resulted in allegations that the Genovese family operated gambling games at the festival , extorted payoffs from venders and pocketed thousands of dollars donated to a neighborhood church .
In the 1980's , after the authorities said Mr . Gigante had assumed undisputed command of the Genovese family , he conducted his activities in a starkly unorthodox fashion for a Mafia leader .
Most days , in the early evening , Mr . Gigante , a hulking man who was about six feet tall and weighed 200 pounds , would emerge from his mother's walkup apartment building on Sullivan Street in Greenwich Village .
Sometimes dressed in a bathrobe and pajamas and sometimes wearing a windbreaker and shabby trousers and always accompanied by one or two bodyguards , he gingerly crossed the street to the Triangle Civic Improvement Association , a dingy storefront club that served as his headquarters .
Inside , he played pinochle and held whispered conversations with men who agents said were his trusted confederates .
After midnight , according to F . B . I . surveillance reports , he would be driven to a townhouse near Park Avenue at East 77th Street , that was owned by Olympia Esposito , who was characterized by Mr . Gigante's lawyers as his common - law wife and the mother of three of his eight children , Vincent , Lucia and Carmella Esposito .
F . B . I . agents , who in 1986 observed the townhouse from a nearby rooftop post , said that soon after arriving , Mr . Gigante would change into more elegant clothes , carry on conversations with associates , and read or watch television before retiring .
About 9 or 10 the next morning , he would reappear in his shabby downtown clothes and be driven back to Sullivan Street or a nearby apartment occupied by his relatives at 505 LaGuardia Place .
"It was hard to understand what enjoyment he got out of being a mob boss , " said Ronald Goldstock , the former director of the New York State Organized Crime Task Force .
"His only pleasure appeared to be the pure power he exercised . "
Vincent Gigante ( pronounced ji - GANT - tee ) was born on March 29 , 1928 , in New York City and grew up on the same streets in Greenwich Village where he would spend most of his adult life .
He was one of five sons of Salvatore Gigante , a watchmaker , and Yolanda Gigante , a seamstress , both of whom had immigrated from Naples .
His mother usually addressed him as "Cincenzo , " a diminutive of Vincente , and his boyhood friends shortened that into his lifelong nickname , "Chin . "
A lackadaisical student , Mr . Gigante graduated from P . S . 3 , an elementary school in Greenwich Village and dropped out of Textile High School in Manhattan in the ninth grade .
Police detectives said that as a teen - ager , he became a prot�g� of Vito Genovese , who was a potent Mafia leader in the United States and in Italy from the 1930's to the 1960's and whose name still describes the organized - crime group he headed until his death in 1969 .
The gang was founded in the 1930's by one of the nation's most notorious criminals , Charles ( Lucky ) Luciano , who was deported to Italy and who died in 1962 .
Mr . Genovese is believed to have endeared himself to the Gigantes when Vincent was a boy with a loan to pay for surgery needed by Mrs . Gigante .
Between age 17 and 25 , Mr . Gigante was arrested seven times on an array of charges : receiving stolen goods , possession of an unlicensed handgun , auto theft , arson and bookmaking .
Most were dismissed or resolved by fines .
His only jail sentence in that period was 60 days for a gambling conviction .
When arrested in his early 20's , he listed his occupation as a tailor .
But as a strapping youth with quick fists , he was better known as a prize fighter .
Mr . Gigante , from age 16 to 19 , fought as a light heavyweight in clubs around town , winning 21 of 25 light - heavyweight bouts , according to Nat Fleischer's Ring Record Book .
Club boxers in those days fought four - and six - round contests in neighborhood arenas , usually getting a percentage of the tickets they themselves sold .
One of Mr . Gigante's managers was a Greenwich Village neighbor , Thomas ( Tommy Ryan ) Eboli , who later became the boss of the Genovese family .
Former New York City detectives who were assigned to organized - crime intelligence units said that Mr . Gigante earned his Mafia spurs as an enforcer in the 1950's .
But his prominence in the underworld surged in 1957 , when Mr . Genovese wrested control of a mob family from Frank Costello , who had been a close friend of Lucky Luciano and Meyer Lansky and was one of the best - known underworld figures in America .
Mr . Costello retired abruptly as a boss after a gunman grazed his scalp with a bullet in the vestibule of his apartment building on Central Park West .
A doorman identified the 29 - year - old Mr . Gigante as the shooter , but Mr . Costello testified that he was unable to recognize his assailant and Mr . Gigante was acquitted in 1958 on charges of attempted murder .
A year later , he was convicted with Mr . Genovese in Manhattan on federal charges of heroin trafficking .
Mr . Gigante , who listed his profession as the superintendent of a tenement on Bleecker Street , was sentenced to seven years in prison .
The sentencing judge said he would have imposed a longer sentence but was swayed by a flood of letters from residents of Greenwich Village and Little Italy attesting to Mr . Gigante's good character and his work on behalf of juveniles .
He was paroled after five years and detectives said that soon afterward he was promoted from soldier to the rank of capo , or captain , overseeing a group of Mafia gangsters known as a crew , in Greenwich Village .
Although his headquarters was in Lower Manhattan and he spent his nights farther uptown , Mr . Gigante had a home in Old Tappan , N . J . , where he lived with his wife , the former Olympia Grippa , and their three daughters and two sons .
They are Yolanda Fyfe , Roseanne D'Cola and Rita Gigante , and Salvatore and Andrew .
In 1969 , he was indicted in New Jersey on a charge of conspiracy to bribe the entire five - member Old Tappan police force to alert him to surveillance operations by law enforcement agencies .
The accusation was dropped after Mr . Gigante's lawyers presented reports from psychiatrists that he was mentally unfit to stand trial .
Mafia informers and defectors said that Mr . Gigante gained control of the Genovese family in a peaceful transition in the early 1980's when the group's acting boss , Philip Lombardo , stepped down because of ill health , and Mr . Gigante's main rival , Anthony Salerno , was imprisoned for life on racketeering charges .
Mr . Salerno died in federal prison in 1992 .
As a new godfather , Mr . Gigante quickly imposed extraordinary security measures .
Genovese soldiers and associates were forbidden to utter his name or nickname in conversations or telephone calls .
When references to him had to be made , capos and soldiers would silently point to their chins or form the letter "C" with their fingers .
Mr . Gigante was indicted in 1990 with 14 others on federal charges in Brooklyn that they had conspired to rig bids and extort payoffs from contractors on multimillion - dollar contracts with the New York City Housing Authority to install windows .
At his arraignment , he appeared in court in his familiar pajamas and bathrobe and a peaked cap .
Because of defense contentions that he was mentally and physically impaired , his case was severed from the other defendants and legal battles ensued for seven years over his competence to stand trial .
A superseding indictment in 1993 brought more serious accusations against him .
Mr . Gigante was charged with being the head of the Genovese family and sanctioning the murders of six mobsters and conspiring to kill three others , including John Gotti , the boss of the Gambino family .
Mr . Gigante , the indictment asserted , wanted Mr . Gotti eliminated because he had violated Mafia protocol by arranging the assassination of the previous Gambino boss , Paul Castellano , without seeking Mr . Gigante's approval .
The evidence in both indictments stemmed mainly from deserters from the Genovese and other mob families who entered the Government's Witness Protection Program .
At sanity hearings in March 1996 , Mr . Gravano of the Gambino family , and Alphonse D'Arco , the former acting boss of another New York Mafia organization , the Lucchese crime family , testified that Mr . Gigante was lucid during top - level Mafia meetings and that he had acknowledged to other gangsters that his eccentric behavior was a pretense .
Mr . Gigante's lawyers elicited testimony and reports from psychiatrists and psychologists that from 1969 to 1995 , he had been confined 28 times in hospitals for treatment of hallucinations and that he suffered from "dementia rooted in organic brain damage . "
In August 1996 , Judge Eugene H . Nickerson of Federal District Court in Brooklyn ruled that Mr . Gigante was mentally competent to stand trial on murder and racketeering charges .
The judge found that at least until 1991 , Mr . Gigante had engaged in an "elaborate deception" with the help of his relatives to deceive psychiatrists about his condition .
Before the trial began , Mr . Gigante , who had open - heart surgery in 1988 , had another cardiac operation in December 1996 , putting his fitness to stand trial in doubt once again .
Mr . Gigante had pleaded not guilty and had been free for years on $1 million bond .
During the monthlong trial in 1997 , a gaunt - looking Mr . Gigante sat in a wheelchair , looking blankly into space as witnesses testified and lawyers argued .
He did not testify .
After three days of deliberations , the jury on July 25 , 1997 , convicted him on charges of running multimillion - dollar rackets as the Genovese family chief and of conspiring unsuccessfully in the late 1980's to murder Mr . Gotti and a Genovese family defector .
But he was acquitted of ordering three other gangland slayings and the jury was deadlocked on accusations that he ordered four other murders .
Imposing a sentence of 12 years - instead of a possible maximum of 27 years - and a $1 . 25 million fine , Judge Jack B . Weinstein of Federal District Court in Brooklyn reflected in December 1997 on Mr . Gigante's career .
"He is a shadow of his former self , " the judge said , "an old man finally brought to bay in his declining years after decades of vicious criminal tyranny . " |
26_1ecbplus.xml_41 | train | ent | 26_1ecbplus.xml | 6 | Officials at the prison medical center where he died did not provide the cause of death but noted that he suffered from heart disease . | 2 | 5 | 13 | 38 | the prison medical center | LOC18440750306982431 | medical | ['official', 'prison', 'medical', 'center', 'he', 'die', 'provide', 'cause', 'death', 'note', 'he', 'suffer', 'heart', 'disease'] | Officials at <m> the prison medical center </m> where he died did not provide the cause of death but noted that he suffered from heart disease . | http : / / www . nytimes . com / 2005 / 12 / 19 / obituaries / 19cnd - gigante . html ? pagewanted=all
Vincent Gigante , Mafia Leader Who Feigned Insanity , Dies at 77
Published : December 19 , 2005
Vincent Gigante , who feigned mental illness for decades to camouflage his position as one of the nation's most influential and dangerous Mafia leaders , died today in federal prison in Springfield , Mo . , officials told The Associated Press .
He was 77 .
Mr . Gigante died while serving a 12 - year sentence imposed in 1997 after he was convicted of racketeering and conspiring to kill other mobsters .
Officials at <m> the prison medical center </m> where he died did not provide the cause of death but noted that he suffered from heart disease .
Mr . Gigante , whose nickname was "Chin , " painstakingly maintained the fiction that he was incompetent until April 2003 , when he appeared before Judge I . Leo Glasser in Federal District Court in Brooklyn and pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice .
Specifically , he acknowledged running a con on the legal system that delayed his racketeering trial from 1990 to 1997 while his sanity was being examined .
As part of the plea , three more years were added to his prison term , but he avoided a lengthy trial on the other charges , which amounted to an accusation - long denied or sidestepped by Mr . Gigante - that he headed the Genovese organized crime family .
His lawyer , Benjamin Brafman , offered the explanation that "I think you get to a point in life - I think everyone does - where you become too old and too sick and too tired to fight . "
For Mr . Gigante , the guise that he adopted in the mid - 1960's - behavior that won him the nickname Oddfather - took considerable effort to maintain .
He could often be seen shuffling around his Greenwich Village neighborhood in pajamas , bathrobe and slippers , mumbling to himself and appearing to be a disturbed but harmless person .
Law - enforcement agents , prosecutors and Mafia defectors described his behavior as a staged performance calculated to evade prosecution for his activities as head of a crime family that under his leadership became the wealthiest and most powerful in the nation .
Based on information from informers and electronic eavesdropping on gangsters , F . B . I . and New York City law - enforcement officials ranked Mr . Gigante as the pre - eminent Mafia leader in the early and mid - 1990's , and prosecutors identified him as the dominant force in the early 1990's inside the Commission , the Mafia's ruling body , which resolves significant disputes among the five major families in the New York region .
His reach , law - enforcement officials said , extended as well to Philadelphia and New England , where he exercised veto power over the appointments of mob bosses in those areas .
Salvatore Gravano , the No . 2 figure in the Gambino crime family before he defected in 1991 , testified that even Mr . Gigante's archrival , John Gotti , grudgingly acknowledged Mr . Gigante's craftiness .
"He's crazy like a fox , " Mr . Gravano quoted Mr . Gotti as saying of Mr . Gigante after a summit meeting of New York City mob leaders in 1988 .
Mr . Gotti was the boss of the Gambino family until his own imprisonment forced him to relinquish undisputed control in the late 1990's .
He , too , died in a prison hospital , of cancer in June 2002 .
Federal Bureau of Investigation agents and federal and state prosecutors regarded Mr . Gigante as the most elusive Mafia leader of his era and the most difficult to bring to trial .
"He was probably the most clever organized - crime figure I have ever seen , " said John S . Pritchard 3rd , a former F . B . I . supervisor , who led a squad that investigated the Genovese family in the 1980's .
Disputing the government's contentions , Mr . Gigante's lawyers and relatives maintained that he had been mentally disabled since the late 1960's , with a below - normal I . Q . of 69 to 72 .
His defenders steadfastly denied that he was associated with the Mafia , asserting that it was ludicrous to believe that someone so mentally subpar was capable of heading a major crime organization .
The Rev . Louis Gigante , a Roman Catholic priest , former New York city councilman and a builder of low - income housing in the Bronx , characterized the relentless investigations of his older brother as persecution by agents and prosecutors who were biased against Italian - Americans .
Organized - crime experts and mob turncoats said that Mr . Gigante was apparently willing to humiliate himself publicly as the price for escaping the long prison sentences that were being meted out to other Mafia leaders .
According to federal and state investigators , each of the family's 200 "made" or inducted soldiers and about 1 , 000 associates - the name for others who voluntarily cooperate in illegal activities but who are not sworn members - were obligated to funnel part of their loot to Mr . Gigante , as much as $100 million a year in the early 1990's .
The family's fortune , the experts said , flowed largely from a vast network of bookmaking and loansharking rings and from extortions of construction companies in the New York City area seeking labor peace or sweetheart contracts from carpenters , teamsters and laborers' unions that were dominated by Mr . Gigante's lieutenants .
Mob deserters in the mid - 1990's testified in criminal and civil cases that the Genovese gang's other lucrative enterprises included the control of cartels that rigged bids and inflated prices in the private garbage - hauling industries of New York City and Westchester County ; kickbacks from shipping and trucking companies on the New Jersey waterfront in exchange for labor peace ; protection payoffs from merchants at the Fulton Fish Market ; and the control of many union jobs at the Jacob K . Javits Convention Center in Manhattan .
Mr . Gigante's influence even extended over the San Gennaro Street Festival in Little Italy until a 1995 crackdown by New York City officials and federal prosecutors resulted in allegations that the Genovese family operated gambling games at the festival , extorted payoffs from venders and pocketed thousands of dollars donated to a neighborhood church .
In the 1980's , after the authorities said Mr . Gigante had assumed undisputed command of the Genovese family , he conducted his activities in a starkly unorthodox fashion for a Mafia leader .
Most days , in the early evening , Mr . Gigante , a hulking man who was about six feet tall and weighed 200 pounds , would emerge from his mother's walkup apartment building on Sullivan Street in Greenwich Village .
Sometimes dressed in a bathrobe and pajamas and sometimes wearing a windbreaker and shabby trousers and always accompanied by one or two bodyguards , he gingerly crossed the street to the Triangle Civic Improvement Association , a dingy storefront club that served as his headquarters .
Inside , he played pinochle and held whispered conversations with men who agents said were his trusted confederates .
After midnight , according to F . B . I . surveillance reports , he would be driven to a townhouse near Park Avenue at East 77th Street , that was owned by Olympia Esposito , who was characterized by Mr . Gigante's lawyers as his common - law wife and the mother of three of his eight children , Vincent , Lucia and Carmella Esposito .
F . B . I . agents , who in 1986 observed the townhouse from a nearby rooftop post , said that soon after arriving , Mr . Gigante would change into more elegant clothes , carry on conversations with associates , and read or watch television before retiring .
About 9 or 10 the next morning , he would reappear in his shabby downtown clothes and be driven back to Sullivan Street or a nearby apartment occupied by his relatives at 505 LaGuardia Place .
"It was hard to understand what enjoyment he got out of being a mob boss , " said Ronald Goldstock , the former director of the New York State Organized Crime Task Force .
"His only pleasure appeared to be the pure power he exercised . "
Vincent Gigante ( pronounced ji - GANT - tee ) was born on March 29 , 1928 , in New York City and grew up on the same streets in Greenwich Village where he would spend most of his adult life .
He was one of five sons of Salvatore Gigante , a watchmaker , and Yolanda Gigante , a seamstress , both of whom had immigrated from Naples .
His mother usually addressed him as "Cincenzo , " a diminutive of Vincente , and his boyhood friends shortened that into his lifelong nickname , "Chin . "
A lackadaisical student , Mr . Gigante graduated from P . S . 3 , an elementary school in Greenwich Village and dropped out of Textile High School in Manhattan in the ninth grade .
Police detectives said that as a teen - ager , he became a prot�g� of Vito Genovese , who was a potent Mafia leader in the United States and in Italy from the 1930's to the 1960's and whose name still describes the organized - crime group he headed until his death in 1969 .
The gang was founded in the 1930's by one of the nation's most notorious criminals , Charles ( Lucky ) Luciano , who was deported to Italy and who died in 1962 .
Mr . Genovese is believed to have endeared himself to the Gigantes when Vincent was a boy with a loan to pay for surgery needed by Mrs . Gigante .
Between age 17 and 25 , Mr . Gigante was arrested seven times on an array of charges : receiving stolen goods , possession of an unlicensed handgun , auto theft , arson and bookmaking .
Most were dismissed or resolved by fines .
His only jail sentence in that period was 60 days for a gambling conviction .
When arrested in his early 20's , he listed his occupation as a tailor .
But as a strapping youth with quick fists , he was better known as a prize fighter .
Mr . Gigante , from age 16 to 19 , fought as a light heavyweight in clubs around town , winning 21 of 25 light - heavyweight bouts , according to Nat Fleischer's Ring Record Book .
Club boxers in those days fought four - and six - round contests in neighborhood arenas , usually getting a percentage of the tickets they themselves sold .
One of Mr . Gigante's managers was a Greenwich Village neighbor , Thomas ( Tommy Ryan ) Eboli , who later became the boss of the Genovese family .
Former New York City detectives who were assigned to organized - crime intelligence units said that Mr . Gigante earned his Mafia spurs as an enforcer in the 1950's .
But his prominence in the underworld surged in 1957 , when Mr . Genovese wrested control of a mob family from Frank Costello , who had been a close friend of Lucky Luciano and Meyer Lansky and was one of the best - known underworld figures in America .
Mr . Costello retired abruptly as a boss after a gunman grazed his scalp with a bullet in the vestibule of his apartment building on Central Park West .
A doorman identified the 29 - year - old Mr . Gigante as the shooter , but Mr . Costello testified that he was unable to recognize his assailant and Mr . Gigante was acquitted in 1958 on charges of attempted murder .
A year later , he was convicted with Mr . Genovese in Manhattan on federal charges of heroin trafficking .
Mr . Gigante , who listed his profession as the superintendent of a tenement on Bleecker Street , was sentenced to seven years in prison .
The sentencing judge said he would have imposed a longer sentence but was swayed by a flood of letters from residents of Greenwich Village and Little Italy attesting to Mr . Gigante's good character and his work on behalf of juveniles .
He was paroled after five years and detectives said that soon afterward he was promoted from soldier to the rank of capo , or captain , overseeing a group of Mafia gangsters known as a crew , in Greenwich Village .
Although his headquarters was in Lower Manhattan and he spent his nights farther uptown , Mr . Gigante had a home in Old Tappan , N . J . , where he lived with his wife , the former Olympia Grippa , and their three daughters and two sons .
They are Yolanda Fyfe , Roseanne D'Cola and Rita Gigante , and Salvatore and Andrew .
In 1969 , he was indicted in New Jersey on a charge of conspiracy to bribe the entire five - member Old Tappan police force to alert him to surveillance operations by law enforcement agencies .
The accusation was dropped after Mr . Gigante's lawyers presented reports from psychiatrists that he was mentally unfit to stand trial .
Mafia informers and defectors said that Mr . Gigante gained control of the Genovese family in a peaceful transition in the early 1980's when the group's acting boss , Philip Lombardo , stepped down because of ill health , and Mr . Gigante's main rival , Anthony Salerno , was imprisoned for life on racketeering charges .
Mr . Salerno died in federal prison in 1992 .
As a new godfather , Mr . Gigante quickly imposed extraordinary security measures .
Genovese soldiers and associates were forbidden to utter his name or nickname in conversations or telephone calls .
When references to him had to be made , capos and soldiers would silently point to their chins or form the letter "C" with their fingers .
Mr . Gigante was indicted in 1990 with 14 others on federal charges in Brooklyn that they had conspired to rig bids and extort payoffs from contractors on multimillion - dollar contracts with the New York City Housing Authority to install windows .
At his arraignment , he appeared in court in his familiar pajamas and bathrobe and a peaked cap .
Because of defense contentions that he was mentally and physically impaired , his case was severed from the other defendants and legal battles ensued for seven years over his competence to stand trial .
A superseding indictment in 1993 brought more serious accusations against him .
Mr . Gigante was charged with being the head of the Genovese family and sanctioning the murders of six mobsters and conspiring to kill three others , including John Gotti , the boss of the Gambino family .
Mr . Gigante , the indictment asserted , wanted Mr . Gotti eliminated because he had violated Mafia protocol by arranging the assassination of the previous Gambino boss , Paul Castellano , without seeking Mr . Gigante's approval .
The evidence in both indictments stemmed mainly from deserters from the Genovese and other mob families who entered the Government's Witness Protection Program .
At sanity hearings in March 1996 , Mr . Gravano of the Gambino family , and Alphonse D'Arco , the former acting boss of another New York Mafia organization , the Lucchese crime family , testified that Mr . Gigante was lucid during top - level Mafia meetings and that he had acknowledged to other gangsters that his eccentric behavior was a pretense .
Mr . Gigante's lawyers elicited testimony and reports from psychiatrists and psychologists that from 1969 to 1995 , he had been confined 28 times in hospitals for treatment of hallucinations and that he suffered from "dementia rooted in organic brain damage . "
In August 1996 , Judge Eugene H . Nickerson of Federal District Court in Brooklyn ruled that Mr . Gigante was mentally competent to stand trial on murder and racketeering charges .
The judge found that at least until 1991 , Mr . Gigante had engaged in an "elaborate deception" with the help of his relatives to deceive psychiatrists about his condition .
Before the trial began , Mr . Gigante , who had open - heart surgery in 1988 , had another cardiac operation in December 1996 , putting his fitness to stand trial in doubt once again .
Mr . Gigante had pleaded not guilty and had been free for years on $1 million bond .
During the monthlong trial in 1997 , a gaunt - looking Mr . Gigante sat in a wheelchair , looking blankly into space as witnesses testified and lawyers argued .
He did not testify .
After three days of deliberations , the jury on July 25 , 1997 , convicted him on charges of running multimillion - dollar rackets as the Genovese family chief and of conspiring unsuccessfully in the late 1980's to murder Mr . Gotti and a Genovese family defector .
But he was acquitted of ordering three other gangland slayings and the jury was deadlocked on accusations that he ordered four other murders .
Imposing a sentence of 12 years - instead of a possible maximum of 27 years - and a $1 . 25 million fine , Judge Jack B . Weinstein of Federal District Court in Brooklyn reflected in December 1997 on Mr . Gigante's career .
"He is a shadow of his former self , " the judge said , "an old man finally brought to bay in his declining years after decades of vicious criminal tyranny . " |
26_1ecbplus.xml_50 | train | ent | 26_1ecbplus.xml | 6 | Officials at the prison medical center where he died did not provide the cause of death but noted that he suffered from heart disease . | 6 | 6 | 39 | 44 | where | LOC18440750306982431 | where | ['official', 'prison', 'medical', 'center', 'he', 'die', 'provide', 'cause', 'death', 'note', 'he', 'suffer', 'heart', 'disease'] | Officials at the prison medical center <m> where </m> he died did not provide the cause of death but noted that he suffered from heart disease . | http : / / www . nytimes . com / 2005 / 12 / 19 / obituaries / 19cnd - gigante . html ? pagewanted=all
Vincent Gigante , Mafia Leader Who Feigned Insanity , Dies at 77
Published : December 19 , 2005
Vincent Gigante , who feigned mental illness for decades to camouflage his position as one of the nation's most influential and dangerous Mafia leaders , died today in federal prison in Springfield , Mo . , officials told The Associated Press .
