Chin

by Larry McShane

  And then, two months into the new year, Vito Genovese died on February 14, 1969. When James stopped by the offices in the ensuing days, the entire leadership of the family was assembled, filling the chairs and the L-shaped couch in Levy’s inner sanctum.

  “I remember three of the guys ended up becoming heads of the family—Chin, ‘Quiet Dom’ Cirillo and Tony Salerno,” said James, who was also quite friendly with a fourth: Tommy Eboli. His alias of Tommy Ryan only confused the Midwestern kid, until it was explained the mobster was born in Italy and a member of La Cosa Nostra with the rest.

  James spent weekends with the gangsters in the mountains, where they all had weekend retreats on property owned by Levy in Ghent, New York. (An informant later revealed Levy put up the cash for Fat Tony’s place.) It was totally surreal: teen idol meeting Mob stars. James remembered watching Salerno playing outside with his son on a cold winter’s day. “I got pictures of Tony with a cigar hanging out of his mouth,” he said.

  Levy’s place was dubbed Sunnyview Farm, and a plaque on the front door neatly explained the reason for its very existence: A SUNNY PLACE FOR SHADY CHARACTERS.

  In 1971, during an outbreak of Mob violence, Levy bolted Manhattan. James was advised by his lawyer that it might be a good idea to do the same, as gangsters unable to find Levy might take aim at his top moneymaking artist.

  “He seemed to know everything that was going on up there, and I was told that it might be a smart thing if I left town for a few weeks,” he recalled. “I thought, ‘This is freaking great. You mean I have to go on the lam?’ ”

  The chart-topping James racked up twenty-three hit singles and 100 million records sold, without receiving a penny in royalties. The only gold records that James ever collected were the ones he stole from the walls of the Roulette offices. It wasn’t until 1972 that he finally mustered the courage to bolt from Roulette.

  “I had it out with Morris and told him, ‘I’m leaving,’ ” James recalled. “And he said, ‘You ain’t fucking going nowhere.’ We really had a blowout. I didn’t know if I was gonna get out of there.”

  James looked back on his days at Roulette with a mixture of admiration, amusement and horror: “Morris had a lot of good qualities—qualities that I respected. But he just had this dark thing about him. You know, in many ways he was a stand-up guy.” (James exhibited a temporary slip into Mob speak.)

  “But there was always this—he’d rather steal five grand from you than make it honestly.”

  CHAPTER 5

  RAINY DAY WOMEN #12 & 35

  AS THE TURBULENT 1960S “ROCK AND ROLLED” ON, THE FREE LOVE generation found an unlikely ally in their call to tune in, turn on and drop out: the devout, Roman Catholic Chin. With his marriage now well into its second decade, Gigante was smitten by a woman in the old neighborhood shortly after his return to the city from prison.

  Olympia Esposito was a Greenwich Village girl, too: Olympia from the block, straight out of Mott Street. She soon became pregnant with their oldest girl, Lucia, followed by son Vincent and daughter Carmella. But Gigante didn’t abandon his spouse of fifteen years: at one point in 1967, unbelievably, the Olympias on each side of the Hudson were simultaneously with child.

  Rita Gigante arrived on January 24, 1967. In keeping with the family tradition, her name was chosen by Chin’s mother, who decided to honor her new grandchild by invoking a nineteenth-century nun eventually known as the “saint of the impossible.” Family members noted the first initials of the mom and her brood of five spelled out R-O-S-A-R-Y.

  Vincent Esposito, Gigante’s second child with his mistress, was welcomed six months later. Speaking years down the road, Gigante told prison officials he couldn’t explain what sparked his extramarital affair and secret second family.

  The summary of a 1997 psychiatric exam stated: He denied any marital discord between him and his wife. Mr. Gigante explained that he was blessed in having met two beautiful women and producing two loving families. He stated that he continued to love his wife and his paramour. He reported that he was an active and loving father to the children of both families.

  Olympia Gigante seemed equally confused by her husband’s behavior. She would say there was no marital rift prior to her husband’s philandering—although she also pleaded ignorance about Gigante’s mistress and their offspring.

