Vincent Louis Gigante (/dʒɪˈɡænti/ jig-AN-tee, Italian: [dʒiˈɡante]; March 29, 1928 – December 19, 2005), also known as "Chin", was an American mobster who was boss of the Genovese crime family in New York City from 1981 to 2005.

With the arrest and conviction of Gotti and various Gambino family members in 1992, Gigante was recognized as the most powerful crime boss in the United States.

Facing obstruction of justice charges in 2003, he pleaded guilty and admitted that his supposed insanity was an elaborate effort to avoid prosecution, as he was sentenced to an additional three years in prison.

He had four brothers, Mario, Pasquale, and Ralph, who followed him into a life of organized crime, and Louis, who became a Catholic priest at St. Athanasius Church in the South Bronx and city councilman.

[2] According to his brother Louis, his nickname, "The Chin", stemmed from their mother affectionately calling him Chinzeeno as a boy, derived from the name Vincenzo, the Italian form of Vincent.

[4] Gigante lived in Old Tappan, New Jersey, with his wife Olympia Grippa, whom he married in 1950, and their five children, Andrew, Salvatore, Yolanda, Roseanne, and Rita.

[1][5] He had a second family at a townhouse in the Upper East Side, Manhattan with his longtime mistress and common-law wife, Olympia Esposito and their three children, Vincent, Lucia and Carmella.

Between the ages of 17 and 25, he was arrested seven times on charges ranging from receiving stolen goods, possession of an unlicensed handgun, and illegal gambling and bookmaking.

[1] Not long afterward, he was promoted from soldier to captain, running the Greenwich Village Crew, and headquartered at the Triangle Civic Improvement Association.

[1] Anthony "Fat Tony" Salerno was made front boss of the Genovese family to fool law enforcement.

[1] Gigante also had influence in the Feast of San Gennaro in Little Italy, operating gambling games, extorting payoffs from vendors, and pocketing thousands of dollars donated to a neighborhood church—until a 1995 crackdown by New York City officials.

[1] On April 13, 1986, Gambino crime family underboss Frank DeCicco was killed when his car was bombed following a visit to Paul Castellano loyalist James Failla.

John Gotti planned to visit Failla that day, but canceled, and the bomb was detonated after a soldier who rode with DeCicco was mistaken for the boss.

[12] In January 1987, Salerno was sentenced to 100 years in prison for racketeering, along with top members of the other New York families, as part of the Mafia Commission Trial.

[14][15] FBI bugs had captured a conversation in which Salerno and capo Matthew "Matty the Horse" Ianniello were reviewing a list of prospective candidates to become made members in another family.

[1] In June 1993, Gigante was under indictment again, charged with sanctioning the murders of six mobsters and conspiring to kill three others, including Gambino boss John Gotti.

[23][1] At sanity hearings in March 1996, Sammy "The Bull" Gravano, former underboss of the Gambino crime family, who became a cooperating witness in 1991,[24] and Alphonse "Little Al" D'Arco, former acting boss of the Lucchese family, testified that Gigante was lucid at top-level Mafia meetings and that he had told other gangsters that his eccentric behavior was a pretense.

[25] On July 25, 1997, after almost three days of deliberations, the jury convicted Gigante of conspiring in plots to kill other mobsters and of running rackets as head of the Genovese family.

[32] Federal prosecutor Roslynn R. Mauskopf had planned to play tapes showing him "fully coherent, careful and intelligent," running crime operations from prison.

[36] The New York Times organized-crime reporter and mob historian Selwyn Raab described Gigante's plea deal as an "unprecedented capitulation" for a Mafia boss.

Another provision of the plea agreement stipulated that any relatives who helped in his deception, including his wife, mistress, and Father Louis, would not be charged with obstruction of justice.

[1] His funeral and burial were held four days later, on December 23, at Saint Anthony of Padua Church in Greenwich Village, largely in anonymity.