He was 77 .
Mr . Gigante died while serving a 12 - year sentence imposed in 1997 after he was convicted of racketeering and conspiring to kill other mobsters .
Officials at the prison medical center <m> where </m> he died did not provide the cause of death but noted that he suffered from heart disease .
Mr . Gigante , whose nickname was "Chin , " painstakingly maintained the fiction that he was incompetent until April 2003 , when he appeared before Judge I . Leo Glasser in Federal District Court in Brooklyn and pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice .
Specifically , he acknowledged running a con on the legal system that delayed his racketeering trial from 1990 to 1997 while his sanity was being examined .
As part of the plea , three more years were added to his prison term , but he avoided a lengthy trial on the other charges , which amounted to an accusation - long denied or sidestepped by Mr . Gigante - that he headed the Genovese organized crime family .
His lawyer , Benjamin Brafman , offered the explanation that "I think you get to a point in life - I think everyone does - where you become too old and too sick and too tired to fight . "
For Mr . Gigante , the guise that he adopted in the mid - 1960's - behavior that won him the nickname Oddfather - took considerable effort to maintain .
He could often be seen shuffling around his Greenwich Village neighborhood in pajamas , bathrobe and slippers , mumbling to himself and appearing to be a disturbed but harmless person .
Law - enforcement agents , prosecutors and Mafia defectors described his behavior as a staged performance calculated to evade prosecution for his activities as head of a crime family that under his leadership became the wealthiest and most powerful in the nation .
Based on information from informers and electronic eavesdropping on gangsters , F . B . I . and New York City law - enforcement officials ranked Mr . Gigante as the pre - eminent Mafia leader in the early and mid - 1990's , and prosecutors identified him as the dominant force in the early 1990's inside the Commission , the Mafia's ruling body , which resolves significant disputes among the five major families in the New York region .
His reach , law - enforcement officials said , extended as well to Philadelphia and New England , where he exercised veto power over the appointments of mob bosses in those areas .
Salvatore Gravano , the No . 2 figure in the Gambino crime family before he defected in 1991 , testified that even Mr . Gigante's archrival , John Gotti , grudgingly acknowledged Mr . Gigante's craftiness .
"He's crazy like a fox , " Mr . Gravano quoted Mr . Gotti as saying of Mr . Gigante after a summit meeting of New York City mob leaders in 1988 .
Mr . Gotti was the boss of the Gambino family until his own imprisonment forced him to relinquish undisputed control in the late 1990's .
He , too , died in a prison hospital , of cancer in June 2002 .
Federal Bureau of Investigation agents and federal and state prosecutors regarded Mr . Gigante as the most elusive Mafia leader of his era and the most difficult to bring to trial .
"He was probably the most clever organized - crime figure I have ever seen , " said John S . Pritchard 3rd , a former F . B . I . supervisor , who led a squad that investigated the Genovese family in the 1980's .
Disputing the government's contentions , Mr . Gigante's lawyers and relatives maintained that he had been mentally disabled since the late 1960's , with a below - normal I . Q . of 69 to 72 .
His defenders steadfastly denied that he was associated with the Mafia , asserting that it was ludicrous to believe that someone so mentally subpar was capable of heading a major crime organization .
The Rev . Louis Gigante , a Roman Catholic priest , former New York city councilman and a builder of low - income housing in the Bronx , characterized the relentless investigations of his older brother as persecution by agents and prosecutors who were biased against Italian - Americans .
Organized - crime experts and mob turncoats said that Mr . Gigante was apparently willing to humiliate himself publicly as the price for escaping the long prison sentences that were being meted out to other Mafia leaders .
According to federal and state investigators , each of the family's 200 "made" or inducted soldiers and about 1 , 000 associates - the name for others who voluntarily cooperate in illegal activities but who are not sworn members - were obligated to funnel part of their loot to Mr . Gigante , as much as $100 million a year in the early 1990's .
The family's fortune , the experts said , flowed largely from a vast network of bookmaking and loansharking rings and from extortions of construction companies in the New York City area seeking labor peace or sweetheart contracts from carpenters , teamsters and laborers' unions that were dominated by Mr . Gigante's lieutenants .
Mob deserters in the mid - 1990's testified in criminal and civil cases that the Genovese gang's other lucrative enterprises included the control of cartels that rigged bids and inflated prices in the private garbage - hauling industries of New York City and Westchester County ; kickbacks from shipping and trucking companies on the New Jersey waterfront in exchange for labor peace ; protection payoffs from merchants at the Fulton Fish Market ; and the control of many union jobs at the Jacob K . Javits Convention Center in Manhattan .
Mr . Gigante's influence even extended over the San Gennaro Street Festival in Little Italy until a 1995 crackdown by New York City officials and federal prosecutors resulted in allegations that the Genovese family operated gambling games at the festival , extorted payoffs from venders and pocketed thousands of dollars donated to a neighborhood church .
In the 1980's , after the authorities said Mr . Gigante had assumed undisputed command of the Genovese family , he conducted his activities in a starkly unorthodox fashion for a Mafia leader .
Most days , in the early evening , Mr . Gigante , a hulking man who was about six feet tall and weighed 200 pounds , would emerge from his mother's walkup apartment building on Sullivan Street in Greenwich Village .
Sometimes dressed in a bathrobe and pajamas and sometimes wearing a windbreaker and shabby trousers and always accompanied by one or two bodyguards , he gingerly crossed the street to the Triangle Civic Improvement Association , a dingy storefront club that served as his headquarters .
Inside , he played pinochle and held whispered conversations with men who agents said were his trusted confederates .
After midnight , according to F . B . I . surveillance reports , he would be driven to a townhouse near Park Avenue at East 77th Street , that was owned by Olympia Esposito , who was characterized by Mr . Gigante's lawyers as his common - law wife and the mother of three of his eight children , Vincent , Lucia and Carmella Esposito .
F . B . I . agents , who in 1986 observed the townhouse from a nearby rooftop post , said that soon after arriving , Mr . Gigante would change into more elegant clothes , carry on conversations with associates , and read or watch television before retiring .
About 9 or 10 the next morning , he would reappear in his shabby downtown clothes and be driven back to Sullivan Street or a nearby apartment occupied by his relatives at 505 LaGuardia Place .
"It was hard to understand what enjoyment he got out of being a mob boss , " said Ronald Goldstock , the former director of the New York State Organized Crime Task Force .
"His only pleasure appeared to be the pure power he exercised . "
Vincent Gigante ( pronounced ji - GANT - tee ) was born on March 29 , 1928 , in New York City and grew up on the same streets in Greenwich Village where he would spend most of his adult life .
He was one of five sons of Salvatore Gigante , a watchmaker , and Yolanda Gigante , a seamstress , both of whom had immigrated from Naples .
His mother usually addressed him as "Cincenzo , " a diminutive of Vincente , and his boyhood friends shortened that into his lifelong nickname , "Chin . "
A lackadaisical student , Mr . Gigante graduated from P . S . 3 , an elementary school in Greenwich Village and dropped out of Textile High School in Manhattan in the ninth grade .
Police detectives said that as a teen - ager , he became a prot�g� of Vito Genovese , who was a potent Mafia leader in the United States and in Italy from the 1930's to the 1960's and whose name still describes the organized - crime group he headed until his death in 1969 .
The gang was founded in the 1930's by one of the nation's most notorious criminals , Charles ( Lucky ) Luciano , who was deported to Italy and who died in 1962 .
Mr . Genovese is believed to have endeared himself to the Gigantes when Vincent was a boy with a loan to pay for surgery needed by Mrs . Gigante .
Between age 17 and 25 , Mr . Gigante was arrested seven times on an array of charges : receiving stolen goods , possession of an unlicensed handgun , auto theft , arson and bookmaking .
Most were dismissed or resolved by fines .
His only jail sentence in that period was 60 days for a gambling conviction .
When arrested in his early 20's , he listed his occupation as a tailor .
But as a strapping youth with quick fists , he was better known as a prize fighter .
Mr . Gigante , from age 16 to 19 , fought as a light heavyweight in clubs around town , winning 21 of 25 light - heavyweight bouts , according to Nat Fleischer's Ring Record Book .
Club boxers in those days fought four - and six - round contests in neighborhood arenas , usually getting a percentage of the tickets they themselves sold .
One of Mr . Gigante's managers was a Greenwich Village neighbor , Thomas ( Tommy Ryan ) Eboli , who later became the boss of the Genovese family .
Former New York City detectives who were assigned to organized - crime intelligence units said that Mr . Gigante earned his Mafia spurs as an enforcer in the 1950's .
But his prominence in the underworld surged in 1957 , when Mr . Genovese wrested control of a mob family from Frank Costello , who had been a close friend of Lucky Luciano and Meyer Lansky and was one of the best - known underworld figures in America .
Mr . Costello retired abruptly as a boss after a gunman grazed his scalp with a bullet in the vestibule of his apartment building on Central Park West .
A doorman identified the 29 - year - old Mr . Gigante as the shooter , but Mr . Costello testified that he was unable to recognize his assailant and Mr . Gigante was acquitted in 1958 on charges of attempted murder .
A year later , he was convicted with Mr . Genovese in Manhattan on federal charges of heroin trafficking .
Mr . Gigante , who listed his profession as the superintendent of a tenement on Bleecker Street , was sentenced to seven years in prison .
The sentencing judge said he would have imposed a longer sentence but was swayed by a flood of letters from residents of Greenwich Village and Little Italy attesting to Mr . Gigante's good character and his work on behalf of juveniles .
He was paroled after five years and detectives said that soon afterward he was promoted from soldier to the rank of capo , or captain , overseeing a group of Mafia gangsters known as a crew , in Greenwich Village .
Although his headquarters was in Lower Manhattan and he spent his nights farther uptown , Mr . Gigante had a home in Old Tappan , N . J . , where he lived with his wife , the former Olympia Grippa , and their three daughters and two sons .
They are Yolanda Fyfe , Roseanne D'Cola and Rita Gigante , and Salvatore and Andrew .
In 1969 , he was indicted in New Jersey on a charge of conspiracy to bribe the entire five - member Old Tappan police force to alert him to surveillance operations by law enforcement agencies .
The accusation was dropped after Mr . Gigante's lawyers presented reports from psychiatrists that he was mentally unfit to stand trial .
Mafia informers and defectors said that Mr . Gigante gained control of the Genovese family in a peaceful transition in the early 1980's when the group's acting boss , Philip Lombardo , stepped down because of ill health , and Mr . Gigante's main rival , Anthony Salerno , was imprisoned for life on racketeering charges .
Mr . Salerno died in federal prison in 1992 .
As a new godfather , Mr . Gigante quickly imposed extraordinary security measures .
Genovese soldiers and associates were forbidden to utter his name or nickname in conversations or telephone calls .
When references to him had to be made , capos and soldiers would silently point to their chins or form the letter "C" with their fingers .
Mr . Gigante was indicted in 1990 with 14 others on federal charges in Brooklyn that they had conspired to rig bids and extort payoffs from contractors on multimillion - dollar contracts with the New York City Housing Authority to install windows .
At his arraignment , he appeared in court in his familiar pajamas and bathrobe and a peaked cap .
Because of defense contentions that he was mentally and physically impaired , his case was severed from the other defendants and legal battles ensued for seven years over his competence to stand trial .
A superseding indictment in 1993 brought more serious accusations against him .
Mr . Gigante was charged with being the head of the Genovese family and sanctioning the murders of six mobsters and conspiring to kill three others , including John Gotti , the boss of the Gambino family .
Mr . Gigante , the indictment asserted , wanted Mr . Gotti eliminated because he had violated Mafia protocol by arranging the assassination of the previous Gambino boss , Paul Castellano , without seeking Mr . Gigante's approval .
The evidence in both indictments stemmed mainly from deserters from the Genovese and other mob families who entered the Government's Witness Protection Program .
At sanity hearings in March 1996 , Mr . Gravano of the Gambino family , and Alphonse D'Arco , the former acting boss of another New York Mafia organization , the Lucchese crime family , testified that Mr . Gigante was lucid during top - level Mafia meetings and that he had acknowledged to other gangsters that his eccentric behavior was a pretense .
Mr . Gigante's lawyers elicited testimony and reports from psychiatrists and psychologists that from 1969 to 1995 , he had been confined 28 times in hospitals for treatment of hallucinations and that he suffered from "dementia rooted in organic brain damage . "
In August 1996 , Judge Eugene H . Nickerson of Federal District Court in Brooklyn ruled that Mr . Gigante was mentally competent to stand trial on murder and racketeering charges .
The judge found that at least until 1991 , Mr . Gigante had engaged in an "elaborate deception" with the help of his relatives to deceive psychiatrists about his condition .
Before the trial began , Mr . Gigante , who had open - heart surgery in 1988 , had another cardiac operation in December 1996 , putting his fitness to stand trial in doubt once again .
Mr . Gigante had pleaded not guilty and had been free for years on $1 million bond .
During the monthlong trial in 1997 , a gaunt - looking Mr . Gigante sat in a wheelchair , looking blankly into space as witnesses testified and lawyers argued .
He did not testify .
After three days of deliberations , the jury on July 25 , 1997 , convicted him on charges of running multimillion - dollar rackets as the Genovese family chief and of conspiring unsuccessfully in the late 1980's to murder Mr . Gotti and a Genovese family defector .
But he was acquitted of ordering three other gangland slayings and the jury was deadlocked on accusations that he ordered four other murders .
Imposing a sentence of 12 years - instead of a possible maximum of 27 years - and a $1 . 25 million fine , Judge Jack B . Weinstein of Federal District Court in Brooklyn reflected in December 1997 on Mr . Gigante's career .
"He is a shadow of his former self , " the judge said , "an old man finally brought to bay in his declining years after decades of vicious criminal tyranny . " |
26_1ecbplus.xml_31 | train | evt | 26_1ecbplus.xml | 6 | Officials at the prison medical center where he died did not provide the cause of death but noted that he suffered from heart disease . | 13 | 13 | 73 | 78 | cause | 10000000841 | cause | ['official', 'prison', 'medical', 'center', 'he', 'die', 'provide', 'cause', 'death', 'note', 'he', 'suffer', 'heart', 'disease'] | Officials at the prison medical center where he died did not provide the <m> cause </m> of death but noted that he suffered from heart disease . | http : / / www . nytimes . com / 2005 / 12 / 19 / obituaries / 19cnd - gigante . html ? pagewanted=all
Vincent Gigante , Mafia Leader Who Feigned Insanity , Dies at 77
Published : December 19 , 2005
Vincent Gigante , who feigned mental illness for decades to camouflage his position as one of the nation's most influential and dangerous Mafia leaders , died today in federal prison in Springfield , Mo . , officials told The Associated Press .
He was 77 .
Mr . Gigante died while serving a 12 - year sentence imposed in 1997 after he was convicted of racketeering and conspiring to kill other mobsters .
Officials at the prison medical center where he died did not provide the <m> cause </m> of death but noted that he suffered from heart disease .
Mr . Gigante , whose nickname was "Chin , " painstakingly maintained the fiction that he was incompetent until April 2003 , when he appeared before Judge I . Leo Glasser in Federal District Court in Brooklyn and pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice .
Specifically , he acknowledged running a con on the legal system that delayed his racketeering trial from 1990 to 1997 while his sanity was being examined .
As part of the plea , three more years were added to his prison term , but he avoided a lengthy trial on the other charges , which amounted to an accusation - long denied or sidestepped by Mr . Gigante - that he headed the Genovese organized crime family .
His lawyer , Benjamin Brafman , offered the explanation that "I think you get to a point in life - I think everyone does - where you become too old and too sick and too tired to fight . "
For Mr . Gigante , the guise that he adopted in the mid - 1960's - behavior that won him the nickname Oddfather - took considerable effort to maintain .
He could often be seen shuffling around his Greenwich Village neighborhood in pajamas , bathrobe and slippers , mumbling to himself and appearing to be a disturbed but harmless person .
Law - enforcement agents , prosecutors and Mafia defectors described his behavior as a staged performance calculated to evade prosecution for his activities as head of a crime family that under his leadership became the wealthiest and most powerful in the nation .
Based on information from informers and electronic eavesdropping on gangsters , F . B . I . and New York City law - enforcement officials ranked Mr . Gigante as the pre - eminent Mafia leader in the early and mid - 1990's , and prosecutors identified him as the dominant force in the early 1990's inside the Commission , the Mafia's ruling body , which resolves significant disputes among the five major families in the New York region .
His reach , law - enforcement officials said , extended as well to Philadelphia and New England , where he exercised veto power over the appointments of mob bosses in those areas .
Salvatore Gravano , the No . 2 figure in the Gambino crime family before he defected in 1991 , testified that even Mr . Gigante's archrival , John Gotti , grudgingly acknowledged Mr . Gigante's craftiness .
"He's crazy like a fox , " Mr . Gravano quoted Mr . Gotti as saying of Mr . Gigante after a summit meeting of New York City mob leaders in 1988 .
Mr . Gotti was the boss of the Gambino family until his own imprisonment forced him to relinquish undisputed control in the late 1990's .
He , too , died in a prison hospital , of cancer in June 2002 .
Federal Bureau of Investigation agents and federal and state prosecutors regarded Mr . Gigante as the most elusive Mafia leader of his era and the most difficult to bring to trial .
"He was probably the most clever organized - crime figure I have ever seen , " said John S . Pritchard 3rd , a former F . B . I . supervisor , who led a squad that investigated the Genovese family in the 1980's .
Disputing the government's contentions , Mr . Gigante's lawyers and relatives maintained that he had been mentally disabled since the late 1960's , with a below - normal I . Q . of 69 to 72 .
His defenders steadfastly denied that he was associated with the Mafia , asserting that it was ludicrous to believe that someone so mentally subpar was capable of heading a major crime organization .
The Rev . Louis Gigante , a Roman Catholic priest , former New York city councilman and a builder of low - income housing in the Bronx , characterized the relentless investigations of his older brother as persecution by agents and prosecutors who were biased against Italian - Americans .
Organized - crime experts and mob turncoats said that Mr . Gigante was apparently willing to humiliate himself publicly as the price for escaping the long prison sentences that were being meted out to other Mafia leaders .
According to federal and state investigators , each of the family's 200 "made" or inducted soldiers and about 1 , 000 associates - the name for others who voluntarily cooperate in illegal activities but who are not sworn members - were obligated to funnel part of their loot to Mr . Gigante , as much as $100 million a year in the early 1990's .
The family's fortune , the experts said , flowed largely from a vast network of bookmaking and loansharking rings and from extortions of construction companies in the New York City area seeking labor peace or sweetheart contracts from carpenters , teamsters and laborers' unions that were dominated by Mr . Gigante's lieutenants .
Mob deserters in the mid - 1990's testified in criminal and civil cases that the Genovese gang's other lucrative enterprises included the control of cartels that rigged bids and inflated prices in the private garbage - hauling industries of New York City and Westchester County ; kickbacks from shipping and trucking companies on the New Jersey waterfront in exchange for labor peace ; protection payoffs from merchants at the Fulton Fish Market ; and the control of many union jobs at the Jacob K . Javits Convention Center in Manhattan .
Mr . Gigante's influence even extended over the San Gennaro Street Festival in Little Italy until a 1995 crackdown by New York City officials and federal prosecutors resulted in allegations that the Genovese family operated gambling games at the festival , extorted payoffs from venders and pocketed thousands of dollars donated to a neighborhood church .
In the 1980's , after the authorities said Mr . Gigante had assumed undisputed command of the Genovese family , he conducted his activities in a starkly unorthodox fashion for a Mafia leader .
Most days , in the early evening , Mr . Gigante , a hulking man who was about six feet tall and weighed 200 pounds , would emerge from his mother's walkup apartment building on Sullivan Street in Greenwich Village .
Sometimes dressed in a bathrobe and pajamas and sometimes wearing a windbreaker and shabby trousers and always accompanied by one or two bodyguards , he gingerly crossed the street to the Triangle Civic Improvement Association , a dingy storefront club that served as his headquarters .
Inside , he played pinochle and held whispered conversations with men who agents said were his trusted confederates .
After midnight , according to F . B . I . surveillance reports , he would be driven to a townhouse near Park Avenue at East 77th Street , that was owned by Olympia Esposito , who was characterized by Mr . Gigante's lawyers as his common - law wife and the mother of three of his eight children , Vincent , Lucia and Carmella Esposito .
F . B . I . agents , who in 1986 observed the townhouse from a nearby rooftop post , said that soon after arriving , Mr . Gigante would change into more elegant clothes , carry on conversations with associates , and read or watch television before retiring .
About 9 or 10 the next morning , he would reappear in his shabby downtown clothes and be driven back to Sullivan Street or a nearby apartment occupied by his relatives at 505 LaGuardia Place .
"It was hard to understand what enjoyment he got out of being a mob boss , " said Ronald Goldstock , the former director of the New York State Organized Crime Task Force .
"His only pleasure appeared to be the pure power he exercised . "
Vincent Gigante ( pronounced ji - GANT - tee ) was born on March 29 , 1928 , in New York City and grew up on the same streets in Greenwich Village where he would spend most of his adult life .
He was one of five sons of Salvatore Gigante , a watchmaker , and Yolanda Gigante , a seamstress , both of whom had immigrated from Naples .
His mother usually addressed him as "Cincenzo , " a diminutive of Vincente , and his boyhood friends shortened that into his lifelong nickname , "Chin . "
A lackadaisical student , Mr . Gigante graduated from P . S . 3 , an elementary school in Greenwich Village and dropped out of Textile High School in Manhattan in the ninth grade .
Police detectives said that as a teen - ager , he became a prot�g� of Vito Genovese , who was a potent Mafia leader in the United States and in Italy from the 1930's to the 1960's and whose name still describes the organized - crime group he headed until his death in 1969 .
The gang was founded in the 1930's by one of the nation's most notorious criminals , Charles ( Lucky ) Luciano , who was deported to Italy and who died in 1962 .
Mr . Genovese is believed to have endeared himself to the Gigantes when Vincent was a boy with a loan to pay for surgery needed by Mrs . Gigante .
Between age 17 and 25 , Mr . Gigante was arrested seven times on an array of charges : receiving stolen goods , possession of an unlicensed handgun , auto theft , arson and bookmaking .
Most were dismissed or resolved by fines .
His only jail sentence in that period was 60 days for a gambling conviction .
When arrested in his early 20's , he listed his occupation as a tailor .
But as a strapping youth with quick fists , he was better known as a prize fighter .
Mr . Gigante , from age 16 to 19 , fought as a light heavyweight in clubs around town , winning 21 of 25 light - heavyweight bouts , according to Nat Fleischer's Ring Record Book .
Club boxers in those days fought four - and six - round contests in neighborhood arenas , usually getting a percentage of the tickets they themselves sold .
One of Mr . Gigante's managers was a Greenwich Village neighbor , Thomas ( Tommy Ryan ) Eboli , who later became the boss of the Genovese family .
Former New York City detectives who were assigned to organized - crime intelligence units said that Mr . Gigante earned his Mafia spurs as an enforcer in the 1950's .
But his prominence in the underworld surged in 1957 , when Mr . Genovese wrested control of a mob family from Frank Costello , who had been a close friend of Lucky Luciano and Meyer Lansky and was one of the best - known underworld figures in America .
Mr . Costello retired abruptly as a boss after a gunman grazed his scalp with a bullet in the vestibule of his apartment building on Central Park West .
A doorman identified the 29 - year - old Mr . Gigante as the shooter , but Mr . Costello testified that he was unable to recognize his assailant and Mr . Gigante was acquitted in 1958 on charges of attempted murder .