  Regardless of the Chin’s dual devotions, the situation couldn’t stand. Armed with a $5,000 gift from his mother for the down payment, Vincent bought a suburban home on the Jersey side of the George Washington Bridge for a reported $50,000 in 1967. The place even came with a swimming pool, even if its new owner preferred to avoid the sun.

  Mom, Dad and the kids officially became residents of Old Tappan, New Jersey, a leafy and sleepy town in Bergen County. The Chin wasted little time in ingratiating himself with the local authorities. He made the acquaintance of Detective Lieutenant Herbert Allmers of the Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office, who introduced Chin to local police chief Charles Schuh.

  That December, the new family in town presented the chief with a Christmas card stuffed with a $100 bill. It was signed, The Gigantes. He also invited the entire department to stop by the two-story Colonial house for a little housewarming party.

  Olympia Gigante handled the Christmas card duties the next year, when the local cops received cash gifts as well, and there was another holiday bonus awarded in 1969—a regular Christmas tradition, like the star atop the family tree. There was no attempt to hide the payments, regarded by the Chin as nothing more than a suburban good-neighbor policy.

  The alleged bribing of an entire suburban police force would become an integral part of the Chin’s legend, generating huge headlines on both sides of the Hudson—and providing the impetus for a defense that made no sense. What happened next was both incomprehensible and brilliant: a twisted mix of desperation and flat-out genius.

  Facing another possible jail term, Vincent Louis Gigante went crazy. Or, at least, it seemed that way, and would until somebody could prove different.

  The Chin was already operating out of the Triangle in the Village, even as he did his Green Acres time in the suburbs. He and his driver/bodyguard Fat Dom Alongi had landed jobs at the end of 1969 “selling cars” for a Dodge dealership in Smithtown, Long Island—not that either man had ever ventured to far-off Suffolk County, or ever intended to make the trip.

  The two busy beavers were previously “employed” as salesmen for the Scott Novelty Co. in Newark, New Jersey, producer of a popular line of women’s hats. The Chin was also on the books for a legitimate income at P&G Motor Freight in the Bronx, earning $300 a week as a “troubleshooter settling union disputes.” If nothing else, it seemed more suited to his skill set than haberdashery.

  The FBI took note of his embrace of suburbia in a June 1969 memo, and the agency was in New Jersey Federal Court three days later looking to subpoena all telephone records from the home. The Gigantes lived anonymously among the commuters and suburban families, just another Italian-American clan fleeing the city for a little more room and a bit more quiet.

  Word of the alleged bribes broke in February 1970, splashed across papers in both the city and the suburbs. Olympia was identified as delivering the cash to Schuh, who allegedly spread the money around the four-man department. A Daily News story reported quite accurately that Gigante was the target of law enforcement surveillance for some time before the scandal became public.

  The Old Tappan town council, which outnumbered the local police, voted 6–0 to put Schuh and his $10,000-a-year salary on the shelf as the probe unfolded. The FBI quickly reached out to the Bergen County prosecutor for details. On St. Patrick’s Day, 1970, a grand jury indicted both Gigantes, the chief and his four cops.

  The allegation sounded far more ominous than it was: No “quid pro quo” was alleged, and the officers were accused of a misdemeanor charge of accepting cash payments for doing their job. Some of the cops collected a paltry $15.

  The charges against the Chin wer
e more serious: Gigante and another Village expatriate, Michael Zupa, allegedly paid Schuh for information about law enforcement keeping eyes on his New Jersey home. Oddly enough, Schuh was not charged with providing even a single detail to his purported benefactor.

  It was a huge splash for the county’s new Confidential Squad, and one Bergen County prosecutor—in a staggering touch of overstatement—described the indictment as a “historic document.” Detective Lieutenant Allmers would later insist that he had no idea that Gigante, the Costello shooter and one of the secret society’s most recognizable names, was a figure in organized crime.

  Longtime Old Tappan resident Douglas Bissett, who became the town historian, said the claim was quite possibly true, even though absurd on its face. “You didn’t even know he was here,” said Bissett. “If somebody mentioned the name Gigante, you wouldn’t even know about it, anyway. Who knew the name at that point?”

