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News and Features about Organized Crime, Mafia and La Cosa Nostra taken from National and Local News Sources. In an attempt to get you this type of coverage in a timely manner we can not be responsible for the content of the following material. |
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2-8-02 Gigante Keeps His 'Chin' Up in Court. By MIKE CLAFFEY New York Daily News Staff Writer A baffled-looking Vincent (Chin) Gigante shuffled into a Brooklyn courtroom yesterday to face charges he ran the Genovese crime family from prison. The convicted mob boss, five years into a 12-year prison term, was unable to enter a plea to a racketeering indictment that also charges he used a "crazy act" in an attempt to thwart his last prosecution. "I don't know what you're talking about," was all Gigante could mutter when Federal Judge I. Leo Glasser asked him whether he had discussed the new charges with his lawyer. What, Me Run a Crime Family? Vinnie the Chin pleads innocent in court. Gigante, 74, is accused of using his son Andrew to ferry his orders for a waterfront extortion plot to Genovese mobsters. Prosecutors have also charged Gigante with obstruction of justice, saying he feigned mental illness to stall the earlier case for seven years. Gigante's defense attorney, Gary Greenwald, jumped in to say that his client — known for his old habit of wandering Greenwich Village in a bathrobe — "is not in a position to enter a guilty plea or not guilty plea at this point in time because of his state of mind." So Glasser entered a not guilty plea on his behalf. Then and Now Brooklyn U.S. Attorney Alan Vinegrad, who watched from the spectator's gallery, later said Gigante looked healthier yesterday than he did five years ago, when he used a wheelchair to get in and out of the courtroom. "Whether this is a preview of Act II of Vincent Gigante's crazy act remains to be seen," Vinegrad said. The feds say Gigante's appearance was at odds with videotapes made of him at the federal prison hospital in Fort Worth, Tex. They claim those tapes show a physically vigorous man in animated conversations with family members and prison staff. Outside court, Greenwald said that Gigante is suffering from heart problems and dementia. "The bottom line is we're talking about a frail looking man who is sick, who is physically sick and we believe mentally sick," he said. Greenwald's claims about Gigante's illness were backed up by Dr. Bernard Wechsler, a cardiologist who was part of the defense team in the earlier trial. Wechsler explained Gigante's more-lucid condition yesterday by saying, "He's not drugged anymore. He's not on Thorazine, he's not on Valium." He added that he had reviewed Gigante's prison medical charts and found that he needs surgery for an enlarged heart and other ailments.
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