A year later , he was convicted with Mr . Genovese in Manhattan on federal charges of heroin trafficking .
Mr . Gigante , who listed his profession as the superintendent of a tenement on Bleecker Street , was sentenced to seven years in prison .
The sentencing judge said he would have imposed a longer sentence but was swayed by a flood of letters from residents of Greenwich Village and Little Italy attesting to Mr . Gigante's good character and his work on behalf of juveniles .
He was paroled after five years and detectives said that soon afterward he was promoted from soldier to the rank of capo , or captain , overseeing a group of Mafia gangsters known as a crew , in Greenwich Village .
Although his headquarters was in Lower Manhattan and he spent his nights farther uptown , Mr . Gigante had a home in Old Tappan , N . J . , where he lived with his wife , the former Olympia Grippa , and their three daughters and two sons .
They are Yolanda Fyfe , Roseanne D'Cola and Rita Gigante , and Salvatore and Andrew .
In 1969 , he was indicted in New Jersey on a charge of conspiracy to bribe the entire five - member Old Tappan police force to alert him to surveillance operations by law enforcement agencies .
The accusation was dropped after Mr . Gigante's lawyers presented reports from psychiatrists that he was mentally unfit to stand trial .
Mafia informers and defectors said that Mr . Gigante gained control of the Genovese family in a peaceful transition in the early 1980's when the group's acting boss , Philip Lombardo , stepped down because of ill health , and Mr . Gigante's main rival , Anthony Salerno , was imprisoned for life on racketeering charges .
Mr . Salerno died in federal prison in 1992 .
As a new godfather , Mr . Gigante quickly imposed extraordinary security measures .
Genovese soldiers and associates were forbidden to utter his name or nickname in conversations or telephone calls .
When references to him had to be made , capos and soldiers would silently point to their chins or form the letter "C" with their fingers .
Mr . Gigante was indicted in 1990 with 14 others on federal charges in Brooklyn that they had conspired to rig bids and extort payoffs from contractors on multimillion - dollar contracts with the New York City Housing Authority to install windows .
At his arraignment , he appeared in court in his familiar pajamas and bathrobe and a peaked cap .
Because of defense contentions that he was mentally and physically impaired , his case was severed from the other defendants and legal battles ensued for seven years over his competence to stand trial .
A superseding indictment in 1993 brought more serious accusations against him .
Mr . Gigante was charged with being the head of the Genovese family and sanctioning the murders of six mobsters and conspiring to kill three others , including John Gotti , the boss of the Gambino family .
Mr . Gigante , the indictment asserted , wanted Mr . Gotti eliminated because he had violated Mafia protocol by arranging the assassination of the previous Gambino boss , Paul Castellano , without seeking Mr . Gigante's approval .
The evidence in both indictments stemmed mainly from deserters from the Genovese and other mob families who entered the Government's Witness Protection Program .
At sanity hearings in March 1996 , Mr . Gravano of the Gambino family , and Alphonse D'Arco , the former acting boss of another New York Mafia organization , the Lucchese crime family , testified that Mr . Gigante was lucid during top - level Mafia meetings and that he had acknowledged to other gangsters that his eccentric behavior was a pretense .
Mr . Gigante's lawyers elicited testimony and reports from psychiatrists and psychologists that from 1969 to 1995 , he had been confined 28 times in hospitals for treatment of hallucinations and that he suffered from "dementia rooted in organic brain damage . "
In August 1996 , Judge Eugene H . Nickerson of Federal District Court in Brooklyn ruled that Mr . Gigante was mentally competent to stand trial on murder and racketeering charges .
The judge found that at least until 1991 , Mr . Gigante had engaged in an "elaborate deception" with the help of his relatives to deceive psychiatrists about his condition .
Before the trial began , Mr . Gigante , who had open - heart surgery in 1988 , had another cardiac operation in December 1996 , putting his fitness to stand trial in doubt once again .
Mr . Gigante had pleaded not guilty and had been free for years on $1 million bond .
During the monthlong trial in 1997 , a gaunt - looking Mr . Gigante sat in a wheelchair , looking blankly into space as witnesses testified and lawyers argued .
He did not testify .
After three days of deliberations , the jury on July 25 , 1997 , convicted him on charges of running multimillion - dollar rackets as the Genovese family chief and of conspiring unsuccessfully in the late 1980's to murder Mr . Gotti and a Genovese family defector .
But he was acquitted of ordering three other gangland slayings and the jury was deadlocked on accusations that he ordered four other murders .
Imposing a sentence of 12 years - instead of a possible maximum of 27 years - and a $1 . 25 million fine , Judge Jack B . Weinstein of Federal District Court in Brooklyn reflected in December 1997 on Mr . Gigante's career .
"He is a shadow of his former self , " the judge said , "an old man finally brought to bay in his declining years after decades of vicious criminal tyranny . " |
26_1ecbplus.xml_10 | train | evt | 26_1ecbplus.xml | 1 | Vincent Gigante , Mafia Leader Who Feigned Insanity , Dies at 77 | 6 | 6 | 35 | 42 | Feigned | ACT18440603446786525 | feign | ['vincent', 'gigante', 'mafia', 'leader', 'feign', 'insanity', 'die', '77'] | Vincent Gigante , Mafia Leader Who <m> Feigned </m> Insanity , Dies at 77 | http : / / www . nytimes . com / 2005 / 12 / 19 / obituaries / 19cnd - gigante . html ? pagewanted=all
Vincent Gigante , Mafia Leader Who <m> Feigned </m> Insanity , Dies at 77
Published : December 19 , 2005
Vincent Gigante , who feigned mental illness for decades to camouflage his position as one of the nation's most influential and dangerous Mafia leaders , died today in federal prison in Springfield , Mo . , officials told The Associated Press .
He was 77 .
Mr . Gigante died while serving a 12 - year sentence imposed in 1997 after he was convicted of racketeering and conspiring to kill other mobsters .
Officials at the prison medical center where he died did not provide the cause of death but noted that he suffered from heart disease .
Mr . Gigante , whose nickname was "Chin , " painstakingly maintained the fiction that he was incompetent until April 2003 , when he appeared before Judge I . Leo Glasser in Federal District Court in Brooklyn and pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice .
Specifically , he acknowledged running a con on the legal system that delayed his racketeering trial from 1990 to 1997 while his sanity was being examined .
As part of the plea , three more years were added to his prison term , but he avoided a lengthy trial on the other charges , which amounted to an accusation - long denied or sidestepped by Mr . Gigante - that he headed the Genovese organized crime family .
His lawyer , Benjamin Brafman , offered the explanation that "I think you get to a point in life - I think everyone does - where you become too old and too sick and too tired to fight . "
For Mr . Gigante , the guise that he adopted in the mid - 1960's - behavior that won him the nickname Oddfather - took considerable effort to maintain .
He could often be seen shuffling around his Greenwich Village neighborhood in pajamas , bathrobe and slippers , mumbling to himself and appearing to be a disturbed but harmless person .
Law - enforcement agents , prosecutors and Mafia defectors described his behavior as a staged performance calculated to evade prosecution for his activities as head of a crime family that under his leadership became the wealthiest and most powerful in the nation .
Based on information from informers and electronic eavesdropping on gangsters , F . B . I . and New York City law - enforcement officials ranked Mr . Gigante as the pre - eminent Mafia leader in the early and mid - 1990's , and prosecutors identified him as the dominant force in the early 1990's inside the Commission , the Mafia's ruling body , which resolves significant disputes among the five major families in the New York region .
His reach , law - enforcement officials said , extended as well to Philadelphia and New England , where he exercised veto power over the appointments of mob bosses in those areas .
Salvatore Gravano , the No . 2 figure in the Gambino crime family before he defected in 1991 , testified that even Mr . Gigante's archrival , John Gotti , grudgingly acknowledged Mr . Gigante's craftiness .
"He's crazy like a fox , " Mr . Gravano quoted Mr . Gotti as saying of Mr . Gigante after a summit meeting of New York City mob leaders in 1988 .
Mr . Gotti was the boss of the Gambino family until his own imprisonment forced him to relinquish undisputed control in the late 1990's .
He , too , died in a prison hospital , of cancer in June 2002 .
Federal Bureau of Investigation agents and federal and state prosecutors regarded Mr . Gigante as the most elusive Mafia leader of his era and the most difficult to bring to trial .
"He was probably the most clever organized - crime figure I have ever seen , " said John S . Pritchard 3rd , a former F . B . I . supervisor , who led a squad that investigated the Genovese family in the 1980's .
Disputing the government's contentions , Mr . Gigante's lawyers and relatives maintained that he had been mentally disabled since the late 1960's , with a below - normal I . Q . of 69 to 72 .
His defenders steadfastly denied that he was associated with the Mafia , asserting that it was ludicrous to believe that someone so mentally subpar was capable of heading a major crime organization .
The Rev . Louis Gigante , a Roman Catholic priest , former New York city councilman and a builder of low - income housing in the Bronx , characterized the relentless investigations of his older brother as persecution by agents and prosecutors who were biased against Italian - Americans .
Organized - crime experts and mob turncoats said that Mr . Gigante was apparently willing to humiliate himself publicly as the price for escaping the long prison sentences that were being meted out to other Mafia leaders .
According to federal and state investigators , each of the family's 200 "made" or inducted soldiers and about 1 , 000 associates - the name for others who voluntarily cooperate in illegal activities but who are not sworn members - were obligated to funnel part of their loot to Mr . Gigante , as much as $100 million a year in the early 1990's .
The family's fortune , the experts said , flowed largely from a vast network of bookmaking and loansharking rings and from extortions of construction companies in the New York City area seeking labor peace or sweetheart contracts from carpenters , teamsters and laborers' unions that were dominated by Mr . Gigante's lieutenants .
Mob deserters in the mid - 1990's testified in criminal and civil cases that the Genovese gang's other lucrative enterprises included the control of cartels that rigged bids and inflated prices in the private garbage - hauling industries of New York City and Westchester County ; kickbacks from shipping and trucking companies on the New Jersey waterfront in exchange for labor peace ; protection payoffs from merchants at the Fulton Fish Market ; and the control of many union jobs at the Jacob K . Javits Convention Center in Manhattan .
Mr . Gigante's influence even extended over the San Gennaro Street Festival in Little Italy until a 1995 crackdown by New York City officials and federal prosecutors resulted in allegations that the Genovese family operated gambling games at the festival , extorted payoffs from venders and pocketed thousands of dollars donated to a neighborhood church .
In the 1980's , after the authorities said Mr . Gigante had assumed undisputed command of the Genovese family , he conducted his activities in a starkly unorthodox fashion for a Mafia leader .
Most days , in the early evening , Mr . Gigante , a hulking man who was about six feet tall and weighed 200 pounds , would emerge from his mother's walkup apartment building on Sullivan Street in Greenwich Village .
Sometimes dressed in a bathrobe and pajamas and sometimes wearing a windbreaker and shabby trousers and always accompanied by one or two bodyguards , he gingerly crossed the street to the Triangle Civic Improvement Association , a dingy storefront club that served as his headquarters .
Inside , he played pinochle and held whispered conversations with men who agents said were his trusted confederates .
After midnight , according to F . B . I . surveillance reports , he would be driven to a townhouse near Park Avenue at East 77th Street , that was owned by Olympia Esposito , who was characterized by Mr . Gigante's lawyers as his common - law wife and the mother of three of his eight children , Vincent , Lucia and Carmella Esposito .
F . B . I . agents , who in 1986 observed the townhouse from a nearby rooftop post , said that soon after arriving , Mr . Gigante would change into more elegant clothes , carry on conversations with associates , and read or watch television before retiring .
About 9 or 10 the next morning , he would reappear in his shabby downtown clothes and be driven back to Sullivan Street or a nearby apartment occupied by his relatives at 505 LaGuardia Place .
"It was hard to understand what enjoyment he got out of being a mob boss , " said Ronald Goldstock , the former director of the New York State Organized Crime Task Force .
"His only pleasure appeared to be the pure power he exercised . "
Vincent Gigante ( pronounced ji - GANT - tee ) was born on March 29 , 1928 , in New York City and grew up on the same streets in Greenwich Village where he would spend most of his adult life .
He was one of five sons of Salvatore Gigante , a watchmaker , and Yolanda Gigante , a seamstress , both of whom had immigrated from Naples .
His mother usually addressed him as "Cincenzo , " a diminutive of Vincente , and his boyhood friends shortened that into his lifelong nickname , "Chin . "
A lackadaisical student , Mr . Gigante graduated from P . S . 3 , an elementary school in Greenwich Village and dropped out of Textile High School in Manhattan in the ninth grade .
Police detectives said that as a teen - ager , he became a prot�g� of Vito Genovese , who was a potent Mafia leader in the United States and in Italy from the 1930's to the 1960's and whose name still describes the organized - crime group he headed until his death in 1969 .
The gang was founded in the 1930's by one of the nation's most notorious criminals , Charles ( Lucky ) Luciano , who was deported to Italy and who died in 1962 .
Mr . Genovese is believed to have endeared himself to the Gigantes when Vincent was a boy with a loan to pay for surgery needed by Mrs . Gigante .
Between age 17 and 25 , Mr . Gigante was arrested seven times on an array of charges : receiving stolen goods , possession of an unlicensed handgun , auto theft , arson and bookmaking .
Most were dismissed or resolved by fines .
His only jail sentence in that period was 60 days for a gambling conviction .
When arrested in his early 20's , he listed his occupation as a tailor .
But as a strapping youth with quick fists , he was better known as a prize fighter .
Mr . Gigante , from age 16 to 19 , fought as a light heavyweight in clubs around town , winning 21 of 25 light - heavyweight bouts , according to Nat Fleischer's Ring Record Book .
Club boxers in those days fought four - and six - round contests in neighborhood arenas , usually getting a percentage of the tickets they themselves sold .
One of Mr . Gigante's managers was a Greenwich Village neighbor , Thomas ( Tommy Ryan ) Eboli , who later became the boss of the Genovese family .
Former New York City detectives who were assigned to organized - crime intelligence units said that Mr . Gigante earned his Mafia spurs as an enforcer in the 1950's .
But his prominence in the underworld surged in 1957 , when Mr . Genovese wrested control of a mob family from Frank Costello , who had been a close friend of Lucky Luciano and Meyer Lansky and was one of the best - known underworld figures in America .
Mr . Costello retired abruptly as a boss after a gunman grazed his scalp with a bullet in the vestibule of his apartment building on Central Park West .
A doorman identified the 29 - year - old Mr . Gigante as the shooter , but Mr . Costello testified that he was unable to recognize his assailant and Mr . Gigante was acquitted in 1958 on charges of attempted murder .
A year later , he was convicted with Mr . Genovese in Manhattan on federal charges of heroin trafficking .
Mr . Gigante , who listed his profession as the superintendent of a tenement on Bleecker Street , was sentenced to seven years in prison .
The sentencing judge said he would have imposed a longer sentence but was swayed by a flood of letters from residents of Greenwich Village and Little Italy attesting to Mr . Gigante's good character and his work on behalf of juveniles .
He was paroled after five years and detectives said that soon afterward he was promoted from soldier to the rank of capo , or captain , overseeing a group of Mafia gangsters known as a crew , in Greenwich Village .
Although his headquarters was in Lower Manhattan and he spent his nights farther uptown , Mr . Gigante had a home in Old Tappan , N . J . , where he lived with his wife , the former Olympia Grippa , and their three daughters and two sons .
They are Yolanda Fyfe , Roseanne D'Cola and Rita Gigante , and Salvatore and Andrew .
In 1969 , he was indicted in New Jersey on a charge of conspiracy to bribe the entire five - member Old Tappan police force to alert him to surveillance operations by law enforcement agencies .
The accusation was dropped after Mr . Gigante's lawyers presented reports from psychiatrists that he was mentally unfit to stand trial .
Mafia informers and defectors said that Mr . Gigante gained control of the Genovese family in a peaceful transition in the early 1980's when the group's acting boss , Philip Lombardo , stepped down because of ill health , and Mr . Gigante's main rival , Anthony Salerno , was imprisoned for life on racketeering charges .
Mr . Salerno died in federal prison in 1992 .
As a new godfather , Mr . Gigante quickly imposed extraordinary security measures .
Genovese soldiers and associates were forbidden to utter his name or nickname in conversations or telephone calls .
When references to him had to be made , capos and soldiers would silently point to their chins or form the letter "C" with their fingers .
Mr . Gigante was indicted in 1990 with 14 others on federal charges in Brooklyn that they had conspired to rig bids and extort payoffs from contractors on multimillion - dollar contracts with the New York City Housing Authority to install windows .
At his arraignment , he appeared in court in his familiar pajamas and bathrobe and a peaked cap .
Because of defense contentions that he was mentally and physically impaired , his case was severed from the other defendants and legal battles ensued for seven years over his competence to stand trial .
A superseding indictment in 1993 brought more serious accusations against him .
Mr . Gigante was charged with being the head of the Genovese family and sanctioning the murders of six mobsters and conspiring to kill three others , including John Gotti , the boss of the Gambino family .
Mr . Gigante , the indictment asserted , wanted Mr . Gotti eliminated because he had violated Mafia protocol by arranging the assassination of the previous Gambino boss , Paul Castellano , without seeking Mr . Gigante's approval .
The evidence in both indictments stemmed mainly from deserters from the Genovese and other mob families who entered the Government's Witness Protection Program .
At sanity hearings in March 1996 , Mr . Gravano of the Gambino family , and Alphonse D'Arco , the former acting boss of another New York Mafia organization , the Lucchese crime family , testified that Mr . Gigante was lucid during top - level Mafia meetings and that he had acknowledged to other gangsters that his eccentric behavior was a pretense .
Mr . Gigante's lawyers elicited testimony and reports from psychiatrists and psychologists that from 1969 to 1995 , he had been confined 28 times in hospitals for treatment of hallucinations and that he suffered from "dementia rooted in organic brain damage . "
In August 1996 , Judge Eugene H . Nickerson of Federal District Court in Brooklyn ruled that Mr . Gigante was mentally competent to stand trial on murder and racketeering charges .
The judge found that at least until 1991 , Mr . Gigante had engaged in an "elaborate deception" with the help of his relatives to deceive psychiatrists about his condition .
Before the trial began , Mr . Gigante , who had open - heart surgery in 1988 , had another cardiac operation in December 1996 , putting his fitness to stand trial in doubt once again .
Mr . Gigante had pleaded not guilty and had been free for years on $1 million bond .
During the monthlong trial in 1997 , a gaunt - looking Mr . Gigante sat in a wheelchair , looking blankly into space as witnesses testified and lawyers argued .
He did not testify .
After three days of deliberations , the jury on July 25 , 1997 , convicted him on charges of running multimillion - dollar rackets as the Genovese family chief and of conspiring unsuccessfully in the late 1980's to murder Mr . Gotti and a Genovese family defector .
But he was acquitted of ordering three other gangland slayings and the jury was deadlocked on accusations that he ordered four other murders .
Imposing a sentence of 12 years - instead of a possible maximum of 27 years - and a $1 . 25 million fine , Judge Jack B . Weinstein of Federal District Court in Brooklyn reflected in December 1997 on Mr . Gigante's career .
"He is a shadow of his former self , " the judge said , "an old man finally brought to bay in his declining years after decades of vicious criminal tyranny . " |
26_1ecbplus.xml_19 | train | evt | 26_1ecbplus.xml | 6 | Officials at the prison medical center where he died did not provide the cause of death but noted that he suffered from heart disease . | 8 | 8 | 48 | 52 | died | ACT18440577880137709 | die | ['official', 'prison', 'medical', 'center', 'he', 'die', 'provide', 'cause', 'death', 'note', 'he', 'suffer', 'heart', 'disease'] | Officials at the prison medical center where he <m> died </m> did not provide the cause of death but noted that he suffered from heart disease . | http : / / www . nytimes . com / 2005 / 12 / 19 / obituaries / 19cnd - gigante . html ? pagewanted=all
Vincent Gigante , Mafia Leader Who Feigned Insanity , Dies at 77
Published : December 19 , 2005
Vincent Gigante , who feigned mental illness for decades to camouflage his position as one of the nation's most influential and dangerous Mafia leaders , died today in federal prison in Springfield , Mo . , officials told The Associated Press .
He was 77 .
Mr . Gigante died while serving a 12 - year sentence imposed in 1997 after he was convicted of racketeering and conspiring to kill other mobsters .
Officials at the prison medical center where he <m> died </m> did not provide the cause of death but noted that he suffered from heart disease .
Mr . Gigante , whose nickname was "Chin , " painstakingly maintained the fiction that he was incompetent until April 2003 , when he appeared before Judge I . Leo Glasser in Federal District Court in Brooklyn and pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice .
Specifically , he acknowledged running a con on the legal system that delayed his racketeering trial from 1990 to 1997 while his sanity was being examined .
As part of the plea , three more years were added to his prison term , but he avoided a lengthy trial on the other charges , which amounted to an accusation - long denied or sidestepped by Mr . Gigante - that he headed the Genovese organized crime family .
His lawyer , Benjamin Brafman , offered the explanation that "I think you get to a point in life - I think everyone does - where you become too old and too sick and too tired to fight . "
For Mr . Gigante , the guise that he adopted in the mid - 1960's - behavior that won him the nickname Oddfather - took considerable effort to maintain .
He could often be seen shuffling around his Greenwich Village neighborhood in pajamas , bathrobe and slippers , mumbling to himself and appearing to be a disturbed but harmless person .
Law - enforcement agents , prosecutors and Mafia defectors described his behavior as a staged performance calculated to evade prosecution for his activities as head of a crime family that under his leadership became the wealthiest and most powerful in the nation .
Based on information from informers and electronic eavesdropping on gangsters , F . B . I . and New York City law - enforcement officials ranked Mr . Gigante as the pre - eminent Mafia leader in the early and mid - 1990's , and prosecutors identified him as the dominant force in the early 1990's inside the Commission , the Mafia's ruling body , which resolves significant disputes among the five major families in the New York region .
His reach , law - enforcement officials said , extended as well to Philadelphia and New England , where he exercised veto power over the appointments of mob bosses in those areas .
Salvatore Gravano , the No . 2 figure in the Gambino crime family before he defected in 1991 , testified that even Mr . Gigante's archrival , John Gotti , grudgingly acknowledged Mr . Gigante's craftiness .
"He's crazy like a fox , " Mr . Gravano quoted Mr . Gotti as saying of Mr . Gigante after a summit meeting of New York City mob leaders in 1988 .
Mr . Gotti was the boss of the Gambino family until his own imprisonment forced him to relinquish undisputed control in the late 1990's .
He , too , died in a prison hospital , of cancer in June 2002 .
Federal Bureau of Investigation agents and federal and state prosecutors regarded Mr . Gigante as the most elusive Mafia leader of his era and the most difficult to bring to trial .
"He was probably the most clever organized - crime figure I have ever seen , " said John S . Pritchard 3rd , a former F . B . I . supervisor , who led a squad that investigated the Genovese family in the 1980's .
Disputing the government's contentions , Mr . Gigante's lawyers and relatives maintained that he had been mentally disabled since the late 1960's , with a below - normal I . Q . of 69 to 72 .
His defenders steadfastly denied that he was associated with the Mafia , asserting that it was ludicrous to believe that someone so mentally subpar was capable of heading a major crime organization .
The Rev . Louis Gigante , a Roman Catholic priest , former New York city councilman and a builder of low - income housing in the Bronx , characterized the relentless investigations of his older brother as persecution by agents and prosecutors who were biased against Italian - Americans .
Organized - crime experts and mob turncoats said that Mr . Gigante was apparently willing to humiliate himself publicly as the price for escaping the long prison sentences that were being meted out to other Mafia leaders .
According to federal and state investigators , each of the family's 200 "made" or inducted soldiers and about 1 , 000 associates - the name for others who voluntarily cooperate in illegal activities but who are not sworn members - were obligated to funnel part of their loot to Mr . Gigante , as much as $100 million a year in the early 1990's .
The family's fortune , the experts said , flowed largely from a vast network of bookmaking and loansharking rings and from extortions of construction companies in the New York City area seeking labor peace or sweetheart contracts from carpenters , teamsters and laborers' unions that were dominated by Mr . Gigante's lieutenants .