  The Chin posted $25,000 bail; his wife put up $10,000; they both walked out of the Hackensack Courthouse. Vincent left without speaking to reporters—a duty left to his brother’s keeper, Father Louis. In the first of many appearances on the silent Vincent’s behalf, the priest came west from the South Bronx to hold a news conference and answer the charges.

  The money was a “Christmas gift to policemen,” said Louis Gigante. He denied that his older brother was part of the Mafia, and he accused (with some justification) the local authorities of trying to “railroad” the Gigantes.

  More unexpected trouble lurked. With a bit of the Chin’s blood in the water, he was arrested again on March 31, 1970, for failure to register as a convicted narcotics violator. It was annoying on both a professional and a personal level for Gigante, who was once again labeled a drug dealer for a crime he relentlessly denied committing.

  Arrested with five other Bergen County men, Gigante posted $500 bond after one of the defense lawyers (again with some justification) denounced the charge as a “harassing type of complaint.” The Chin now faced a pair of criminal cases; he was unaware of an Internal Revenue Service probe launched two years earlier, an attempt to nail him on the same kind of IRS charges that landed Al Capone behind bars in Chicago during the 1930s.

  He was due back in court on May 12. John Carridi, his lawyer, appeared at the courthouse one day earlier to announce his client was undergoing psychiatric treatment at St. Vincent’s Hospital in bucolic Harrison, New York.

  Blindsided prosecutors, flummoxed by the lawyer’s out-of-left-field assertion, responded only that they needed to confirm the unexpected claim. It would take them more than a year to get a psychiatrist in the room with Chin.

  * * *

  Gigante had first checked himself in for care at the Westchester County facility on April 27, 1970. “I feel like sleeping forever,” he told a staffer. He also signed, in neat penmanship, a document that explicitly said his treatment would last only as long as Gigante felt like staying.

  I may give the director written notice at any time of my desire to leave the hospital, the admission form read.

  He headed home after a short stay, only to return on the eve of the May court date. Olympia Gigante signed off on this admission: My husband needs care and he does not realize it.

  At the same time, authorities said, Gigante was running a successful numbers operation in the Village—and keeping other crime families from horning in on his action.

  There was a third self-admission on September 28, when Gigante said he was “feeling very apprehensive.” He made no mention of voices, hallucinations or conversations with God. All that would come later.

  An FBI mole surfaced almost immediately to declare the whole thing was a scam.

  Informant advised this may be a rouse [sic] to avoid prosecution of bribery . . . from a recent arrest in Old Tappan, N.J., read an FBI memo filed less than a month after the Chin’s May admission. Another memo later that month noted drily that Gigante was “diagnosed as a schizophrenic.”

  There was another crucial development in the sanity scam: Gigante’s mom and his wife began providing a revised medical history on the Chin. They told the psychiatrists that Gigante was a bad kid, contradicting earlier tales of his idyllic Village upbringing. The new version would eventually claim he needed psychiatric care as a child, threw massive temper tantrums, was afraid of the dark and skipped out of school.

  There was no mention of Gigante’s role as paterfamilias for his two sets of kids with the Olympias on each side of the river.

  The genesis of the infamous act remains unexplained to this day. Some suggested it was lifted from another Mafioso who pulled a similar stunt, but there’s no proof to that claim. Jerry Capeci, dean of the city’s Mob reporters, can’t recall anyone ever recounting the inspiration for the rational Chin’s sudden embrace of the loony life.

  Howard Abadinsky, a Mob historian and St. John’s University professor, acknowledged he’d never heard a believable backstory for Gigante’s mental metamorphosis.

  “Good question for which I do not have an answer,” said Abadinsky.

  Fellow mobsters suggested Gigante’s deep devotion to the Mafia and its traditions convinced Chin to figuratively flip his lid. And maybe, said one, Gigante was just having a few laughs at the expense of his government tormentors.

  “Maybe our life was the only life he knew,” suggested Gambino family underboss Sammy “the Bull” Gravano. “Maybe he enjoyed driving the feds nuts—which he was.”

  Atlantic City gangster Philip Leonetti agreed: “That was his world, and he did whatever he wanted—and that’s what he wanted. Everybody’s different. That’s not what I wanted.”

