NEW YORK -- Mob boss Vincent (The Chin) Gigante, the powerful Mafioso who avoided jail for decades by wandering the streets in a ratty bathrobe and slippers, feigning mental illness, died Monday.
Gigante, 77, who had suffered from heart disease, died at the federal prison in Springfield, Mo.
Gigante, head of the Genovese crime family, had scored a lengthy string of victories over prosecutors, but it ended with a July 1997 racketeering conviction.
After nearly a quarter-century of public craziness, he admitted his insanity ruse at an April 2003 federal hearing in which the "Oddfather" pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice.
Denying he was a gangster, Gigante would wander the streets of his Greenwich Village neighborhood in nightclothes, muttering incoherently.
Relatives, including a brother who was a Roman Catholic priest, insisted Gigante suffered from paranoid schizophrenia, dementia and Alzheimer's disease.
Authorities charged it was a brazen act to avoid the law -- although it wasn't until 1997 that a jury agreed, and it took another six years for Gigante to concede his subterfuge.
Born in the Bronx in 1928, Gigante became a small-time boxer and drifted into the crime family founded in 1931 by "Lucky" Luciano.
In 1957, Gigante was the hitman in a botched attempt to assassinate then-boss Frank Costello. After refusing to name his attacker in court, the shaken Costello retired, making Gigante's patron, Vito Genovese, kingpin of the family that still bears his name.
Gigante, 77, who had suffered from heart disease, died at the federal prison in Springfield, Mo.
Gigante, head of the Genovese crime family, had scored a lengthy string of victories over prosecutors, but it ended with a July 1997 racketeering conviction.
After nearly a quarter-century of public craziness, he admitted his insanity ruse at an April 2003 federal hearing in which the "Oddfather" pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice.
Denying he was a gangster, Gigante would wander the streets of his Greenwich Village neighborhood in nightclothes, muttering incoherently.
Relatives, including a brother who was a Roman Catholic priest, insisted Gigante suffered from paranoid schizophrenia, dementia and Alzheimer's disease.
Authorities charged it was a brazen act to avoid the law -- although it wasn't until 1997 that a jury agreed, and it took another six years for Gigante to concede his subterfuge.
Born in the Bronx in 1928, Gigante became a small-time boxer and drifted into the crime family founded in 1931 by "Lucky" Luciano.
In 1957, Gigante was the hitman in a botched attempt to assassinate then-boss Frank Costello. After refusing to name his attacker in court, the shaken Costello retired, making Gigante's patron, Vito Genovese, kingpin of the family that still bears his name.