Mob deserters in the mid - 1990's testified in criminal and civil cases that the Genovese gang's other lucrative enterprises included the control of cartels that rigged bids and inflated prices in the private garbage - hauling industries of New York City and Westchester County ; kickbacks from shipping and trucking companies on the New Jersey waterfront in exchange for labor peace ; protection payoffs from merchants at the Fulton Fish Market ; and the control of many union jobs at the Jacob K . Javits Convention Center in Manhattan .
Mr . Gigante's influence even extended over the San Gennaro Street Festival in Little Italy until a 1995 crackdown by New York City officials and federal prosecutors resulted in allegations that the Genovese family operated gambling games at the festival , extorted payoffs from venders and pocketed thousands of dollars donated to a neighborhood church .
In the 1980's , after the authorities said Mr . Gigante had assumed undisputed command of the Genovese family , he conducted his activities in a starkly unorthodox fashion for a Mafia leader .
Most days , in the early evening , Mr . Gigante , a hulking man who was about six feet tall and weighed 200 pounds , would emerge from his mother's walkup apartment building on Sullivan Street in Greenwich Village .
Sometimes dressed in a bathrobe and pajamas and sometimes wearing a windbreaker and shabby trousers and always accompanied by one or two bodyguards , he gingerly crossed the street to the Triangle Civic Improvement Association , a dingy storefront club that served as his headquarters .
Inside , he played pinochle and held whispered conversations with men who agents said were his trusted confederates .
After midnight , according to F . B . I . surveillance reports , he would be driven to a townhouse near Park Avenue at East 77th Street , that was owned by Olympia Esposito , who was characterized by Mr . Gigante's lawyers as his common - law wife and the mother of three of his eight children , Vincent , Lucia and Carmella Esposito .
F . B . I . agents , who in 1986 observed the townhouse from a nearby rooftop post , said that soon after arriving , Mr . Gigante would change into more elegant clothes , carry on conversations with associates , and read or watch television before retiring .
About 9 or 10 the next morning , he would reappear in his shabby downtown clothes and be driven back to Sullivan Street or a nearby apartment occupied by his relatives at 505 LaGuardia Place .
"It was hard to understand what enjoyment he got out of being a mob boss , " said Ronald Goldstock , the former director of the New York State Organized Crime Task Force .
"His only pleasure appeared to be the pure power he exercised . "
Vincent Gigante ( pronounced ji - GANT - tee ) was born on March 29 , 1928 , in New York City and grew up on the same streets in Greenwich Village where he would spend most of his adult life .
He was one of five sons of Salvatore Gigante , a watchmaker , and Yolanda Gigante , a seamstress , both of whom had immigrated from Naples .
His mother usually addressed him as "Cincenzo , " a diminutive of Vincente , and his boyhood friends shortened that into his lifelong nickname , "Chin . "
A lackadaisical student , Mr . Gigante graduated from P . S . 3 , an elementary school in Greenwich Village and dropped out of Textile High School in Manhattan in the ninth grade .
Police detectives said that as a teen - ager , he became a prot�g� of Vito Genovese , who was a potent Mafia leader in the United States and in Italy from the 1930's to the 1960's and whose name still describes the organized - crime group he headed until his death in 1969 .
The gang was founded in the 1930's by one of the nation's most notorious criminals , Charles ( Lucky ) Luciano , who was deported to Italy and who died in 1962 .
Mr . Genovese is believed to have endeared himself to the Gigantes when Vincent was a boy with a loan to pay for surgery needed by Mrs . Gigante .
Between age 17 and 25 , Mr . Gigante was arrested seven times on an array of charges : receiving stolen goods , possession of an unlicensed handgun , auto theft , arson and bookmaking .
Most were dismissed or resolved by fines .
His only jail sentence in that period was 60 days for a gambling conviction .
When arrested in his early 20's , he listed his occupation as a tailor .
But as a strapping youth with quick fists , he was better known as a prize fighter .
Mr . Gigante , from age 16 to 19 , fought as a light heavyweight in clubs around town , winning 21 of 25 light - heavyweight bouts , according to Nat Fleischer's Ring Record Book .
Club boxers in those days fought four - and six - round contests in neighborhood arenas , usually getting a percentage of the tickets they themselves sold .
One of Mr . Gigante's managers was a Greenwich Village neighbor , Thomas ( Tommy Ryan ) Eboli , who later became the boss of the Genovese family .
Former New York City detectives who were assigned to organized - crime intelligence units said that Mr . Gigante earned his Mafia spurs as an enforcer in the 1950's .
But his prominence in the underworld surged in 1957 , when Mr . Genovese wrested control of a mob family from Frank Costello , who had been a close friend of Lucky Luciano and Meyer Lansky and was one of the best - known underworld figures in America .
Mr . Costello retired abruptly as a boss after a gunman grazed his scalp with a bullet in the vestibule of his apartment building on Central Park West .
A doorman identified the 29 - year - old Mr . Gigante as the shooter , but Mr . Costello testified that he was unable to recognize his assailant and Mr . Gigante was acquitted in 1958 on charges of attempted murder .
A year later , he was convicted with Mr . Genovese in Manhattan on federal charges of heroin trafficking .
Mr . Gigante , who listed his profession as the superintendent of a tenement on Bleecker Street , was sentenced to seven years in prison .
The sentencing judge said he would have imposed a longer sentence but was swayed by a flood of letters from residents of Greenwich Village and Little Italy attesting to Mr . Gigante's good character and his work on behalf of juveniles .
He was paroled after five years and detectives said that soon afterward he was promoted from soldier to the rank of capo , or captain , overseeing a group of Mafia gangsters known as a crew , in Greenwich Village .
Although his headquarters was in Lower Manhattan and he spent his nights farther uptown , Mr . Gigante had a home in Old Tappan , N . J . , where he lived with his wife , the former Olympia Grippa , and their three daughters and two sons .
They are Yolanda Fyfe , Roseanne D'Cola and Rita Gigante , and Salvatore and Andrew .
In 1969 , he was indicted in New Jersey on a charge of conspiracy to bribe the entire five - member Old Tappan police force to alert him to surveillance operations by law enforcement agencies .
The accusation was dropped after Mr . Gigante's lawyers presented reports from psychiatrists that he was mentally unfit to stand trial .
Mafia informers and defectors said that Mr . Gigante gained control of the Genovese family in a peaceful transition in the early 1980's when the group's acting boss , Philip Lombardo , stepped down because of ill health , and Mr . Gigante's main rival , Anthony Salerno , was imprisoned for life on racketeering charges .
Mr . Salerno died in federal prison in 1992 .
As a new godfather , Mr . Gigante quickly imposed extraordinary security measures .
Genovese soldiers and associates were forbidden to utter his name or nickname in conversations or telephone calls .
When references to him had to be made , capos and soldiers would silently point to their chins or form the letter "C" with their fingers .
Mr . Gigante was indicted in 1990 with 14 others on federal charges in Brooklyn that they had conspired to rig bids and extort payoffs from contractors on multimillion - dollar contracts with the New York City Housing Authority to install windows .
At his arraignment , he appeared in court in his familiar pajamas and bathrobe and a peaked cap .
Because of defense contentions that he was mentally and physically impaired , his case was severed from the other defendants and legal battles ensued for seven years over his competence to stand trial .
A superseding indictment in 1993 brought more serious accusations against him .
Mr . Gigante was charged with being the head of the Genovese family and sanctioning the murders of six mobsters and conspiring to kill three others , including John Gotti , the boss of the Gambino family .
Mr . Gigante , the indictment asserted , wanted Mr . Gotti eliminated because he had violated Mafia protocol by arranging the assassination of the previous Gambino boss , Paul Castellano , without seeking Mr . Gigante's approval .
The evidence in both indictments stemmed mainly from deserters from the Genovese and other mob families who entered the Government's Witness Protection Program .
At sanity hearings in March 1996 , Mr . Gravano of the Gambino family , and Alphonse D'Arco , the former acting boss of another New York Mafia organization , the Lucchese crime family , testified that Mr . Gigante was lucid during top - level Mafia meetings and that he had acknowledged to other gangsters that his eccentric behavior was a pretense .
Mr . Gigante's lawyers elicited testimony and reports from psychiatrists and psychologists that from 1969 to 1995 , he had been confined 28 times in hospitals for treatment of hallucinations and that he suffered from "dementia rooted in organic brain damage . "
In August 1996 , Judge Eugene H . Nickerson of Federal District Court in Brooklyn ruled that Mr . Gigante was mentally competent to stand trial on murder and racketeering charges .
The judge found that at least until 1991 , Mr . Gigante had engaged in an "elaborate deception" with the help of his relatives to deceive psychiatrists about his condition .
Before the trial began , Mr . Gigante , who had open - heart surgery in 1988 , had another cardiac operation in December 1996 , putting his fitness to stand trial in doubt once again .
Mr . Gigante had pleaded not guilty and had been free for years on $1 million bond .
During the monthlong trial in 1997 , a gaunt - looking Mr . Gigante sat in a wheelchair , looking blankly into space as witnesses testified and lawyers argued .
He did not testify .
After three days of deliberations , the jury on July 25 , 1997 , convicted him on charges of running multimillion - dollar rackets as the Genovese family chief and of conspiring unsuccessfully in the late 1980's to murder Mr . Gotti and a Genovese family defector .
But he was acquitted of ordering three other gangland slayings and the jury was deadlocked on accusations that he ordered four other murders .
Imposing a sentence of 12 years - instead of a possible maximum of 27 years - and a $1 . 25 million fine , Judge Jack B . Weinstein of Federal District Court in Brooklyn reflected in December 1997 on Mr . Gigante's career .
"He is a shadow of his former self , " the judge said , "an old man finally brought to bay in his declining years after decades of vicious criminal tyranny . " |
26_1ecbplus.xml_20 | train | evt | 26_1ecbplus.xml | 6 | Officials at the prison medical center where he died did not provide the cause of death but noted that he suffered from heart disease . | 11 | 11 | 61 | 68 | provide | 10000000842 | provide | ['official', 'prison', 'medical', 'center', 'he', 'die', 'provide', 'cause', 'death', 'note', 'he', 'suffer', 'heart', 'disease'] | Officials at the prison medical center where he died did not <m> provide </m> the cause of death but noted that he suffered from heart disease . | http : / / www . nytimes . com / 2005 / 12 / 19 / obituaries / 19cnd - gigante . html ? pagewanted=all
Vincent Gigante , Mafia Leader Who Feigned Insanity , Dies at 77
Published : December 19 , 2005
Vincent Gigante , who feigned mental illness for decades to camouflage his position as one of the nation's most influential and dangerous Mafia leaders , died today in federal prison in Springfield , Mo . , officials told The Associated Press .
He was 77 .
Mr . Gigante died while serving a 12 - year sentence imposed in 1997 after he was convicted of racketeering and conspiring to kill other mobsters .
Officials at the prison medical center where he died did not <m> provide </m> the cause of death but noted that he suffered from heart disease .
Mr . Gigante , whose nickname was "Chin , " painstakingly maintained the fiction that he was incompetent until April 2003 , when he appeared before Judge I . Leo Glasser in Federal District Court in Brooklyn and pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice .
Specifically , he acknowledged running a con on the legal system that delayed his racketeering trial from 1990 to 1997 while his sanity was being examined .
As part of the plea , three more years were added to his prison term , but he avoided a lengthy trial on the other charges , which amounted to an accusation - long denied or sidestepped by Mr . Gigante - that he headed the Genovese organized crime family .
His lawyer , Benjamin Brafman , offered the explanation that "I think you get to a point in life - I think everyone does - where you become too old and too sick and too tired to fight . "
For Mr . Gigante , the guise that he adopted in the mid - 1960's - behavior that won him the nickname Oddfather - took considerable effort to maintain .
He could often be seen shuffling around his Greenwich Village neighborhood in pajamas , bathrobe and slippers , mumbling to himself and appearing to be a disturbed but harmless person .
Law - enforcement agents , prosecutors and Mafia defectors described his behavior as a staged performance calculated to evade prosecution for his activities as head of a crime family that under his leadership became the wealthiest and most powerful in the nation .
Based on information from informers and electronic eavesdropping on gangsters , F . B . I . and New York City law - enforcement officials ranked Mr . Gigante as the pre - eminent Mafia leader in the early and mid - 1990's , and prosecutors identified him as the dominant force in the early 1990's inside the Commission , the Mafia's ruling body , which resolves significant disputes among the five major families in the New York region .
His reach , law - enforcement officials said , extended as well to Philadelphia and New England , where he exercised veto power over the appointments of mob bosses in those areas .
Salvatore Gravano , the No . 2 figure in the Gambino crime family before he defected in 1991 , testified that even Mr . Gigante's archrival , John Gotti , grudgingly acknowledged Mr . Gigante's craftiness .
"He's crazy like a fox , " Mr . Gravano quoted Mr . Gotti as saying of Mr . Gigante after a summit meeting of New York City mob leaders in 1988 .
Mr . Gotti was the boss of the Gambino family until his own imprisonment forced him to relinquish undisputed control in the late 1990's .
He , too , died in a prison hospital , of cancer in June 2002 .
Federal Bureau of Investigation agents and federal and state prosecutors regarded Mr . Gigante as the most elusive Mafia leader of his era and the most difficult to bring to trial .
"He was probably the most clever organized - crime figure I have ever seen , " said John S . Pritchard 3rd , a former F . B . I . supervisor , who led a squad that investigated the Genovese family in the 1980's .
Disputing the government's contentions , Mr . Gigante's lawyers and relatives maintained that he had been mentally disabled since the late 1960's , with a below - normal I . Q . of 69 to 72 .
His defenders steadfastly denied that he was associated with the Mafia , asserting that it was ludicrous to believe that someone so mentally subpar was capable of heading a major crime organization .
The Rev . Louis Gigante , a Roman Catholic priest , former New York city councilman and a builder of low - income housing in the Bronx , characterized the relentless investigations of his older brother as persecution by agents and prosecutors who were biased against Italian - Americans .
Organized - crime experts and mob turncoats said that Mr . Gigante was apparently willing to humiliate himself publicly as the price for escaping the long prison sentences that were being meted out to other Mafia leaders .
According to federal and state investigators , each of the family's 200 "made" or inducted soldiers and about 1 , 000 associates - the name for others who voluntarily cooperate in illegal activities but who are not sworn members - were obligated to funnel part of their loot to Mr . Gigante , as much as $100 million a year in the early 1990's .
The family's fortune , the experts said , flowed largely from a vast network of bookmaking and loansharking rings and from extortions of construction companies in the New York City area seeking labor peace or sweetheart contracts from carpenters , teamsters and laborers' unions that were dominated by Mr . Gigante's lieutenants .
Mob deserters in the mid - 1990's testified in criminal and civil cases that the Genovese gang's other lucrative enterprises included the control of cartels that rigged bids and inflated prices in the private garbage - hauling industries of New York City and Westchester County ; kickbacks from shipping and trucking companies on the New Jersey waterfront in exchange for labor peace ; protection payoffs from merchants at the Fulton Fish Market ; and the control of many union jobs at the Jacob K . Javits Convention Center in Manhattan .
Mr . Gigante's influence even extended over the San Gennaro Street Festival in Little Italy until a 1995 crackdown by New York City officials and federal prosecutors resulted in allegations that the Genovese family operated gambling games at the festival , extorted payoffs from venders and pocketed thousands of dollars donated to a neighborhood church .
In the 1980's , after the authorities said Mr . Gigante had assumed undisputed command of the Genovese family , he conducted his activities in a starkly unorthodox fashion for a Mafia leader .
Most days , in the early evening , Mr . Gigante , a hulking man who was about six feet tall and weighed 200 pounds , would emerge from his mother's walkup apartment building on Sullivan Street in Greenwich Village .
Sometimes dressed in a bathrobe and pajamas and sometimes wearing a windbreaker and shabby trousers and always accompanied by one or two bodyguards , he gingerly crossed the street to the Triangle Civic Improvement Association , a dingy storefront club that served as his headquarters .
Inside , he played pinochle and held whispered conversations with men who agents said were his trusted confederates .
After midnight , according to F . B . I . surveillance reports , he would be driven to a townhouse near Park Avenue at East 77th Street , that was owned by Olympia Esposito , who was characterized by Mr . Gigante's lawyers as his common - law wife and the mother of three of his eight children , Vincent , Lucia and Carmella Esposito .
F . B . I . agents , who in 1986 observed the townhouse from a nearby rooftop post , said that soon after arriving , Mr . Gigante would change into more elegant clothes , carry on conversations with associates , and read or watch television before retiring .
About 9 or 10 the next morning , he would reappear in his shabby downtown clothes and be driven back to Sullivan Street or a nearby apartment occupied by his relatives at 505 LaGuardia Place .
"It was hard to understand what enjoyment he got out of being a mob boss , " said Ronald Goldstock , the former director of the New York State Organized Crime Task Force .
"His only pleasure appeared to be the pure power he exercised . "
Vincent Gigante ( pronounced ji - GANT - tee ) was born on March 29 , 1928 , in New York City and grew up on the same streets in Greenwich Village where he would spend most of his adult life .
He was one of five sons of Salvatore Gigante , a watchmaker , and Yolanda Gigante , a seamstress , both of whom had immigrated from Naples .
His mother usually addressed him as "Cincenzo , " a diminutive of Vincente , and his boyhood friends shortened that into his lifelong nickname , "Chin . "
A lackadaisical student , Mr . Gigante graduated from P . S . 3 , an elementary school in Greenwich Village and dropped out of Textile High School in Manhattan in the ninth grade .
Police detectives said that as a teen - ager , he became a prot�g� of Vito Genovese , who was a potent Mafia leader in the United States and in Italy from the 1930's to the 1960's and whose name still describes the organized - crime group he headed until his death in 1969 .
The gang was founded in the 1930's by one of the nation's most notorious criminals , Charles ( Lucky ) Luciano , who was deported to Italy and who died in 1962 .
Mr . Genovese is believed to have endeared himself to the Gigantes when Vincent was a boy with a loan to pay for surgery needed by Mrs . Gigante .
Between age 17 and 25 , Mr . Gigante was arrested seven times on an array of charges : receiving stolen goods , possession of an unlicensed handgun , auto theft , arson and bookmaking .
Most were dismissed or resolved by fines .
His only jail sentence in that period was 60 days for a gambling conviction .
When arrested in his early 20's , he listed his occupation as a tailor .
But as a strapping youth with quick fists , he was better known as a prize fighter .
Mr . Gigante , from age 16 to 19 , fought as a light heavyweight in clubs around town , winning 21 of 25 light - heavyweight bouts , according to Nat Fleischer's Ring Record Book .
Club boxers in those days fought four - and six - round contests in neighborhood arenas , usually getting a percentage of the tickets they themselves sold .
One of Mr . Gigante's managers was a Greenwich Village neighbor , Thomas ( Tommy Ryan ) Eboli , who later became the boss of the Genovese family .
Former New York City detectives who were assigned to organized - crime intelligence units said that Mr . Gigante earned his Mafia spurs as an enforcer in the 1950's .
But his prominence in the underworld surged in 1957 , when Mr . Genovese wrested control of a mob family from Frank Costello , who had been a close friend of Lucky Luciano and Meyer Lansky and was one of the best - known underworld figures in America .
Mr . Costello retired abruptly as a boss after a gunman grazed his scalp with a bullet in the vestibule of his apartment building on Central Park West .
A doorman identified the 29 - year - old Mr . Gigante as the shooter , but Mr . Costello testified that he was unable to recognize his assailant and Mr . Gigante was acquitted in 1958 on charges of attempted murder .
A year later , he was convicted with Mr . Genovese in Manhattan on federal charges of heroin trafficking .
Mr . Gigante , who listed his profession as the superintendent of a tenement on Bleecker Street , was sentenced to seven years in prison .
The sentencing judge said he would have imposed a longer sentence but was swayed by a flood of letters from residents of Greenwich Village and Little Italy attesting to Mr . Gigante's good character and his work on behalf of juveniles .
He was paroled after five years and detectives said that soon afterward he was promoted from soldier to the rank of capo , or captain , overseeing a group of Mafia gangsters known as a crew , in Greenwich Village .
Although his headquarters was in Lower Manhattan and he spent his nights farther uptown , Mr . Gigante had a home in Old Tappan , N . J . , where he lived with his wife , the former Olympia Grippa , and their three daughters and two sons .
They are Yolanda Fyfe , Roseanne D'Cola and Rita Gigante , and Salvatore and Andrew .
In 1969 , he was indicted in New Jersey on a charge of conspiracy to bribe the entire five - member Old Tappan police force to alert him to surveillance operations by law enforcement agencies .
The accusation was dropped after Mr . Gigante's lawyers presented reports from psychiatrists that he was mentally unfit to stand trial .
Mafia informers and defectors said that Mr . Gigante gained control of the Genovese family in a peaceful transition in the early 1980's when the group's acting boss , Philip Lombardo , stepped down because of ill health , and Mr . Gigante's main rival , Anthony Salerno , was imprisoned for life on racketeering charges .
Mr . Salerno died in federal prison in 1992 .
As a new godfather , Mr . Gigante quickly imposed extraordinary security measures .
Genovese soldiers and associates were forbidden to utter his name or nickname in conversations or telephone calls .
When references to him had to be made , capos and soldiers would silently point to their chins or form the letter "C" with their fingers .
Mr . Gigante was indicted in 1990 with 14 others on federal charges in Brooklyn that they had conspired to rig bids and extort payoffs from contractors on multimillion - dollar contracts with the New York City Housing Authority to install windows .
At his arraignment , he appeared in court in his familiar pajamas and bathrobe and a peaked cap .
Because of defense contentions that he was mentally and physically impaired , his case was severed from the other defendants and legal battles ensued for seven years over his competence to stand trial .
A superseding indictment in 1993 brought more serious accusations against him .
Mr . Gigante was charged with being the head of the Genovese family and sanctioning the murders of six mobsters and conspiring to kill three others , including John Gotti , the boss of the Gambino family .
Mr . Gigante , the indictment asserted , wanted Mr . Gotti eliminated because he had violated Mafia protocol by arranging the assassination of the previous Gambino boss , Paul Castellano , without seeking Mr . Gigante's approval .
The evidence in both indictments stemmed mainly from deserters from the Genovese and other mob families who entered the Government's Witness Protection Program .
At sanity hearings in March 1996 , Mr . Gravano of the Gambino family , and Alphonse D'Arco , the former acting boss of another New York Mafia organization , the Lucchese crime family , testified that Mr . Gigante was lucid during top - level Mafia meetings and that he had acknowledged to other gangsters that his eccentric behavior was a pretense .
Mr . Gigante's lawyers elicited testimony and reports from psychiatrists and psychologists that from 1969 to 1995 , he had been confined 28 times in hospitals for treatment of hallucinations and that he suffered from "dementia rooted in organic brain damage . "
In August 1996 , Judge Eugene H . Nickerson of Federal District Court in Brooklyn ruled that Mr . Gigante was mentally competent to stand trial on murder and racketeering charges .
The judge found that at least until 1991 , Mr . Gigante had engaged in an "elaborate deception" with the help of his relatives to deceive psychiatrists about his condition .
Before the trial began , Mr . Gigante , who had open - heart surgery in 1988 , had another cardiac operation in December 1996 , putting his fitness to stand trial in doubt once again .
Mr . Gigante had pleaded not guilty and had been free for years on $1 million bond .
During the monthlong trial in 1997 , a gaunt - looking Mr . Gigante sat in a wheelchair , looking blankly into space as witnesses testified and lawyers argued .
He did not testify .
After three days of deliberations , the jury on July 25 , 1997 , convicted him on charges of running multimillion - dollar rackets as the Genovese family chief and of conspiring unsuccessfully in the late 1980's to murder Mr . Gotti and a Genovese family defector .
But he was acquitted of ordering three other gangland slayings and the jury was deadlocked on accusations that he ordered four other murders .
Imposing a sentence of 12 years - instead of a possible maximum of 27 years - and a $1 . 25 million fine , Judge Jack B . Weinstein of Federal District Court in Brooklyn reflected in December 1997 on Mr . Gigante's career .