  Then the mobster paused, reflected for a second and laughed. “But then again, he was nuts.”

  Self-preservation was undoubtedly the main motivator, no matter how the concept was conjured in the Chin’s fervid brain. But one informant gave the FBI another explanation for the ruse: the macho, married-with-a-mistress father of eight feared that another prison stretch might turn him into a rat . . . or a homosexual.

  A heavily redacted report from an anonymous informant laid out the scenario: Gigante feigns mental illness to avoid incarceration as he would “crack” and become an informant or “fag” if incarcerated for any length of time.

  Whatever the source, two things became evident: The Jersey prosecutors and judges lacked any concept about how to dispute, much less disprove, the Chin’s crazy behavior. And playing crazy was like hitting the legal jackpot, sparing Gigante from appearances before the Waterfront Commission and a Queens grand jury probing Mob influence in legitimate business.

  Eboli was subpoenaed in the same batch of Waterfront Commission invites that Gigante dodged. The aging godfather was served after stepping off a cruise ship from France, the last stop on a European tour, which included a visit to his ancestral homeland.

  The vacation, Eboli claimed, was anything but relaxing: He quickly checked into Holy Name Hospital in Teaneck, New Jersey, citing a heart ailment. The FBI noted at the time that Tommy Ryan was the boss of the nation’s largest and most powerful crime family, with more than eight hundred criminal-minded employees.

  Eboli’s medical dodge only pointed up the brilliance of the Chin’s new approach: there was no EKG for crazy.

  A confused FBI suspended its investigation of the Chin in November 1971, citing “the apparent hospitalization of subject.” During that same year the Genovese capo resolved a festering business dispute between his family and the Colombos.

  The unresolved Jersey case lingered on, too, with no end in sight as the months went by and the Chin became capo of the Greenwich Village crew. He was spotted near the Triangle within days of his October 9 release, following his third admission to St. Vincent’s. He was strolling the streets in one instance, and riding inside a chauffeured car in another.

  The Chin and Fat Dom were still taking bets on horse racing and sports, while running the local numbers game and doing a little loan-sharking. Pete’s Novelty Shop, a small Village store pu
rportedly kept in the name of Chin’s mom, Yolanda, was put under federal attention. Alongi was seen inside, counting large stacks of cash, but not a single customer was ever seen buying anything.

  Frustrated FBI agents, in a somewhat comical move, began collecting the trash from outside 225 Sullivan Street. They turned up nothing. Attempts to set up a permanent surveillance spot were routinely disrupted by the hostile Village residents, looking out for one of their own.

  Gigante became more brazen, chatting quite rationally with underlings on the street as the FBI watched helplessly. The IRS case continued, with one internal memo stating Chin and Fat Dom were about to get fitted for handcuffs once the Department of Justice in Washington signed off on the case.

  * * *

  Fourteen months after Carridi’s shocking announcement, a prosecution psychiatrist finally had a chance to sit down and evaluate Gigante. The incredible session took place in Yolanda Gigante’s Sullivan Street digs, where Dr. Henry Davidson found the Chin lying asleep in bed, “unkempt and unshaved.”

  Those same three words would endlessly appear in future psychiatric evaluations, FBI reports and newspaper stories as a sort-of shorthand for the “crazy act,” as the piece of performance art eventually became known.

  Davidson recounted the sit-down in great detail after spending two head-spinning hours with Gigante: [The Chin] sat in a chair with a passive but sleepy look on his face. Most of the time, he remained completely mute. Occasionally, he would give a kind of echo to my questions—for instance, when I asked him about medicines, he said sleepily “medicines, medicines.” Or when I asked him if he was afraid of anything, he replied “war, war.”

  Whatever Gigante said was delivered in a flat, emotionless monotone. At one point during the doctor’s questioning, the Chin stood up and walked quickly out of the dining room. Minutes later, without explanation, he returned.

  The doctor was told of Chin’s vampirish schedule: up until 5 A.M., asleep most of the day—the same business hours that later marked his run as family boss. Gigante’s strange schedule was fostered by his belief that the FBI didn’t work the midnight shift.