"He is a shadow of his former self , " the judge said , "an old man finally brought to bay in his declining years after decades of vicious criminal tyranny . " |
26_1ecbplus.xml_21 | train | evt | 26_1ecbplus.xml | 6 | Officials at the prison medical center where he died did not provide the cause of death but noted that he suffered from heart disease . | 17 | 17 | 92 | 97 | noted | 10000000843 | note | ['official', 'prison', 'medical', 'center', 'he', 'die', 'provide', 'cause', 'death', 'note', 'he', 'suffer', 'heart', 'disease'] | Officials at the prison medical center where he died did not provide the cause of death but <m> noted </m> that he suffered from heart disease . | http : / / www . nytimes . com / 2005 / 12 / 19 / obituaries / 19cnd - gigante . html ? pagewanted=all
Vincent Gigante , Mafia Leader Who Feigned Insanity , Dies at 77
Published : December 19 , 2005
Vincent Gigante , who feigned mental illness for decades to camouflage his position as one of the nation's most influential and dangerous Mafia leaders , died today in federal prison in Springfield , Mo . , officials told The Associated Press .
He was 77 .
Mr . Gigante died while serving a 12 - year sentence imposed in 1997 after he was convicted of racketeering and conspiring to kill other mobsters .
Officials at the prison medical center where he died did not provide the cause of death but <m> noted </m> that he suffered from heart disease .
Mr . Gigante , whose nickname was "Chin , " painstakingly maintained the fiction that he was incompetent until April 2003 , when he appeared before Judge I . Leo Glasser in Federal District Court in Brooklyn and pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice .
Specifically , he acknowledged running a con on the legal system that delayed his racketeering trial from 1990 to 1997 while his sanity was being examined .
As part of the plea , three more years were added to his prison term , but he avoided a lengthy trial on the other charges , which amounted to an accusation - long denied or sidestepped by Mr . Gigante - that he headed the Genovese organized crime family .
His lawyer , Benjamin Brafman , offered the explanation that "I think you get to a point in life - I think everyone does - where you become too old and too sick and too tired to fight . "
For Mr . Gigante , the guise that he adopted in the mid - 1960's - behavior that won him the nickname Oddfather - took considerable effort to maintain .
He could often be seen shuffling around his Greenwich Village neighborhood in pajamas , bathrobe and slippers , mumbling to himself and appearing to be a disturbed but harmless person .
Law - enforcement agents , prosecutors and Mafia defectors described his behavior as a staged performance calculated to evade prosecution for his activities as head of a crime family that under his leadership became the wealthiest and most powerful in the nation .
Based on information from informers and electronic eavesdropping on gangsters , F . B . I . and New York City law - enforcement officials ranked Mr . Gigante as the pre - eminent Mafia leader in the early and mid - 1990's , and prosecutors identified him as the dominant force in the early 1990's inside the Commission , the Mafia's ruling body , which resolves significant disputes among the five major families in the New York region .
His reach , law - enforcement officials said , extended as well to Philadelphia and New England , where he exercised veto power over the appointments of mob bosses in those areas .
Salvatore Gravano , the No . 2 figure in the Gambino crime family before he defected in 1991 , testified that even Mr . Gigante's archrival , John Gotti , grudgingly acknowledged Mr . Gigante's craftiness .
"He's crazy like a fox , " Mr . Gravano quoted Mr . Gotti as saying of Mr . Gigante after a summit meeting of New York City mob leaders in 1988 .
Mr . Gotti was the boss of the Gambino family until his own imprisonment forced him to relinquish undisputed control in the late 1990's .
He , too , died in a prison hospital , of cancer in June 2002 .
Federal Bureau of Investigation agents and federal and state prosecutors regarded Mr . Gigante as the most elusive Mafia leader of his era and the most difficult to bring to trial .
"He was probably the most clever organized - crime figure I have ever seen , " said John S . Pritchard 3rd , a former F . B . I . supervisor , who led a squad that investigated the Genovese family in the 1980's .
Disputing the government's contentions , Mr . Gigante's lawyers and relatives maintained that he had been mentally disabled since the late 1960's , with a below - normal I . Q . of 69 to 72 .
His defenders steadfastly denied that he was associated with the Mafia , asserting that it was ludicrous to believe that someone so mentally subpar was capable of heading a major crime organization .
The Rev . Louis Gigante , a Roman Catholic priest , former New York city councilman and a builder of low - income housing in the Bronx , characterized the relentless investigations of his older brother as persecution by agents and prosecutors who were biased against Italian - Americans .
Organized - crime experts and mob turncoats said that Mr . Gigante was apparently willing to humiliate himself publicly as the price for escaping the long prison sentences that were being meted out to other Mafia leaders .
According to federal and state investigators , each of the family's 200 "made" or inducted soldiers and about 1 , 000 associates - the name for others who voluntarily cooperate in illegal activities but who are not sworn members - were obligated to funnel part of their loot to Mr . Gigante , as much as $100 million a year in the early 1990's .
The family's fortune , the experts said , flowed largely from a vast network of bookmaking and loansharking rings and from extortions of construction companies in the New York City area seeking labor peace or sweetheart contracts from carpenters , teamsters and laborers' unions that were dominated by Mr . Gigante's lieutenants .
Mob deserters in the mid - 1990's testified in criminal and civil cases that the Genovese gang's other lucrative enterprises included the control of cartels that rigged bids and inflated prices in the private garbage - hauling industries of New York City and Westchester County ; kickbacks from shipping and trucking companies on the New Jersey waterfront in exchange for labor peace ; protection payoffs from merchants at the Fulton Fish Market ; and the control of many union jobs at the Jacob K . Javits Convention Center in Manhattan .
Mr . Gigante's influence even extended over the San Gennaro Street Festival in Little Italy until a 1995 crackdown by New York City officials and federal prosecutors resulted in allegations that the Genovese family operated gambling games at the festival , extorted payoffs from venders and pocketed thousands of dollars donated to a neighborhood church .
In the 1980's , after the authorities said Mr . Gigante had assumed undisputed command of the Genovese family , he conducted his activities in a starkly unorthodox fashion for a Mafia leader .
Most days , in the early evening , Mr . Gigante , a hulking man who was about six feet tall and weighed 200 pounds , would emerge from his mother's walkup apartment building on Sullivan Street in Greenwich Village .
Sometimes dressed in a bathrobe and pajamas and sometimes wearing a windbreaker and shabby trousers and always accompanied by one or two bodyguards , he gingerly crossed the street to the Triangle Civic Improvement Association , a dingy storefront club that served as his headquarters .
Inside , he played pinochle and held whispered conversations with men who agents said were his trusted confederates .
After midnight , according to F . B . I . surveillance reports , he would be driven to a townhouse near Park Avenue at East 77th Street , that was owned by Olympia Esposito , who was characterized by Mr . Gigante's lawyers as his common - law wife and the mother of three of his eight children , Vincent , Lucia and Carmella Esposito .
F . B . I . agents , who in 1986 observed the townhouse from a nearby rooftop post , said that soon after arriving , Mr . Gigante would change into more elegant clothes , carry on conversations with associates , and read or watch television before retiring .
About 9 or 10 the next morning , he would reappear in his shabby downtown clothes and be driven back to Sullivan Street or a nearby apartment occupied by his relatives at 505 LaGuardia Place .
"It was hard to understand what enjoyment he got out of being a mob boss , " said Ronald Goldstock , the former director of the New York State Organized Crime Task Force .
"His only pleasure appeared to be the pure power he exercised . "
Vincent Gigante ( pronounced ji - GANT - tee ) was born on March 29 , 1928 , in New York City and grew up on the same streets in Greenwich Village where he would spend most of his adult life .
He was one of five sons of Salvatore Gigante , a watchmaker , and Yolanda Gigante , a seamstress , both of whom had immigrated from Naples .
His mother usually addressed him as "Cincenzo , " a diminutive of Vincente , and his boyhood friends shortened that into his lifelong nickname , "Chin . "
A lackadaisical student , Mr . Gigante graduated from P . S . 3 , an elementary school in Greenwich Village and dropped out of Textile High School in Manhattan in the ninth grade .
Police detectives said that as a teen - ager , he became a prot�g� of Vito Genovese , who was a potent Mafia leader in the United States and in Italy from the 1930's to the 1960's and whose name still describes the organized - crime group he headed until his death in 1969 .
The gang was founded in the 1930's by one of the nation's most notorious criminals , Charles ( Lucky ) Luciano , who was deported to Italy and who died in 1962 .
Mr . Genovese is believed to have endeared himself to the Gigantes when Vincent was a boy with a loan to pay for surgery needed by Mrs . Gigante .
Between age 17 and 25 , Mr . Gigante was arrested seven times on an array of charges : receiving stolen goods , possession of an unlicensed handgun , auto theft , arson and bookmaking .
Most were dismissed or resolved by fines .
His only jail sentence in that period was 60 days for a gambling conviction .
When arrested in his early 20's , he listed his occupation as a tailor .
But as a strapping youth with quick fists , he was better known as a prize fighter .
Mr . Gigante , from age 16 to 19 , fought as a light heavyweight in clubs around town , winning 21 of 25 light - heavyweight bouts , according to Nat Fleischer's Ring Record Book .
Club boxers in those days fought four - and six - round contests in neighborhood arenas , usually getting a percentage of the tickets they themselves sold .
One of Mr . Gigante's managers was a Greenwich Village neighbor , Thomas ( Tommy Ryan ) Eboli , who later became the boss of the Genovese family .
Former New York City detectives who were assigned to organized - crime intelligence units said that Mr . Gigante earned his Mafia spurs as an enforcer in the 1950's .
But his prominence in the underworld surged in 1957 , when Mr . Genovese wrested control of a mob family from Frank Costello , who had been a close friend of Lucky Luciano and Meyer Lansky and was one of the best - known underworld figures in America .
Mr . Costello retired abruptly as a boss after a gunman grazed his scalp with a bullet in the vestibule of his apartment building on Central Park West .
A doorman identified the 29 - year - old Mr . Gigante as the shooter , but Mr . Costello testified that he was unable to recognize his assailant and Mr . Gigante was acquitted in 1958 on charges of attempted murder .
A year later , he was convicted with Mr . Genovese in Manhattan on federal charges of heroin trafficking .
Mr . Gigante , who listed his profession as the superintendent of a tenement on Bleecker Street , was sentenced to seven years in prison .
The sentencing judge said he would have imposed a longer sentence but was swayed by a flood of letters from residents of Greenwich Village and Little Italy attesting to Mr . Gigante's good character and his work on behalf of juveniles .
He was paroled after five years and detectives said that soon afterward he was promoted from soldier to the rank of capo , or captain , overseeing a group of Mafia gangsters known as a crew , in Greenwich Village .
Although his headquarters was in Lower Manhattan and he spent his nights farther uptown , Mr . Gigante had a home in Old Tappan , N . J . , where he lived with his wife , the former Olympia Grippa , and their three daughters and two sons .
They are Yolanda Fyfe , Roseanne D'Cola and Rita Gigante , and Salvatore and Andrew .
In 1969 , he was indicted in New Jersey on a charge of conspiracy to bribe the entire five - member Old Tappan police force to alert him to surveillance operations by law enforcement agencies .
The accusation was dropped after Mr . Gigante's lawyers presented reports from psychiatrists that he was mentally unfit to stand trial .
Mafia informers and defectors said that Mr . Gigante gained control of the Genovese family in a peaceful transition in the early 1980's when the group's acting boss , Philip Lombardo , stepped down because of ill health , and Mr . Gigante's main rival , Anthony Salerno , was imprisoned for life on racketeering charges .
Mr . Salerno died in federal prison in 1992 .
As a new godfather , Mr . Gigante quickly imposed extraordinary security measures .
Genovese soldiers and associates were forbidden to utter his name or nickname in conversations or telephone calls .
When references to him had to be made , capos and soldiers would silently point to their chins or form the letter "C" with their fingers .
Mr . Gigante was indicted in 1990 with 14 others on federal charges in Brooklyn that they had conspired to rig bids and extort payoffs from contractors on multimillion - dollar contracts with the New York City Housing Authority to install windows .
At his arraignment , he appeared in court in his familiar pajamas and bathrobe and a peaked cap .
Because of defense contentions that he was mentally and physically impaired , his case was severed from the other defendants and legal battles ensued for seven years over his competence to stand trial .
A superseding indictment in 1993 brought more serious accusations against him .
Mr . Gigante was charged with being the head of the Genovese family and sanctioning the murders of six mobsters and conspiring to kill three others , including John Gotti , the boss of the Gambino family .
Mr . Gigante , the indictment asserted , wanted Mr . Gotti eliminated because he had violated Mafia protocol by arranging the assassination of the previous Gambino boss , Paul Castellano , without seeking Mr . Gigante's approval .
The evidence in both indictments stemmed mainly from deserters from the Genovese and other mob families who entered the Government's Witness Protection Program .
At sanity hearings in March 1996 , Mr . Gravano of the Gambino family , and Alphonse D'Arco , the former acting boss of another New York Mafia organization , the Lucchese crime family , testified that Mr . Gigante was lucid during top - level Mafia meetings and that he had acknowledged to other gangsters that his eccentric behavior was a pretense .
Mr . Gigante's lawyers elicited testimony and reports from psychiatrists and psychologists that from 1969 to 1995 , he had been confined 28 times in hospitals for treatment of hallucinations and that he suffered from "dementia rooted in organic brain damage . "
In August 1996 , Judge Eugene H . Nickerson of Federal District Court in Brooklyn ruled that Mr . Gigante was mentally competent to stand trial on murder and racketeering charges .
The judge found that at least until 1991 , Mr . Gigante had engaged in an "elaborate deception" with the help of his relatives to deceive psychiatrists about his condition .
Before the trial began , Mr . Gigante , who had open - heart surgery in 1988 , had another cardiac operation in December 1996 , putting his fitness to stand trial in doubt once again .
Mr . Gigante had pleaded not guilty and had been free for years on $1 million bond .
During the monthlong trial in 1997 , a gaunt - looking Mr . Gigante sat in a wheelchair , looking blankly into space as witnesses testified and lawyers argued .
He did not testify .
After three days of deliberations , the jury on July 25 , 1997 , convicted him on charges of running multimillion - dollar rackets as the Genovese family chief and of conspiring unsuccessfully in the late 1980's to murder Mr . Gotti and a Genovese family defector .
But he was acquitted of ordering three other gangland slayings and the jury was deadlocked on accusations that he ordered four other murders .
Imposing a sentence of 12 years - instead of a possible maximum of 27 years - and a $1 . 25 million fine , Judge Jack B . Weinstein of Federal District Court in Brooklyn reflected in December 1997 on Mr . Gigante's career .
"He is a shadow of his former self , " the judge said , "an old man finally brought to bay in his declining years after decades of vicious criminal tyranny . " |
26_1ecbplus.xml_22 | train | evt | 26_1ecbplus.xml | 6 | Officials at the prison medical center where he died did not provide the cause of death but noted that he suffered from heart disease . | 20 | 20 | 106 | 114 | suffered | ACT18440623861291848 | suffer | ['official', 'prison', 'medical', 'center', 'he', 'die', 'provide', 'cause', 'death', 'note', 'he', 'suffer', 'heart', 'disease'] | Officials at the prison medical center where he died did not provide the cause of death but noted that he <m> suffered </m> from heart disease . | http : / / www . nytimes . com / 2005 / 12 / 19 / obituaries / 19cnd - gigante . html ? pagewanted=all
Vincent Gigante , Mafia Leader Who Feigned Insanity , Dies at 77
Published : December 19 , 2005
Vincent Gigante , who feigned mental illness for decades to camouflage his position as one of the nation's most influential and dangerous Mafia leaders , died today in federal prison in Springfield , Mo . , officials told The Associated Press .
He was 77 .
Mr . Gigante died while serving a 12 - year sentence imposed in 1997 after he was convicted of racketeering and conspiring to kill other mobsters .
Officials at the prison medical center where he died did not provide the cause of death but noted that he <m> suffered </m> from heart disease .
Mr . Gigante , whose nickname was "Chin , " painstakingly maintained the fiction that he was incompetent until April 2003 , when he appeared before Judge I . Leo Glasser in Federal District Court in Brooklyn and pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice .
Specifically , he acknowledged running a con on the legal system that delayed his racketeering trial from 1990 to 1997 while his sanity was being examined .
As part of the plea , three more years were added to his prison term , but he avoided a lengthy trial on the other charges , which amounted to an accusation - long denied or sidestepped by Mr . Gigante - that he headed the Genovese organized crime family .
His lawyer , Benjamin Brafman , offered the explanation that "I think you get to a point in life - I think everyone does - where you become too old and too sick and too tired to fight . "
For Mr . Gigante , the guise that he adopted in the mid - 1960's - behavior that won him the nickname Oddfather - took considerable effort to maintain .
He could often be seen shuffling around his Greenwich Village neighborhood in pajamas , bathrobe and slippers , mumbling to himself and appearing to be a disturbed but harmless person .
Law - enforcement agents , prosecutors and Mafia defectors described his behavior as a staged performance calculated to evade prosecution for his activities as head of a crime family that under his leadership became the wealthiest and most powerful in the nation .
Based on information from informers and electronic eavesdropping on gangsters , F . B . I . and New York City law - enforcement officials ranked Mr . Gigante as the pre - eminent Mafia leader in the early and mid - 1990's , and prosecutors identified him as the dominant force in the early 1990's inside the Commission , the Mafia's ruling body , which resolves significant disputes among the five major families in the New York region .
His reach , law - enforcement officials said , extended as well to Philadelphia and New England , where he exercised veto power over the appointments of mob bosses in those areas .
Salvatore Gravano , the No . 2 figure in the Gambino crime family before he defected in 1991 , testified that even Mr . Gigante's archrival , John Gotti , grudgingly acknowledged Mr . Gigante's craftiness .
"He's crazy like a fox , " Mr . Gravano quoted Mr . Gotti as saying of Mr . Gigante after a summit meeting of New York City mob leaders in 1988 .
Mr . Gotti was the boss of the Gambino family until his own imprisonment forced him to relinquish undisputed control in the late 1990's .
He , too , died in a prison hospital , of cancer in June 2002 .
Federal Bureau of Investigation agents and federal and state prosecutors regarded Mr . Gigante as the most elusive Mafia leader of his era and the most difficult to bring to trial .
"He was probably the most clever organized - crime figure I have ever seen , " said John S . Pritchard 3rd , a former F . B . I . supervisor , who led a squad that investigated the Genovese family in the 1980's .
Disputing the government's contentions , Mr . Gigante's lawyers and relatives maintained that he had been mentally disabled since the late 1960's , with a below - normal I . Q . of 69 to 72 .
His defenders steadfastly denied that he was associated with the Mafia , asserting that it was ludicrous to believe that someone so mentally subpar was capable of heading a major crime organization .
The Rev . Louis Gigante , a Roman Catholic priest , former New York city councilman and a builder of low - income housing in the Bronx , characterized the relentless investigations of his older brother as persecution by agents and prosecutors who were biased against Italian - Americans .
Organized - crime experts and mob turncoats said that Mr . Gigante was apparently willing to humiliate himself publicly as the price for escaping the long prison sentences that were being meted out to other Mafia leaders .
According to federal and state investigators , each of the family's 200 "made" or inducted soldiers and about 1 , 000 associates - the name for others who voluntarily cooperate in illegal activities but who are not sworn members - were obligated to funnel part of their loot to Mr . Gigante , as much as $100 million a year in the early 1990's .
The family's fortune , the experts said , flowed largely from a vast network of bookmaking and loansharking rings and from extortions of construction companies in the New York City area seeking labor peace or sweetheart contracts from carpenters , teamsters and laborers' unions that were dominated by Mr . Gigante's lieutenants .
Mob deserters in the mid - 1990's testified in criminal and civil cases that the Genovese gang's other lucrative enterprises included the control of cartels that rigged bids and inflated prices in the private garbage - hauling industries of New York City and Westchester County ; kickbacks from shipping and trucking companies on the New Jersey waterfront in exchange for labor peace ; protection payoffs from merchants at the Fulton Fish Market ; and the control of many union jobs at the Jacob K . Javits Convention Center in Manhattan .
Mr . Gigante's influence even extended over the San Gennaro Street Festival in Little Italy until a 1995 crackdown by New York City officials and federal prosecutors resulted in allegations that the Genovese family operated gambling games at the festival , extorted payoffs from venders and pocketed thousands of dollars donated to a neighborhood church .
In the 1980's , after the authorities said Mr . Gigante had assumed undisputed command of the Genovese family , he conducted his activities in a starkly unorthodox fashion for a Mafia leader .
Most days , in the early evening , Mr . Gigante , a hulking man who was about six feet tall and weighed 200 pounds , would emerge from his mother's walkup apartment building on Sullivan Street in Greenwich Village .
Sometimes dressed in a bathrobe and pajamas and sometimes wearing a windbreaker and shabby trousers and always accompanied by one or two bodyguards , he gingerly crossed the street to the Triangle Civic Improvement Association , a dingy storefront club that served as his headquarters .
Inside , he played pinochle and held whispered conversations with men who agents said were his trusted confederates .
After midnight , according to F . B . I . surveillance reports , he would be driven to a townhouse near Park Avenue at East 77th Street , that was owned by Olympia Esposito , who was characterized by Mr . Gigante's lawyers as his common - law wife and the mother of three of his eight children , Vincent , Lucia and Carmella Esposito .
F . B . I . agents , who in 1986 observed the townhouse from a nearby rooftop post , said that soon after arriving , Mr . Gigante would change into more elegant clothes , carry on conversations with associates , and read or watch television before retiring .
About 9 or 10 the next morning , he would reappear in his shabby downtown clothes and be driven back to Sullivan Street or a nearby apartment occupied by his relatives at 505 LaGuardia Place .
"It was hard to understand what enjoyment he got out of being a mob boss , " said Ronald Goldstock , the former director of the New York State Organized Crime Task Force .
"His only pleasure appeared to be the pure power he exercised . "
Vincent Gigante ( pronounced ji - GANT - tee ) was born on March 29 , 1928 , in New York City and grew up on the same streets in Greenwich Village where he would spend most of his adult life .
He was one of five sons of Salvatore Gigante , a watchmaker , and Yolanda Gigante , a seamstress , both of whom had immigrated from Naples .
His mother usually addressed him as "Cincenzo , " a diminutive of Vincente , and his boyhood friends shortened that into his lifelong nickname , "Chin . "
A lackadaisical student , Mr . Gigante graduated from P . S . 3 , an elementary school in Greenwich Village and dropped out of Textile High School in Manhattan in the ninth grade .
Police detectives said that as a teen - ager , he became a prot�g� of Vito Genovese , who was a potent Mafia leader in the United States and in Italy from the 1930's to the 1960's and whose name still describes the organized - crime group he headed until his death in 1969 .
The gang was founded in the 1930's by one of the nation's most notorious criminals , Charles ( Lucky ) Luciano , who was deported to Italy and who died in 1962 .
Mr . Genovese is believed to have endeared himself to the Gigantes when Vincent was a boy with a loan to pay for surgery needed by Mrs . Gigante .
Between age 17 and 25 , Mr . Gigante was arrested seven times on an array of charges : receiving stolen goods , possession of an unlicensed handgun , auto theft , arson and bookmaking .
Most were dismissed or resolved by fines .
His only jail sentence in that period was 60 days for a gambling conviction .
When arrested in his early 20's , he listed his occupation as a tailor .
But as a strapping youth with quick fists , he was better known as a prize fighter .
Mr . Gigante , from age 16 to 19 , fought as a light heavyweight in clubs around town , winning 21 of 25 light - heavyweight bouts , according to Nat Fleischer's Ring Record Book .
Club boxers in those days fought four - and six - round contests in neighborhood arenas , usually getting a percentage of the tickets they themselves sold .
One of Mr . Gigante's managers was a Greenwich Village neighbor , Thomas ( Tommy Ryan ) Eboli , who later became the boss of the Genovese family .
Former New York City detectives who were assigned to organized - crime intelligence units said that Mr . Gigante earned his Mafia spurs as an enforcer in the 1950's .
But his prominence in the underworld surged in 1957 , when Mr . Genovese wrested control of a mob family from Frank Costello , who had been a close friend of Lucky Luciano and Meyer Lansky and was one of the best - known underworld figures in America .
Mr . Costello retired abruptly as a boss after a gunman grazed his scalp with a bullet in the vestibule of his apartment building on Central Park West .
A doorman identified the 29 - year - old Mr . Gigante as the shooter , but Mr . Costello testified that he was unable to recognize his assailant and Mr . Gigante was acquitted in 1958 on charges of attempted murder .
A year later , he was convicted with Mr . Genovese in Manhattan on federal charges of heroin trafficking .
Mr . Gigante , who listed his profession as the superintendent of a tenement on Bleecker Street , was sentenced to seven years in prison .
The sentencing judge said he would have imposed a longer sentence but was swayed by a flood of letters from residents of Greenwich Village and Little Italy attesting to Mr . Gigante's good character and his work on behalf of juveniles .
He was paroled after five years and detectives said that soon afterward he was promoted from soldier to the rank of capo , or captain , overseeing a group of Mafia gangsters known as a crew , in Greenwich Village .
Although his headquarters was in Lower Manhattan and he spent his nights farther uptown , Mr . Gigante had a home in Old Tappan , N . J . , where he lived with his wife , the former Olympia Grippa , and their three daughters and two sons .
They are Yolanda Fyfe , Roseanne D'Cola and Rita Gigante , and Salvatore and Andrew .
In 1969 , he was indicted in New Jersey on a charge of conspiracy to bribe the entire five - member Old Tappan police force to alert him to surveillance operations by law enforcement agencies .
The accusation was dropped after Mr . Gigante's lawyers presented reports from psychiatrists that he was mentally unfit to stand trial .
Mafia informers and defectors said that Mr . Gigante gained control of the Genovese family in a peaceful transition in the early 1980's when the group's acting boss , Philip Lombardo , stepped down because of ill health , and Mr . Gigante's main rival , Anthony Salerno , was imprisoned for life on racketeering charges .
Mr . Salerno died in federal prison in 1992 .
As a new godfather , Mr . Gigante quickly imposed extraordinary security measures .
Genovese soldiers and associates were forbidden to utter his name or nickname in conversations or telephone calls .
When references to him had to be made , capos and soldiers would silently point to their chins or form the letter "C" with their fingers .
Mr . Gigante was indicted in 1990 with 14 others on federal charges in Brooklyn that they had conspired to rig bids and extort payoffs from contractors on multimillion - dollar contracts with the New York City Housing Authority to install windows .
At his arraignment , he appeared in court in his familiar pajamas and bathrobe and a peaked cap .
Because of defense contentions that he was mentally and physically impaired , his case was severed from the other defendants and legal battles ensued for seven years over his competence to stand trial .
A superseding indictment in 1993 brought more serious accusations against him .
Mr . Gigante was charged with being the head of the Genovese family and sanctioning the murders of six mobsters and conspiring to kill three others , including John Gotti , the boss of the Gambino family .
Mr . Gigante , the indictment asserted , wanted Mr . Gotti eliminated because he had violated Mafia protocol by arranging the assassination of the previous Gambino boss , Paul Castellano , without seeking Mr . Gigante's approval .
The evidence in both indictments stemmed mainly from deserters from the Genovese and other mob families who entered the Government's Witness Protection Program .
At sanity hearings in March 1996 , Mr . Gravano of the Gambino family , and Alphonse D'Arco , the former acting boss of another New York Mafia organization , the Lucchese crime family , testified that Mr . Gigante was lucid during top - level Mafia meetings and that he had acknowledged to other gangsters that his eccentric behavior was a pretense .
Mr . Gigante's lawyers elicited testimony and reports from psychiatrists and psychologists that from 1969 to 1995 , he had been confined 28 times in hospitals for treatment of hallucinations and that he suffered from "dementia rooted in organic brain damage . "
In August 1996 , Judge Eugene H . Nickerson of Federal District Court in Brooklyn ruled that Mr . Gigante was mentally competent to stand trial on murder and racketeering charges .
The judge found that at least until 1991 , Mr . Gigante had engaged in an "elaborate deception" with the help of his relatives to deceive psychiatrists about his condition .
Before the trial began , Mr . Gigante , who had open - heart surgery in 1988 , had another cardiac operation in December 1996 , putting his fitness to stand trial in doubt once again .
Mr . Gigante had pleaded not guilty and had been free for years on $1 million bond .
During the monthlong trial in 1997 , a gaunt - looking Mr . Gigante sat in a wheelchair , looking blankly into space as witnesses testified and lawyers argued .
He did not testify .
After three days of deliberations , the jury on July 25 , 1997 , convicted him on charges of running multimillion - dollar rackets as the Genovese family chief and of conspiring unsuccessfully in the late 1980's to murder Mr . Gotti and a Genovese family defector .
But he was acquitted of ordering three other gangland slayings and the jury was deadlocked on accusations that he ordered four other murders .
Imposing a sentence of 12 years - instead of a possible maximum of 27 years - and a $1 . 25 million fine , Judge Jack B . Weinstein of Federal District Court in Brooklyn reflected in December 1997 on Mr . Gigante's career .
"He is a shadow of his former self , " the judge said , "an old man finally brought to bay in his declining years after decades of vicious criminal tyranny . " |
26_1ecbplus.xml_23 | train | evt | 26_1ecbplus.xml | 1 | Vincent Gigante , Mafia Leader Who Feigned Insanity , Dies at 77 | 9 | 9 | 54 | 58 | Dies | ACT18440577880137709 | die | ['vincent', 'gigante', 'mafia', 'leader', 'feign', 'insanity', 'die', '77'] | Vincent Gigante , Mafia Leader Who Feigned Insanity , <m> Dies </m> at 77 | http : / / www . nytimes . com / 2005 / 12 / 19 / obituaries / 19cnd - gigante . html ? pagewanted=all
Vincent Gigante , Mafia Leader Who Feigned Insanity , <m> Dies </m> at 77
Published : December 19 , 2005
Vincent Gigante , who feigned mental illness for decades to camouflage his position as one of the nation's most influential and dangerous Mafia leaders , died today in federal prison in Springfield , Mo . , officials told The Associated Press .
He was 77 .
Mr . Gigante died while serving a 12 - year sentence imposed in 1997 after he was convicted of racketeering and conspiring to kill other mobsters .
Officials at the prison medical center where he died did not provide the cause of death but noted that he suffered from heart disease .
Mr . Gigante , whose nickname was "Chin , " painstakingly maintained the fiction that he was incompetent until April 2003 , when he appeared before Judge I . Leo Glasser in Federal District Court in Brooklyn and pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice .
Specifically , he acknowledged running a con on the legal system that delayed his racketeering trial from 1990 to 1997 while his sanity was being examined .
As part of the plea , three more years were added to his prison term , but he avoided a lengthy trial on the other charges , which amounted to an accusation - long denied or sidestepped by Mr . Gigante - that he headed the Genovese organized crime family .
His lawyer , Benjamin Brafman , offered the explanation that "I think you get to a point in life - I think everyone does - where you become too old and too sick and too tired to fight . "
For Mr . Gigante , the guise that he adopted in the mid - 1960's - behavior that won him the nickname Oddfather - took considerable effort to maintain .
He could often be seen shuffling around his Greenwich Village neighborhood in pajamas , bathrobe and slippers , mumbling to himself and appearing to be a disturbed but harmless person .
Law - enforcement agents , prosecutors and Mafia defectors described his behavior as a staged performance calculated to evade prosecution for his activities as head of a crime family that under his leadership became the wealthiest and most powerful in the nation .
Based on information from informers and electronic eavesdropping on gangsters , F . B . I . and New York City law - enforcement officials ranked Mr . Gigante as the pre - eminent Mafia leader in the early and mid - 1990's , and prosecutors identified him as the dominant force in the early 1990's inside the Commission , the Mafia's ruling body , which resolves significant disputes among the five major families in the New York region .
His reach , law - enforcement officials said , extended as well to Philadelphia and New England , where he exercised veto power over the appointments of mob bosses in those areas .
Salvatore Gravano , the No . 2 figure in the Gambino crime family before he defected in 1991 , testified that even Mr . Gigante's archrival , John Gotti , grudgingly acknowledged Mr . Gigante's craftiness .
"He's crazy like a fox , " Mr . Gravano quoted Mr . Gotti as saying of Mr . Gigante after a summit meeting of New York City mob leaders in 1988 .
Mr . Gotti was the boss of the Gambino family until his own imprisonment forced him to relinquish undisputed control in the late 1990's .
He , too , died in a prison hospital , of cancer in June 2002 .
Federal Bureau of Investigation agents and federal and state prosecutors regarded Mr . Gigante as the most elusive Mafia leader of his era and the most difficult to bring to trial .
"He was probably the most clever organized - crime figure I have ever seen , " said John S . Pritchard 3rd , a former F . B . I . supervisor , who led a squad that investigated the Genovese family in the 1980's .
Disputing the government's contentions , Mr . Gigante's lawyers and relatives maintained that he had been mentally disabled since the late 1960's , with a below - normal I . Q . of 69 to 72 .
His defenders steadfastly denied that he was associated with the Mafia , asserting that it was ludicrous to believe that someone so mentally subpar was capable of heading a major crime organization .
The Rev . Louis Gigante , a Roman Catholic priest , former New York city councilman and a builder of low - income housing in the Bronx , characterized the relentless investigations of his older brother as persecution by agents and prosecutors who were biased against Italian - Americans .
Organized - crime experts and mob turncoats said that Mr . Gigante was apparently willing to humiliate himself publicly as the price for escaping the long prison sentences that were being meted out to other Mafia leaders .
According to federal and state investigators , each of the family's 200 "made" or inducted soldiers and about 1 , 000 associates - the name for others who voluntarily cooperate in illegal activities but who are not sworn members - were obligated to funnel part of their loot to Mr . Gigante , as much as $100 million a year in the early 1990's .
The family's fortune , the experts said , flowed largely from a vast network of bookmaking and loansharking rings and from extortions of construction companies in the New York City area seeking labor peace or sweetheart contracts from carpenters , teamsters and laborers' unions that were dominated by Mr . Gigante's lieutenants .
Mob deserters in the mid - 1990's testified in criminal and civil cases that the Genovese gang's other lucrative enterprises included the control of cartels that rigged bids and inflated prices in the private garbage - hauling industries of New York City and Westchester County ; kickbacks from shipping and trucking companies on the New Jersey waterfront in exchange for labor peace ; protection payoffs from merchants at the Fulton Fish Market ; and the control of many union jobs at the Jacob K . Javits Convention Center in Manhattan .
Mr . Gigante's influence even extended over the San Gennaro Street Festival in Little Italy until a 1995 crackdown by New York City officials and federal prosecutors resulted in allegations that the Genovese family operated gambling games at the festival , extorted payoffs from venders and pocketed thousands of dollars donated to a neighborhood church .
In the 1980's , after the authorities said Mr . Gigante had assumed undisputed command of the Genovese family , he conducted his activities in a starkly unorthodox fashion for a Mafia leader .
Most days , in the early evening , Mr . Gigante , a hulking man who was about six feet tall and weighed 200 pounds , would emerge from his mother's walkup apartment building on Sullivan Street in Greenwich Village .
Sometimes dressed in a bathrobe and pajamas and sometimes wearing a windbreaker and shabby trousers and always accompanied by one or two bodyguards , he gingerly crossed the street to the Triangle Civic Improvement Association , a dingy storefront club that served as his headquarters .
Inside , he played pinochle and held whispered conversations with men who agents said were his trusted confederates .
After midnight , according to F . B . I . surveillance reports , he would be driven to a townhouse near Park Avenue at East 77th Street , that was owned by Olympia Esposito , who was characterized by Mr . Gigante's lawyers as his common - law wife and the mother of three of his eight children , Vincent , Lucia and Carmella Esposito .
F . B . I . agents , who in 1986 observed the townhouse from a nearby rooftop post , said that soon after arriving , Mr . Gigante would change into more elegant clothes , carry on conversations with associates , and read or watch television before retiring .
About 9 or 10 the next morning , he would reappear in his shabby downtown clothes and be driven back to Sullivan Street or a nearby apartment occupied by his relatives at 505 LaGuardia Place .
"It was hard to understand what enjoyment he got out of being a mob boss , " said Ronald Goldstock , the former director of the New York State Organized Crime Task Force .
"His only pleasure appeared to be the pure power he exercised . "
Vincent Gigante ( pronounced ji - GANT - tee ) was born on March 29 , 1928 , in New York City and grew up on the same streets in Greenwich Village where he would spend most of his adult life .
He was one of five sons of Salvatore Gigante , a watchmaker , and Yolanda Gigante , a seamstress , both of whom had immigrated from Naples .
His mother usually addressed him as "Cincenzo , " a diminutive of Vincente , and his boyhood friends shortened that into his lifelong nickname , "Chin . "
A lackadaisical student , Mr . Gigante graduated from P . S . 3 , an elementary school in Greenwich Village and dropped out of Textile High School in Manhattan in the ninth grade .
Police detectives said that as a teen - ager , he became a prot�g� of Vito Genovese , who was a potent Mafia leader in the United States and in Italy from the 1930's to the 1960's and whose name still describes the organized - crime group he headed until his death in 1969 .
The gang was founded in the 1930's by one of the nation's most notorious criminals , Charles ( Lucky ) Luciano , who was deported to Italy and who died in 1962 .
Mr . Genovese is believed to have endeared himself to the Gigantes when Vincent was a boy with a loan to pay for surgery needed by Mrs . Gigante .
Between age 17 and 25 , Mr . Gigante was arrested seven times on an array of charges : receiving stolen goods , possession of an unlicensed handgun , auto theft , arson and bookmaking .
Most were dismissed or resolved by fines .
His only jail sentence in that period was 60 days for a gambling conviction .
When arrested in his early 20's , he listed his occupation as a tailor .
But as a strapping youth with quick fists , he was better known as a prize fighter .
Mr . Gigante , from age 16 to 19 , fought as a light heavyweight in clubs around town , winning 21 of 25 light - heavyweight bouts , according to Nat Fleischer's Ring Record Book .
Club boxers in those days fought four - and six - round contests in neighborhood arenas , usually getting a percentage of the tickets they themselves sold .
One of Mr . Gigante's managers was a Greenwich Village neighbor , Thomas ( Tommy Ryan ) Eboli , who later became the boss of the Genovese family .
Former New York City detectives who were assigned to organized - crime intelligence units said that Mr . Gigante earned his Mafia spurs as an enforcer in the 1950's .
But his prominence in the underworld surged in 1957 , when Mr . Genovese wrested control of a mob family from Frank Costello , who had been a close friend of Lucky Luciano and Meyer Lansky and was one of the best - known underworld figures in America .
Mr . Costello retired abruptly as a boss after a gunman grazed his scalp with a bullet in the vestibule of his apartment building on Central Park West .
A doorman identified the 29 - year - old Mr . Gigante as the shooter , but Mr . Costello testified that he was unable to recognize his assailant and Mr . Gigante was acquitted in 1958 on charges of attempted murder .
A year later , he was convicted with Mr . Genovese in Manhattan on federal charges of heroin trafficking .
Mr . Gigante , who listed his profession as the superintendent of a tenement on Bleecker Street , was sentenced to seven years in prison .
The sentencing judge said he would have imposed a longer sentence but was swayed by a flood of letters from residents of Greenwich Village and Little Italy attesting to Mr . Gigante's good character and his work on behalf of juveniles .
He was paroled after five years and detectives said that soon afterward he was promoted from soldier to the rank of capo , or captain , overseeing a group of Mafia gangsters known as a crew , in Greenwich Village .
Although his headquarters was in Lower Manhattan and he spent his nights farther uptown , Mr . Gigante had a home in Old Tappan , N . J . , where he lived with his wife , the former Olympia Grippa , and their three daughters and two sons .
They are Yolanda Fyfe , Roseanne D'Cola and Rita Gigante , and Salvatore and Andrew .
In 1969 , he was indicted in New Jersey on a charge of conspiracy to bribe the entire five - member Old Tappan police force to alert him to surveillance operations by law enforcement agencies .
The accusation was dropped after Mr . Gigante's lawyers presented reports from psychiatrists that he was mentally unfit to stand trial .
Mafia informers and defectors said that Mr . Gigante gained control of the Genovese family in a peaceful transition in the early 1980's when the group's acting boss , Philip Lombardo , stepped down because of ill health , and Mr . Gigante's main rival , Anthony Salerno , was imprisoned for life on racketeering charges .
Mr . Salerno died in federal prison in 1992 .
As a new godfather , Mr . Gigante quickly imposed extraordinary security measures .
Genovese soldiers and associates were forbidden to utter his name or nickname in conversations or telephone calls .
When references to him had to be made , capos and soldiers would silently point to their chins or form the letter "C" with their fingers .
Mr . Gigante was indicted in 1990 with 14 others on federal charges in Brooklyn that they had conspired to rig bids and extort payoffs from contractors on multimillion - dollar contracts with the New York City Housing Authority to install windows .
At his arraignment , he appeared in court in his familiar pajamas and bathrobe and a peaked cap .
Because of defense contentions that he was mentally and physically impaired , his case was severed from the other defendants and legal battles ensued for seven years over his competence to stand trial .
A superseding indictment in 1993 brought more serious accusations against him .
Mr . Gigante was charged with being the head of the Genovese family and sanctioning the murders of six mobsters and conspiring to kill three others , including John Gotti , the boss of the Gambino family .
Mr . Gigante , the indictment asserted , wanted Mr . Gotti eliminated because he had violated Mafia protocol by arranging the assassination of the previous Gambino boss , Paul Castellano , without seeking Mr . Gigante's approval .
The evidence in both indictments stemmed mainly from deserters from the Genovese and other mob families who entered the Government's Witness Protection Program .
At sanity hearings in March 1996 , Mr . Gravano of the Gambino family , and Alphonse D'Arco , the former acting boss of another New York Mafia organization , the Lucchese crime family , testified that Mr . Gigante was lucid during top - level Mafia meetings and that he had acknowledged to other gangsters that his eccentric behavior was a pretense .
Mr . Gigante's lawyers elicited testimony and reports from psychiatrists and psychologists that from 1969 to 1995 , he had been confined 28 times in hospitals for treatment of hallucinations and that he suffered from "dementia rooted in organic brain damage . "
In August 1996 , Judge Eugene H . Nickerson of Federal District Court in Brooklyn ruled that Mr . Gigante was mentally competent to stand trial on murder and racketeering charges .
The judge found that at least until 1991 , Mr . Gigante had engaged in an "elaborate deception" with the help of his relatives to deceive psychiatrists about his condition .
Before the trial began , Mr . Gigante , who had open - heart surgery in 1988 , had another cardiac operation in December 1996 , putting his fitness to stand trial in doubt once again .
Mr . Gigante had pleaded not guilty and had been free for years on $1 million bond .
During the monthlong trial in 1997 , a gaunt - looking Mr . Gigante sat in a wheelchair , looking blankly into space as witnesses testified and lawyers argued .
He did not testify .
After three days of deliberations , the jury on July 25 , 1997 , convicted him on charges of running multimillion - dollar rackets as the Genovese family chief and of conspiring unsuccessfully in the late 1980's to murder Mr . Gotti and a Genovese family defector .
But he was acquitted of ordering three other gangland slayings and the jury was deadlocked on accusations that he ordered four other murders .
Imposing a sentence of 12 years - instead of a possible maximum of 27 years - and a $1 . 25 million fine , Judge Jack B . Weinstein of Federal District Court in Brooklyn reflected in December 1997 on Mr . Gigante's career .
"He is a shadow of his former self , " the judge said , "an old man finally brought to bay in his declining years after decades of vicious criminal tyranny . " |
26_1ecbplus.xml_24 | train | evt | 26_1ecbplus.xml | 1 | Vincent Gigante , Mafia Leader Who Feigned Insanity , Dies at 77 | 7 | 7 | 43 | 51 | Insanity | ACT18440672179378046 | insanity | ['vincent', 'gigante', 'mafia', 'leader', 'feign', 'insanity', 'die', '77'] | Vincent Gigante , Mafia Leader Who Feigned <m> Insanity </m> , Dies at 77 | http : / / www . nytimes . com / 2005 / 12 / 19 / obituaries / 19cnd - gigante . html ? pagewanted=all
Vincent Gigante , Mafia Leader Who Feigned <m> Insanity </m> , Dies at 77
Published : December 19 , 2005
Vincent Gigante , who feigned mental illness for decades to camouflage his position as one of the nation's most influential and dangerous Mafia leaders , died today in federal prison in Springfield , Mo . , officials told The Associated Press .
He was 77 .
Mr . Gigante died while serving a 12 - year sentence imposed in 1997 after he was convicted of racketeering and conspiring to kill other mobsters .
Officials at the prison medical center where he died did not provide the cause of death but noted that he suffered from heart disease .
Mr . Gigante , whose nickname was "Chin , " painstakingly maintained the fiction that he was incompetent until April 2003 , when he appeared before Judge I . Leo Glasser in Federal District Court in Brooklyn and pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice .
Specifically , he acknowledged running a con on the legal system that delayed his racketeering trial from 1990 to 1997 while his sanity was being examined .
As part of the plea , three more years were added to his prison term , but he avoided a lengthy trial on the other charges , which amounted to an accusation - long denied or sidestepped by Mr . Gigante - that he headed the Genovese organized crime family .
His lawyer , Benjamin Brafman , offered the explanation that "I think you get to a point in life - I think everyone does - where you become too old and too sick and too tired to fight . "
For Mr . Gigante , the guise that he adopted in the mid - 1960's - behavior that won him the nickname Oddfather - took considerable effort to maintain .
He could often be seen shuffling around his Greenwich Village neighborhood in pajamas , bathrobe and slippers , mumbling to himself and appearing to be a disturbed but harmless person .
Law - enforcement agents , prosecutors and Mafia defectors described his behavior as a staged performance calculated to evade prosecution for his activities as head of a crime family that under his leadership became the wealthiest and most powerful in the nation .
Based on information from informers and electronic eavesdropping on gangsters , F . B . I . and New York City law - enforcement officials ranked Mr . Gigante as the pre - eminent Mafia leader in the early and mid - 1990's , and prosecutors identified him as the dominant force in the early 1990's inside the Commission , the Mafia's ruling body , which resolves significant disputes among the five major families in the New York region .
His reach , law - enforcement officials said , extended as well to Philadelphia and New England , where he exercised veto power over the appointments of mob bosses in those areas .
Salvatore Gravano , the No . 2 figure in the Gambino crime family before he defected in 1991 , testified that even Mr . Gigante's archrival , John Gotti , grudgingly acknowledged Mr . Gigante's craftiness .
"He's crazy like a fox , " Mr . Gravano quoted Mr . Gotti as saying of Mr . Gigante after a summit meeting of New York City mob leaders in 1988 .
Mr . Gotti was the boss of the Gambino family until his own imprisonment forced him to relinquish undisputed control in the late 1990's .
He , too , died in a prison hospital , of cancer in June 2002 .
Federal Bureau of Investigation agents and federal and state prosecutors regarded Mr . Gigante as the most elusive Mafia leader of his era and the most difficult to bring to trial .
"He was probably the most clever organized - crime figure I have ever seen , " said John S . Pritchard 3rd , a former F . B . I . supervisor , who led a squad that investigated the Genovese family in the 1980's .
Disputing the government's contentions , Mr . Gigante's lawyers and relatives maintained that he had been mentally disabled since the late 1960's , with a below - normal I . Q . of 69 to 72 .
His defenders steadfastly denied that he was associated with the Mafia , asserting that it was ludicrous to believe that someone so mentally subpar was capable of heading a major crime organization .
The Rev . Louis Gigante , a Roman Catholic priest , former New York city councilman and a builder of low - income housing in the Bronx , characterized the relentless investigations of his older brother as persecution by agents and prosecutors who were biased against Italian - Americans .
Organized - crime experts and mob turncoats said that Mr . Gigante was apparently willing to humiliate himself publicly as the price for escaping the long prison sentences that were being meted out to other Mafia leaders .
According to federal and state investigators , each of the family's 200 "made" or inducted soldiers and about 1 , 000 associates - the name for others who voluntarily cooperate in illegal activities but who are not sworn members - were obligated to funnel part of their loot to Mr . Gigante , as much as $100 million a year in the early 1990's .
The family's fortune , the experts said , flowed largely from a vast network of bookmaking and loansharking rings and from extortions of construction companies in the New York City area seeking labor peace or sweetheart contracts from carpenters , teamsters and laborers' unions that were dominated by Mr . Gigante's lieutenants .
Mob deserters in the mid - 1990's testified in criminal and civil cases that the Genovese gang's other lucrative enterprises included the control of cartels that rigged bids and inflated prices in the private garbage - hauling industries of New York City and Westchester County ; kickbacks from shipping and trucking companies on the New Jersey waterfront in exchange for labor peace ; protection payoffs from merchants at the Fulton Fish Market ; and the control of many union jobs at the Jacob K . Javits Convention Center in Manhattan .
Mr . Gigante's influence even extended over the San Gennaro Street Festival in Little Italy until a 1995 crackdown by New York City officials and federal prosecutors resulted in allegations that the Genovese family operated gambling games at the festival , extorted payoffs from venders and pocketed thousands of dollars donated to a neighborhood church .
In the 1980's , after the authorities said Mr . Gigante had assumed undisputed command of the Genovese family , he conducted his activities in a starkly unorthodox fashion for a Mafia leader .
Most days , in the early evening , Mr . Gigante , a hulking man who was about six feet tall and weighed 200 pounds , would emerge from his mother's walkup apartment building on Sullivan Street in Greenwich Village .
Sometimes dressed in a bathrobe and pajamas and sometimes wearing a windbreaker and shabby trousers and always accompanied by one or two bodyguards , he gingerly crossed the street to the Triangle Civic Improvement Association , a dingy storefront club that served as his headquarters .
Inside , he played pinochle and held whispered conversations with men who agents said were his trusted confederates .
After midnight , according to F . B . I . surveillance reports , he would be driven to a townhouse near Park Avenue at East 77th Street , that was owned by Olympia Esposito , who was characterized by Mr . Gigante's lawyers as his common - law wife and the mother of three of his eight children , Vincent , Lucia and Carmella Esposito .
F . B . I . agents , who in 1986 observed the townhouse from a nearby rooftop post , said that soon after arriving , Mr . Gigante would change into more elegant clothes , carry on conversations with associates , and read or watch television before retiring .
About 9 or 10 the next morning , he would reappear in his shabby downtown clothes and be driven back to Sullivan Street or a nearby apartment occupied by his relatives at 505 LaGuardia Place .
"It was hard to understand what enjoyment he got out of being a mob boss , " said Ronald Goldstock , the former director of the New York State Organized Crime Task Force .
"His only pleasure appeared to be the pure power he exercised . "
Vincent Gigante ( pronounced ji - GANT - tee ) was born on March 29 , 1928 , in New York City and grew up on the same streets in Greenwich Village where he would spend most of his adult life .
He was one of five sons of Salvatore Gigante , a watchmaker , and Yolanda Gigante , a seamstress , both of whom had immigrated from Naples .
His mother usually addressed him as "Cincenzo , " a diminutive of Vincente , and his boyhood friends shortened that into his lifelong nickname , "Chin . "
A lackadaisical student , Mr . Gigante graduated from P . S . 3 , an elementary school in Greenwich Village and dropped out of Textile High School in Manhattan in the ninth grade .
Police detectives said that as a teen - ager , he became a prot�g� of Vito Genovese , who was a potent Mafia leader in the United States and in Italy from the 1930's to the 1960's and whose name still describes the organized - crime group he headed until his death in 1969 .
The gang was founded in the 1930's by one of the nation's most notorious criminals , Charles ( Lucky ) Luciano , who was deported to Italy and who died in 1962 .
Mr . Genovese is believed to have endeared himself to the Gigantes when Vincent was a boy with a loan to pay for surgery needed by Mrs . Gigante .
Between age 17 and 25 , Mr . Gigante was arrested seven times on an array of charges : receiving stolen goods , possession of an unlicensed handgun , auto theft , arson and bookmaking .
Most were dismissed or resolved by fines .
His only jail sentence in that period was 60 days for a gambling conviction .
When arrested in his early 20's , he listed his occupation as a tailor .
But as a strapping youth with quick fists , he was better known as a prize fighter .
Mr . Gigante , from age 16 to 19 , fought as a light heavyweight in clubs around town , winning 21 of 25 light - heavyweight bouts , according to Nat Fleischer's Ring Record Book .
Club boxers in those days fought four - and six - round contests in neighborhood arenas , usually getting a percentage of the tickets they themselves sold .
One of Mr . Gigante's managers was a Greenwich Village neighbor , Thomas ( Tommy Ryan ) Eboli , who later became the boss of the Genovese family .
Former New York City detectives who were assigned to organized - crime intelligence units said that Mr . Gigante earned his Mafia spurs as an enforcer in the 1950's .
But his prominence in the underworld surged in 1957 , when Mr . Genovese wrested control of a mob family from Frank Costello , who had been a close friend of Lucky Luciano and Meyer Lansky and was one of the best - known underworld figures in America .
Mr . Costello retired abruptly as a boss after a gunman grazed his scalp with a bullet in the vestibule of his apartment building on Central Park West .
A doorman identified the 29 - year - old Mr . Gigante as the shooter , but Mr . Costello testified that he was unable to recognize his assailant and Mr . Gigante was acquitted in 1958 on charges of attempted murder .
A year later , he was convicted with Mr . Genovese in Manhattan on federal charges of heroin trafficking .
Mr . Gigante , who listed his profession as the superintendent of a tenement on Bleecker Street , was sentenced to seven years in prison .
The sentencing judge said he would have imposed a longer sentence but was swayed by a flood of letters from residents of Greenwich Village and Little Italy attesting to Mr . Gigante's good character and his work on behalf of juveniles .
He was paroled after five years and detectives said that soon afterward he was promoted from soldier to the rank of capo , or captain , overseeing a group of Mafia gangsters known as a crew , in Greenwich Village .
Although his headquarters was in Lower Manhattan and he spent his nights farther uptown , Mr . Gigante had a home in Old Tappan , N . J . , where he lived with his wife , the former Olympia Grippa , and their three daughters and two sons .
They are Yolanda Fyfe , Roseanne D'Cola and Rita Gigante , and Salvatore and Andrew .
In 1969 , he was indicted in New Jersey on a charge of conspiracy to bribe the entire five - member Old Tappan police force to alert him to surveillance operations by law enforcement agencies .
The accusation was dropped after Mr . Gigante's lawyers presented reports from psychiatrists that he was mentally unfit to stand trial .
Mafia informers and defectors said that Mr . Gigante gained control of the Genovese family in a peaceful transition in the early 1980's when the group's acting boss , Philip Lombardo , stepped down because of ill health , and Mr . Gigante's main rival , Anthony Salerno , was imprisoned for life on racketeering charges .
Mr . Salerno died in federal prison in 1992 .
As a new godfather , Mr . Gigante quickly imposed extraordinary security measures .
Genovese soldiers and associates were forbidden to utter his name or nickname in conversations or telephone calls .
When references to him had to be made , capos and soldiers would silently point to their chins or form the letter "C" with their fingers .
Mr . Gigante was indicted in 1990 with 14 others on federal charges in Brooklyn that they had conspired to rig bids and extort payoffs from contractors on multimillion - dollar contracts with the New York City Housing Authority to install windows .
At his arraignment , he appeared in court in his familiar pajamas and bathrobe and a peaked cap .
Because of defense contentions that he was mentally and physically impaired , his case was severed from the other defendants and legal battles ensued for seven years over his competence to stand trial .
A superseding indictment in 1993 brought more serious accusations against him .
Mr . Gigante was charged with being the head of the Genovese family and sanctioning the murders of six mobsters and conspiring to kill three others , including John Gotti , the boss of the Gambino family .
Mr . Gigante , the indictment asserted , wanted Mr . Gotti eliminated because he had violated Mafia protocol by arranging the assassination of the previous Gambino boss , Paul Castellano , without seeking Mr . Gigante's approval .
The evidence in both indictments stemmed mainly from deserters from the Genovese and other mob families who entered the Government's Witness Protection Program .
At sanity hearings in March 1996 , Mr . Gravano of the Gambino family , and Alphonse D'Arco , the former acting boss of another New York Mafia organization , the Lucchese crime family , testified that Mr . Gigante was lucid during top - level Mafia meetings and that he had acknowledged to other gangsters that his eccentric behavior was a pretense .
Mr . Gigante's lawyers elicited testimony and reports from psychiatrists and psychologists that from 1969 to 1995 , he had been confined 28 times in hospitals for treatment of hallucinations and that he suffered from "dementia rooted in organic brain damage . "
In August 1996 , Judge Eugene H . Nickerson of Federal District Court in Brooklyn ruled that Mr . Gigante was mentally competent to stand trial on murder and racketeering charges .
The judge found that at least until 1991 , Mr . Gigante had engaged in an "elaborate deception" with the help of his relatives to deceive psychiatrists about his condition .
Before the trial began , Mr . Gigante , who had open - heart surgery in 1988 , had another cardiac operation in December 1996 , putting his fitness to stand trial in doubt once again .
Mr . Gigante had pleaded not guilty and had been free for years on $1 million bond .
During the monthlong trial in 1997 , a gaunt - looking Mr . Gigante sat in a wheelchair , looking blankly into space as witnesses testified and lawyers argued .
He did not testify .
After three days of deliberations , the jury on July 25 , 1997 , convicted him on charges of running multimillion - dollar rackets as the Genovese family chief and of conspiring unsuccessfully in the late 1980's to murder Mr . Gotti and a Genovese family defector .
But he was acquitted of ordering three other gangland slayings and the jury was deadlocked on accusations that he ordered four other murders .
Imposing a sentence of 12 years - instead of a possible maximum of 27 years - and a $1 . 25 million fine , Judge Jack B . Weinstein of Federal District Court in Brooklyn reflected in December 1997 on Mr . Gigante's career .
"He is a shadow of his former self , " the judge said , "an old man finally brought to bay in his declining years after decades of vicious criminal tyranny . " |
26_1ecbplus.xml_30 | train | evt | 26_1ecbplus.xml | 6 | Officials at the prison medical center where he died did not provide the cause of death but noted that he suffered from heart disease . | 22 | 23 | 120 | 133 | heart disease | ACT18440655322799332 | disease | ['official', 'prison', 'medical', 'center', 'he', 'die', 'provide', 'cause', 'death', 'note', 'he', 'suffer', 'heart', 'disease'] | Officials at the prison medical center where he died did not provide the cause of death but noted that he suffered from <m> heart disease </m> . | http : / / www . nytimes . com / 2005 / 12 / 19 / obituaries / 19cnd - gigante . html ? pagewanted=all
Vincent Gigante , Mafia Leader Who Feigned Insanity , Dies at 77
Published : December 19 , 2005
Vincent Gigante , who feigned mental illness for decades to camouflage his position as one of the nation's most influential and dangerous Mafia leaders , died today in federal prison in Springfield , Mo . , officials told The Associated Press .
He was 77 .
Mr . Gigante died while serving a 12 - year sentence imposed in 1997 after he was convicted of racketeering and conspiring to kill other mobsters .
Officials at the prison medical center where he died did not provide the cause of death but noted that he suffered from <m> heart disease </m> .
Mr . Gigante , whose nickname was "Chin , " painstakingly maintained the fiction that he was incompetent until April 2003 , when he appeared before Judge I . Leo Glasser in Federal District Court in Brooklyn and pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice .
Specifically , he acknowledged running a con on the legal system that delayed his racketeering trial from 1990 to 1997 while his sanity was being examined .
As part of the plea , three more years were added to his prison term , but he avoided a lengthy trial on the other charges , which amounted to an accusation - long denied or sidestepped by Mr . Gigante - that he headed the Genovese organized crime family .
His lawyer , Benjamin Brafman , offered the explanation that "I think you get to a point in life - I think everyone does - where you become too old and too sick and too tired to fight . "
For Mr . Gigante , the guise that he adopted in the mid - 1960's - behavior that won him the nickname Oddfather - took considerable effort to maintain .
He could often be seen shuffling around his Greenwich Village neighborhood in pajamas , bathrobe and slippers , mumbling to himself and appearing to be a disturbed but harmless person .
Law - enforcement agents , prosecutors and Mafia defectors described his behavior as a staged performance calculated to evade prosecution for his activities as head of a crime family that under his leadership became the wealthiest and most powerful in the nation .
Based on information from informers and electronic eavesdropping on gangsters , F . B . I . and New York City law - enforcement officials ranked Mr . Gigante as the pre - eminent Mafia leader in the early and mid - 1990's , and prosecutors identified him as the dominant force in the early 1990's inside the Commission , the Mafia's ruling body , which resolves significant disputes among the five major families in the New York region .
His reach , law - enforcement officials said , extended as well to Philadelphia and New England , where he exercised veto power over the appointments of mob bosses in those areas .
Salvatore Gravano , the No . 2 figure in the Gambino crime family before he defected in 1991 , testified that even Mr . Gigante's archrival , John Gotti , grudgingly acknowledged Mr . Gigante's craftiness .
"He's crazy like a fox , " Mr . Gravano quoted Mr . Gotti as saying of Mr . Gigante after a summit meeting of New York City mob leaders in 1988 .
Mr . Gotti was the boss of the Gambino family until his own imprisonment forced him to relinquish undisputed control in the late 1990's .
He , too , died in a prison hospital , of cancer in June 2002 .
Federal Bureau of Investigation agents and federal and state prosecutors regarded Mr . Gigante as the most elusive Mafia leader of his era and the most difficult to bring to trial .
"He was probably the most clever organized - crime figure I have ever seen , " said John S . Pritchard 3rd , a former F . B . I . supervisor , who led a squad that investigated the Genovese family in the 1980's .
Disputing the government's contentions , Mr . Gigante's lawyers and relatives maintained that he had been mentally disabled since the late 1960's , with a below - normal I . Q . of 69 to 72 .
His defenders steadfastly denied that he was associated with the Mafia , asserting that it was ludicrous to believe that someone so mentally subpar was capable of heading a major crime organization .
The Rev . Louis Gigante , a Roman Catholic priest , former New York city councilman and a builder of low - income housing in the Bronx , characterized the relentless investigations of his older brother as persecution by agents and prosecutors who were biased against Italian - Americans .
Organized - crime experts and mob turncoats said that Mr . Gigante was apparently willing to humiliate himself publicly as the price for escaping the long prison sentences that were being meted out to other Mafia leaders .
According to federal and state investigators , each of the family's 200 "made" or inducted soldiers and about 1 , 000 associates - the name for others who voluntarily cooperate in illegal activities but who are not sworn members - were obligated to funnel part of their loot to Mr . Gigante , as much as $100 million a year in the early 1990's .
The family's fortune , the experts said , flowed largely from a vast network of bookmaking and loansharking rings and from extortions of construction companies in the New York City area seeking labor peace or sweetheart contracts from carpenters , teamsters and laborers' unions that were dominated by Mr . Gigante's lieutenants .
Mob deserters in the mid - 1990's testified in criminal and civil cases that the Genovese gang's other lucrative enterprises included the control of cartels that rigged bids and inflated prices in the private garbage - hauling industries of New York City and Westchester County ; kickbacks from shipping and trucking companies on the New Jersey waterfront in exchange for labor peace ; protection payoffs from merchants at the Fulton Fish Market ; and the control of many union jobs at the Jacob K . Javits Convention Center in Manhattan .
Mr . Gigante's influence even extended over the San Gennaro Street Festival in Little Italy until a 1995 crackdown by New York City officials and federal prosecutors resulted in allegations that the Genovese family operated gambling games at the festival , extorted payoffs from venders and pocketed thousands of dollars donated to a neighborhood church .
In the 1980's , after the authorities said Mr . Gigante had assumed undisputed command of the Genovese family , he conducted his activities in a starkly unorthodox fashion for a Mafia leader .
Most days , in the early evening , Mr . Gigante , a hulking man who was about six feet tall and weighed 200 pounds , would emerge from his mother's walkup apartment building on Sullivan Street in Greenwich Village .
Sometimes dressed in a bathrobe and pajamas and sometimes wearing a windbreaker and shabby trousers and always accompanied by one or two bodyguards , he gingerly crossed the street to the Triangle Civic Improvement Association , a dingy storefront club that served as his headquarters .
Inside , he played pinochle and held whispered conversations with men who agents said were his trusted confederates .
After midnight , according to F . B . I . surveillance reports , he would be driven to a townhouse near Park Avenue at East 77th Street , that was owned by Olympia Esposito , who was characterized by Mr . Gigante's lawyers as his common - law wife and the mother of three of his eight children , Vincent , Lucia and Carmella Esposito .
F . B . I . agents , who in 1986 observed the townhouse from a nearby rooftop post , said that soon after arriving , Mr . Gigante would change into more elegant clothes , carry on conversations with associates , and read or watch television before retiring .
About 9 or 10 the next morning , he would reappear in his shabby downtown clothes and be driven back to Sullivan Street or a nearby apartment occupied by his relatives at 505 LaGuardia Place .
"It was hard to understand what enjoyment he got out of being a mob boss , " said Ronald Goldstock , the former director of the New York State Organized Crime Task Force .
"His only pleasure appeared to be the pure power he exercised . "
Vincent Gigante ( pronounced ji - GANT - tee ) was born on March 29 , 1928 , in New York City and grew up on the same streets in Greenwich Village where he would spend most of his adult life .
He was one of five sons of Salvatore Gigante , a watchmaker , and Yolanda Gigante , a seamstress , both of whom had immigrated from Naples .
His mother usually addressed him as "Cincenzo , " a diminutive of Vincente , and his boyhood friends shortened that into his lifelong nickname , "Chin . "
A lackadaisical student , Mr . Gigante graduated from P . S . 3 , an elementary school in Greenwich Village and dropped out of Textile High School in Manhattan in the ninth grade .
Police detectives said that as a teen - ager , he became a prot�g� of Vito Genovese , who was a potent Mafia leader in the United States and in Italy from the 1930's to the 1960's and whose name still describes the organized - crime group he headed until his death in 1969 .
The gang was founded in the 1930's by one of the nation's most notorious criminals , Charles ( Lucky ) Luciano , who was deported to Italy and who died in 1962 .
Mr . Genovese is believed to have endeared himself to the Gigantes when Vincent was a boy with a loan to pay for surgery needed by Mrs . Gigante .
Between age 17 and 25 , Mr . Gigante was arrested seven times on an array of charges : receiving stolen goods , possession of an unlicensed handgun , auto theft , arson and bookmaking .
Most were dismissed or resolved by fines .
His only jail sentence in that period was 60 days for a gambling conviction .
When arrested in his early 20's , he listed his occupation as a tailor .
But as a strapping youth with quick fists , he was better known as a prize fighter .
Mr . Gigante , from age 16 to 19 , fought as a light heavyweight in clubs around town , winning 21 of 25 light - heavyweight bouts , according to Nat Fleischer's Ring Record Book .
Club boxers in those days fought four - and six - round contests in neighborhood arenas , usually getting a percentage of the tickets they themselves sold .
One of Mr . Gigante's managers was a Greenwich Village neighbor , Thomas ( Tommy Ryan ) Eboli , who later became the boss of the Genovese family .
Former New York City detectives who were assigned to organized - crime intelligence units said that Mr . Gigante earned his Mafia spurs as an enforcer in the 1950's .
But his prominence in the underworld surged in 1957 , when Mr . Genovese wrested control of a mob family from Frank Costello , who had been a close friend of Lucky Luciano and Meyer Lansky and was one of the best - known underworld figures in America .
Mr . Costello retired abruptly as a boss after a gunman grazed his scalp with a bullet in the vestibule of his apartment building on Central Park West .
A doorman identified the 29 - year - old Mr . Gigante as the shooter , but Mr . Costello testified that he was unable to recognize his assailant and Mr . Gigante was acquitted in 1958 on charges of attempted murder .
A year later , he was convicted with Mr . Genovese in Manhattan on federal charges of heroin trafficking .
Mr . Gigante , who listed his profession as the superintendent of a tenement on Bleecker Street , was sentenced to seven years in prison .
The sentencing judge said he would have imposed a longer sentence but was swayed by a flood of letters from residents of Greenwich Village and Little Italy attesting to Mr . Gigante's good character and his work on behalf of juveniles .
He was paroled after five years and detectives said that soon afterward he was promoted from soldier to the rank of capo , or captain , overseeing a group of Mafia gangsters known as a crew , in Greenwich Village .
Although his headquarters was in Lower Manhattan and he spent his nights farther uptown , Mr . Gigante had a home in Old Tappan , N . J . , where he lived with his wife , the former Olympia Grippa , and their three daughters and two sons .
They are Yolanda Fyfe , Roseanne D'Cola and Rita Gigante , and Salvatore and Andrew .
In 1969 , he was indicted in New Jersey on a charge of conspiracy to bribe the entire five - member Old Tappan police force to alert him to surveillance operations by law enforcement agencies .
The accusation was dropped after Mr . Gigante's lawyers presented reports from psychiatrists that he was mentally unfit to stand trial .
Mafia informers and defectors said that Mr . Gigante gained control of the Genovese family in a peaceful transition in the early 1980's when the group's acting boss , Philip Lombardo , stepped down because of ill health , and Mr . Gigante's main rival , Anthony Salerno , was imprisoned for life on racketeering charges .
Mr . Salerno died in federal prison in 1992 .
As a new godfather , Mr . Gigante quickly imposed extraordinary security measures .
Genovese soldiers and associates were forbidden to utter his name or nickname in conversations or telephone calls .
When references to him had to be made , capos and soldiers would silently point to their chins or form the letter "C" with their fingers .
Mr . Gigante was indicted in 1990 with 14 others on federal charges in Brooklyn that they had conspired to rig bids and extort payoffs from contractors on multimillion - dollar contracts with the New York City Housing Authority to install windows .
At his arraignment , he appeared in court in his familiar pajamas and bathrobe and a peaked cap .
Because of defense contentions that he was mentally and physically impaired , his case was severed from the other defendants and legal battles ensued for seven years over his competence to stand trial .
A superseding indictment in 1993 brought more serious accusations against him .
Mr . Gigante was charged with being the head of the Genovese family and sanctioning the murders of six mobsters and conspiring to kill three others , including John Gotti , the boss of the Gambino family .
Mr . Gigante , the indictment asserted , wanted Mr . Gotti eliminated because he had violated Mafia protocol by arranging the assassination of the previous Gambino boss , Paul Castellano , without seeking Mr . Gigante's approval .
The evidence in both indictments stemmed mainly from deserters from the Genovese and other mob families who entered the Government's Witness Protection Program .
At sanity hearings in March 1996 , Mr . Gravano of the Gambino family , and Alphonse D'Arco , the former acting boss of another New York Mafia organization , the Lucchese crime family , testified that Mr . Gigante was lucid during top - level Mafia meetings and that he had acknowledged to other gangsters that his eccentric behavior was a pretense .
Mr . Gigante's lawyers elicited testimony and reports from psychiatrists and psychologists that from 1969 to 1995 , he had been confined 28 times in hospitals for treatment of hallucinations and that he suffered from "dementia rooted in organic brain damage . "
In August 1996 , Judge Eugene H . Nickerson of Federal District Court in Brooklyn ruled that Mr . Gigante was mentally competent to stand trial on murder and racketeering charges .
The judge found that at least until 1991 , Mr . Gigante had engaged in an "elaborate deception" with the help of his relatives to deceive psychiatrists about his condition .
Before the trial began , Mr . Gigante , who had open - heart surgery in 1988 , had another cardiac operation in December 1996 , putting his fitness to stand trial in doubt once again .
Mr . Gigante had pleaded not guilty and had been free for years on $1 million bond .
During the monthlong trial in 1997 , a gaunt - looking Mr . Gigante sat in a wheelchair , looking blankly into space as witnesses testified and lawyers argued .
He did not testify .
After three days of deliberations , the jury on July 25 , 1997 , convicted him on charges of running multimillion - dollar rackets as the Genovese family chief and of conspiring unsuccessfully in the late 1980's to murder Mr . Gotti and a Genovese family defector .
But he was acquitted of ordering three other gangland slayings and the jury was deadlocked on accusations that he ordered four other murders .
Imposing a sentence of 12 years - instead of a possible maximum of 27 years - and a $1 . 25 million fine , Judge Jack B . Weinstein of Federal District Court in Brooklyn reflected in December 1997 on Mr . Gigante's career .
"He is a shadow of his former self , " the judge said , "an old man finally brought to bay in his declining years after decades of vicious criminal tyranny . " |
26_1ecbplus.xml_49 | train | evt | 26_1ecbplus.xml | 6 | Officials at the prison medical center where he died did not provide the cause of death but noted that he suffered from heart disease . | 15 | 15 | 82 | 87 | death | ACT18440577880137709 | death | ['official', 'prison', 'medical', 'center', 'he', 'die', 'provide', 'cause', 'death', 'note', 'he', 'suffer', 'heart', 'disease'] | Officials at the prison medical center where he died did not provide the cause of <m> death </m> but noted that he suffered from heart disease . | http : / / www . nytimes . com / 2005 / 12 / 19 / obituaries / 19cnd - gigante . html ? pagewanted=all
Vincent Gigante , Mafia Leader Who Feigned Insanity , Dies at 77
Published : December 19 , 2005
Vincent Gigante , who feigned mental illness for decades to camouflage his position as one of the nation's most influential and dangerous Mafia leaders , died today in federal prison in Springfield , Mo . , officials told The Associated Press .
He was 77 .
Mr . Gigante died while serving a 12 - year sentence imposed in 1997 after he was convicted of racketeering and conspiring to kill other mobsters .
Officials at the prison medical center where he died did not provide the cause of <m> death </m> but noted that he suffered from heart disease .
Mr . Gigante , whose nickname was "Chin , " painstakingly maintained the fiction that he was incompetent until April 2003 , when he appeared before Judge I . Leo Glasser in Federal District Court in Brooklyn and pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice .
Specifically , he acknowledged running a con on the legal system that delayed his racketeering trial from 1990 to 1997 while his sanity was being examined .
As part of the plea , three more years were added to his prison term , but he avoided a lengthy trial on the other charges , which amounted to an accusation - long denied or sidestepped by Mr . Gigante - that he headed the Genovese organized crime family .
His lawyer , Benjamin Brafman , offered the explanation that "I think you get to a point in life - I think everyone does - where you become too old and too sick and too tired to fight . "
For Mr . Gigante , the guise that he adopted in the mid - 1960's - behavior that won him the nickname Oddfather - took considerable effort to maintain .
He could often be seen shuffling around his Greenwich Village neighborhood in pajamas , bathrobe and slippers , mumbling to himself and appearing to be a disturbed but harmless person .
Law - enforcement agents , prosecutors and Mafia defectors described his behavior as a staged performance calculated to evade prosecution for his activities as head of a crime family that under his leadership became the wealthiest and most powerful in the nation .
Based on information from informers and electronic eavesdropping on gangsters , F . B . I . and New York City law - enforcement officials ranked Mr . Gigante as the pre - eminent Mafia leader in the early and mid - 1990's , and prosecutors identified him as the dominant force in the early 1990's inside the Commission , the Mafia's ruling body , which resolves significant disputes among the five major families in the New York region .
His reach , law - enforcement officials said , extended as well to Philadelphia and New England , where he exercised veto power over the appointments of mob bosses in those areas .
Salvatore Gravano , the No . 2 figure in the Gambino crime family before he defected in 1991 , testified that even Mr . Gigante's archrival , John Gotti , grudgingly acknowledged Mr . Gigante's craftiness .
"He's crazy like a fox , " Mr . Gravano quoted Mr . Gotti as saying of Mr . Gigante after a summit meeting of New York City mob leaders in 1988 .
Mr . Gotti was the boss of the Gambino family until his own imprisonment forced him to relinquish undisputed control in the late 1990's .
He , too , died in a prison hospital , of cancer in June 2002 .
Federal Bureau of Investigation agents and federal and state prosecutors regarded Mr . Gigante as the most elusive Mafia leader of his era and the most difficult to bring to trial .
"He was probably the most clever organized - crime figure I have ever seen , " said John S . Pritchard 3rd , a former F . B . I . supervisor , who led a squad that investigated the Genovese family in the 1980's .
Disputing the government's contentions , Mr . Gigante's lawyers and relatives maintained that he had been mentally disabled since the late 1960's , with a below - normal I . Q . of 69 to 72 .
His defenders steadfastly denied that he was associated with the Mafia , asserting that it was ludicrous to believe that someone so mentally subpar was capable of heading a major crime organization .
The Rev . Louis Gigante , a Roman Catholic priest , former New York city councilman and a builder of low - income housing in the Bronx , characterized the relentless investigations of his older brother as persecution by agents and prosecutors who were biased against Italian - Americans .
Organized - crime experts and mob turncoats said that Mr . Gigante was apparently willing to humiliate himself publicly as the price for escaping the long prison sentences that were being meted out to other Mafia leaders .
According to federal and state investigators , each of the family's 200 "made" or inducted soldiers and about 1 , 000 associates - the name for others who voluntarily cooperate in illegal activities but who are not sworn members - were obligated to funnel part of their loot to Mr . Gigante , as much as $100 million a year in the early 1990's .
The family's fortune , the experts said , flowed largely from a vast network of bookmaking and loansharking rings and from extortions of construction companies in the New York City area seeking labor peace or sweetheart contracts from carpenters , teamsters and laborers' unions that were dominated by Mr . Gigante's lieutenants .
Mob deserters in the mid - 1990's testified in criminal and civil cases that the Genovese gang's other lucrative enterprises included the control of cartels that rigged bids and inflated prices in the private garbage - hauling industries of New York City and Westchester County ; kickbacks from shipping and trucking companies on the New Jersey waterfront in exchange for labor peace ; protection payoffs from merchants at the Fulton Fish Market ; and the control of many union jobs at the Jacob K . Javits Convention Center in Manhattan .
Mr . Gigante's influence even extended over the San Gennaro Street Festival in Little Italy until a 1995 crackdown by New York City officials and federal prosecutors resulted in allegations that the Genovese family operated gambling games at the festival , extorted payoffs from venders and pocketed thousands of dollars donated to a neighborhood church .
In the 1980's , after the authorities said Mr . Gigante had assumed undisputed command of the Genovese family , he conducted his activities in a starkly unorthodox fashion for a Mafia leader .
Most days , in the early evening , Mr . Gigante , a hulking man who was about six feet tall and weighed 200 pounds , would emerge from his mother's walkup apartment building on Sullivan Street in Greenwich Village .
Sometimes dressed in a bathrobe and pajamas and sometimes wearing a windbreaker and shabby trousers and always accompanied by one or two bodyguards , he gingerly crossed the street to the Triangle Civic Improvement Association , a dingy storefront club that served as his headquarters .
Inside , he played pinochle and held whispered conversations with men who agents said were his trusted confederates .
After midnight , according to F . B . I . surveillance reports , he would be driven to a townhouse near Park Avenue at East 77th Street , that was owned by Olympia Esposito , who was characterized by Mr . Gigante's lawyers as his common - law wife and the mother of three of his eight children , Vincent , Lucia and Carmella Esposito .
F . B . I . agents , who in 1986 observed the townhouse from a nearby rooftop post , said that soon after arriving , Mr . Gigante would change into more elegant clothes , carry on conversations with associates , and read or watch television before retiring .
About 9 or 10 the next morning , he would reappear in his shabby downtown clothes and be driven back to Sullivan Street or a nearby apartment occupied by his relatives at 505 LaGuardia Place .
"It was hard to understand what enjoyment he got out of being a mob boss , " said Ronald Goldstock , the former director of the New York State Organized Crime Task Force .
"His only pleasure appeared to be the pure power he exercised . "
Vincent Gigante ( pronounced ji - GANT - tee ) was born on March 29 , 1928 , in New York City and grew up on the same streets in Greenwich Village where he would spend most of his adult life .
He was one of five sons of Salvatore Gigante , a watchmaker , and Yolanda Gigante , a seamstress , both of whom had immigrated from Naples .
His mother usually addressed him as "Cincenzo , " a diminutive of Vincente , and his boyhood friends shortened that into his lifelong nickname , "Chin . "
A lackadaisical student , Mr . Gigante graduated from P . S . 3 , an elementary school in Greenwich Village and dropped out of Textile High School in Manhattan in the ninth grade .
Police detectives said that as a teen - ager , he became a prot�g� of Vito Genovese , who was a potent Mafia leader in the United States and in Italy from the 1930's to the 1960's and whose name still describes the organized - crime group he headed until his death in 1969 .
The gang was founded in the 1930's by one of the nation's most notorious criminals , Charles ( Lucky ) Luciano , who was deported to Italy and who died in 1962 .
Mr . Genovese is believed to have endeared himself to the Gigantes when Vincent was a boy with a loan to pay for surgery needed by Mrs . Gigante .
Between age 17 and 25 , Mr . Gigante was arrested seven times on an array of charges : receiving stolen goods , possession of an unlicensed handgun , auto theft , arson and bookmaking .
Most were dismissed or resolved by fines .
His only jail sentence in that period was 60 days for a gambling conviction .
When arrested in his early 20's , he listed his occupation as a tailor .
But as a strapping youth with quick fists , he was better known as a prize fighter .
Mr . Gigante , from age 16 to 19 , fought as a light heavyweight in clubs around town , winning 21 of 25 light - heavyweight bouts , according to Nat Fleischer's Ring Record Book .
Club boxers in those days fought four - and six - round contests in neighborhood arenas , usually getting a percentage of the tickets they themselves sold .
One of Mr . Gigante's managers was a Greenwich Village neighbor , Thomas ( Tommy Ryan ) Eboli , who later became the boss of the Genovese family .
Former New York City detectives who were assigned to organized - crime intelligence units said that Mr . Gigante earned his Mafia spurs as an enforcer in the 1950's .
But his prominence in the underworld surged in 1957 , when Mr . Genovese wrested control of a mob family from Frank Costello , who had been a close friend of Lucky Luciano and Meyer Lansky and was one of the best - known underworld figures in America .
Mr . Costello retired abruptly as a boss after a gunman grazed his scalp with a bullet in the vestibule of his apartment building on Central Park West .
A doorman identified the 29 - year - old Mr . Gigante as the shooter , but Mr . Costello testified that he was unable to recognize his assailant and Mr . Gigante was acquitted in 1958 on charges of attempted murder .
A year later , he was convicted with Mr . Genovese in Manhattan on federal charges of heroin trafficking .
Mr . Gigante , who listed his profession as the superintendent of a tenement on Bleecker Street , was sentenced to seven years in prison .
The sentencing judge said he would have imposed a longer sentence but was swayed by a flood of letters from residents of Greenwich Village and Little Italy attesting to Mr . Gigante's good character and his work on behalf of juveniles .
He was paroled after five years and detectives said that soon afterward he was promoted from soldier to the rank of capo , or captain , overseeing a group of Mafia gangsters known as a crew , in Greenwich Village .
Although his headquarters was in Lower Manhattan and he spent his nights farther uptown , Mr . Gigante had a home in Old Tappan , N . J . , where he lived with his wife , the former Olympia Grippa , and their three daughters and two sons .
They are Yolanda Fyfe , Roseanne D'Cola and Rita Gigante , and Salvatore and Andrew .
In 1969 , he was indicted in New Jersey on a charge of conspiracy to bribe the entire five - member Old Tappan police force to alert him to surveillance operations by law enforcement agencies .
The accusation was dropped after Mr . Gigante's lawyers presented reports from psychiatrists that he was mentally unfit to stand trial .
Mafia informers and defectors said that Mr . Gigante gained control of the Genovese family in a peaceful transition in the early 1980's when the group's acting boss , Philip Lombardo , stepped down because of ill health , and Mr . Gigante's main rival , Anthony Salerno , was imprisoned for life on racketeering charges .
Mr . Salerno died in federal prison in 1992 .
As a new godfather , Mr . Gigante quickly imposed extraordinary security measures .
Genovese soldiers and associates were forbidden to utter his name or nickname in conversations or telephone calls .
When references to him had to be made , capos and soldiers would silently point to their chins or form the letter "C" with their fingers .
Mr . Gigante was indicted in 1990 with 14 others on federal charges in Brooklyn that they had conspired to rig bids and extort payoffs from contractors on multimillion - dollar contracts with the New York City Housing Authority to install windows .
At his arraignment , he appeared in court in his familiar pajamas and bathrobe and a peaked cap .
Because of defense contentions that he was mentally and physically impaired , his case was severed from the other defendants and legal battles ensued for seven years over his competence to stand trial .
A superseding indictment in 1993 brought more serious accusations against him .
Mr . Gigante was charged with being the head of the Genovese family and sanctioning the murders of six mobsters and conspiring to kill three others , including John Gotti , the boss of the Gambino family .
Mr . Gigante , the indictment asserted , wanted Mr . Gotti eliminated because he had violated Mafia protocol by arranging the assassination of the previous Gambino boss , Paul Castellano , without seeking Mr . Gigante's approval .
The evidence in both indictments stemmed mainly from deserters from the Genovese and other mob families who entered the Government's Witness Protection Program .
At sanity hearings in March 1996 , Mr . Gravano of the Gambino family , and Alphonse D'Arco , the former acting boss of another New York Mafia organization , the Lucchese crime family , testified that Mr . Gigante was lucid during top - level Mafia meetings and that he had acknowledged to other gangsters that his eccentric behavior was a pretense .
Mr . Gigante's lawyers elicited testimony and reports from psychiatrists and psychologists that from 1969 to 1995 , he had been confined 28 times in hospitals for treatment of hallucinations and that he suffered from "dementia rooted in organic brain damage . "
In August 1996 , Judge Eugene H . Nickerson of Federal District Court in Brooklyn ruled that Mr . Gigante was mentally competent to stand trial on murder and racketeering charges .
The judge found that at least until 1991 , Mr . Gigante had engaged in an "elaborate deception" with the help of his relatives to deceive psychiatrists about his condition .
Before the trial began , Mr . Gigante , who had open - heart surgery in 1988 , had another cardiac operation in December 1996 , putting his fitness to stand trial in doubt once again .
Mr . Gigante had pleaded not guilty and had been free for years on $1 million bond .
During the monthlong trial in 1997 , a gaunt - looking Mr . Gigante sat in a wheelchair , looking blankly into space as witnesses testified and lawyers argued .
He did not testify .
After three days of deliberations , the jury on July 25 , 1997 , convicted him on charges of running multimillion - dollar rackets as the Genovese family chief and of conspiring unsuccessfully in the late 1980's to murder Mr . Gotti and a Genovese family defector .
But he was acquitted of ordering three other gangland slayings and the jury was deadlocked on accusations that he ordered four other murders .
Imposing a sentence of 12 years - instead of a possible maximum of 27 years - and a $1 . 25 million fine , Judge Jack B . Weinstein of Federal District Court in Brooklyn reflected in December 1997 on Mr . Gigante's career .
"He is a shadow of his former self , " the judge said , "an old man finally brought to bay in his declining years after decades of vicious criminal tyranny . " |
7_1ecb.xml_20 | train | ent | 7_1ecb.xml | 0 | Wladimir Klitschko ( 52-3 , 46 KOs ) blasted a sluggish Hasim Rahman ( 45-7-2 , 36 KOs ) in Mannheim , Germany on Saturday night to retain the IBF , WBO and IBO world heavyweight titles . | 31 | 31 | 149 | 152 | WBO | HUM17205871056692833 | WBO | ['wladimir', 'klitschko', '52-3', '46', 'kos', 'blast', 'sluggish', 'hasim', 'rahman', '45-7-2', '36', 'kos', 'mannheim', 'germany', 'saturday', 'night', 'retain', 'ibf', 'wbo', 'ibo', 'world', 'heavyweight', 'title'] | Wladimir Klitschko ( 52-3 , 46 KOs ) blasted a sluggish Hasim Rahman ( 45-7-2 , 36 KOs ) in Mannheim , Germany on Saturday night to retain the IBF , <m> WBO </m> and IBO world heavyweight titles . | Wladimir Klitschko ( 52-3 , 46 KOs ) blasted a sluggish Hasim Rahman ( 45-7-2 , 36 KOs ) in Mannheim , Germany on Saturday night to retain the IBF , <m> WBO </m> and IBO world heavyweight titles .
After flooring Rahman in the sixth round with a left-right combo Klitschko wasted little time wrapping it up in the seventh with a big left-right-left series that led to the referee stepping in and stopping the fight at the 2:15 mark .
Rahman , a former heavyweight champion who shocked the world when he floored Lennox Lewis in 2001 for the title , showed absolutely no signs of life against Kiltschko on Saturday .
The final numbers showed Klitschko landing 178 of 369 punches thrown while Rahman connected on just 30 of 207 punches thrown . |
7_1ecb.xml_21 | train | ent | 7_1ecb.xml | 0 | Wladimir Klitschko ( 52-3 , 46 KOs ) blasted a sluggish Hasim Rahman ( 45-7-2 , 36 KOs ) in Mannheim , Germany on Saturday night to retain the IBF , WBO and IBO world heavyweight titles . | 33 | 33 | 157 | 160 | IBO | HUM17205861524592233 | IBO | ['wladimir', 'klitschko', '52-3', '46', 'kos', 'blast', 'sluggish', 'hasim', 'rahman', '45-7-2', '36', 'kos', 'mannheim', 'germany', 'saturday', 'night', 'retain', 'ibf', 'wbo', 'ibo', 'world', 'heavyweight', 'title'] | Wladimir Klitschko ( 52-3 , 46 KOs ) blasted a sluggish Hasim Rahman ( 45-7-2 , 36 KOs ) in Mannheim , Germany on Saturday night to retain the IBF , WBO and <m> IBO </m> world heavyweight titles . | Wladimir Klitschko ( 52-3 , 46 KOs ) blasted a sluggish Hasim Rahman ( 45-7-2 , 36 KOs ) in Mannheim , Germany on Saturday night to retain the IBF , WBO and <m> IBO </m> world heavyweight titles .
After flooring Rahman in the sixth round with a left-right combo Klitschko wasted little time wrapping it up in the seventh with a big left-right-left series that led to the referee stepping in and stopping the fight at the 2:15 mark .
Rahman , a former heavyweight champion who shocked the world when he floored Lennox Lewis in 2001 for the title , showed absolutely no signs of life against Kiltschko on Saturday .
The final numbers showed Klitschko landing 178 of 369 punches thrown while Rahman connected on just 30 of 207 punches thrown . |
7_1ecb.xml_19 | train | ent | 7_1ecb.xml | 0 | Wladimir Klitschko ( 52-3 , 46 KOs ) blasted a sluggish Hasim Rahman ( 45-7-2 , 36 KOs ) in Mannheim , Germany on Saturday night to retain the IBF , WBO and IBO world heavyweight titles . | 29 | 29 | 143 | 146 | IBF | HUM16796723158511251 | IBF | ['wladimir', 'klitschko', '52-3', '46', 'kos', 'blast', 'sluggish', 'hasim', 'rahman', '45-7-2', '36', 'kos', 'mannheim', 'germany', 'saturday', 'night', 'retain', 'ibf', 'wbo', 'ibo', 'world', 'heavyweight', 'title'] | Wladimir Klitschko ( 52-3 , 46 KOs ) blasted a sluggish Hasim Rahman ( 45-7-2 , 36 KOs ) in Mannheim , Germany on Saturday night to retain the <m> IBF </m> , WBO and IBO world heavyweight titles . | Wladimir Klitschko ( 52-3 , 46 KOs ) blasted a sluggish Hasim Rahman ( 45-7-2 , 36 KOs ) in Mannheim , Germany on Saturday night to retain the <m> IBF </m> , WBO and IBO world heavyweight titles .
After flooring Rahman in the sixth round with a left-right combo Klitschko wasted little time wrapping it up in the seventh with a big left-right-left series that led to the referee stepping in and stopping the fight at the 2:15 mark .
Rahman , a former heavyweight champion who shocked the world when he floored Lennox Lewis in 2001 for the title , showed absolutely no signs of life against Kiltschko on Saturday .
The final numbers showed Klitschko landing 178 of 369 punches thrown while Rahman connected on just 30 of 207 punches thrown . |
7_1ecb.xml_12 | train | ent | 7_1ecb.xml | 0 | Wladimir Klitschko ( 52-3 , 46 KOs ) blasted a sluggish Hasim Rahman ( 45-7-2 , 36 KOs ) in Mannheim , Germany on Saturday night to retain the IBF , WBO and IBO world heavyweight titles . | 0 | 1 | 0 | 18 | Wladimir Klitschko | HUM16795316441130196 | Klitschko | ['wladimir', 'klitschko', '52-3', '46', 'kos', 'blast', 'sluggish', 'hasim', 'rahman', '45-7-2', '36', 'kos', 'mannheim', 'germany', 'saturday', 'night', 'retain', 'ibf', 'wbo', 'ibo', 'world', 'heavyweight', 'title'] | <m> Wladimir Klitschko </m> ( 52-3 , 46 KOs ) blasted a sluggish Hasim Rahman ( 45-7-2 , 36 KOs ) in Mannheim , Germany on Saturday night to retain the IBF , WBO and IBO world heavyweight titles . | <m> Wladimir Klitschko </m> ( 52-3 , 46 KOs ) blasted a sluggish Hasim Rahman ( 45-7-2 , 36 KOs ) in Mannheim , Germany on Saturday night to retain the IBF , WBO and IBO world heavyweight titles .
After flooring Rahman in the sixth round with a left-right combo Klitschko wasted little time wrapping it up in the seventh with a big left-right-left series that led to the referee stepping in and stopping the fight at the 2:15 mark .
Rahman , a former heavyweight champion who shocked the world when he floored Lennox Lewis in 2001 for the title , showed absolutely no signs of life against Kiltschko on Saturday .
The final numbers showed Klitschko landing 178 of 369 punches thrown while Rahman connected on just 30 of 207 punches thrown . |
7_1ecb.xml_13 | train | ent | 7_1ecb.xml | 0 | Wladimir Klitschko ( 52-3 , 46 KOs ) blasted a sluggish Hasim Rahman ( 45-7-2 , 36 KOs ) in Mannheim , Germany on Saturday night to retain the IBF , WBO and IBO world heavyweight titles . | 11 | 12 | 56 | 68 | Hasim Rahman | HUM16877278096136426 | Rahman | ['wladimir', 'klitschko', '52-3', '46', 'kos', 'blast', 'sluggish', 'hasim', 'rahman', '45-7-2', '36', 'kos', 'mannheim', 'germany', 'saturday', 'night', 'retain', 'ibf', 'wbo', 'ibo', 'world', 'heavyweight', 'title'] | Wladimir Klitschko ( 52-3 , 46 KOs ) blasted a sluggish <m> Hasim Rahman </m> ( 45-7-2 , 36 KOs ) in Mannheim , Germany on Saturday night to retain the IBF , WBO and IBO world heavyweight titles . | Wladimir Klitschko ( 52-3 , 46 KOs ) blasted a sluggish <m> Hasim Rahman </m> ( 45-7-2 , 36 KOs ) in Mannheim , Germany on Saturday night to retain the IBF , WBO and IBO world heavyweight titles .
After flooring Rahman in the sixth round with a left-right combo Klitschko wasted little time wrapping it up in the seventh with a big left-right-left series that led to the referee stepping in and stopping the fight at the 2:15 mark .
Rahman , a former heavyweight champion who shocked the world when he floored Lennox Lewis in 2001 for the title , showed absolutely no signs of life against Kiltschko on Saturday .
The final numbers showed Klitschko landing 178 of 369 punches thrown while Rahman connected on just 30 of 207 punches thrown . |
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