Dead Celebrity Alert

Vincent Gigante, who died yesterday in federal prison at 77, was the Genovese crime family boss who for three decades feigned lunacy to evade prosecution for crimes ranging from loan sharking to murder to bribing the entire police force of Old Tappan, N.J.

He was known as “Chin,” and his moniker was often invoked by denizens of the Mafia underworld with a hand-to-chin gesture rather than a word, the better to foil police bugs. To the writers of headlines he was sometimes “Daffy Don” or “the Oddfather” for his habit of walking the streets of the West Village clad in a bathrobe, striped pyjamas, and slippers, while muttering incoherently. Federal prosecutors claimed it was an act, but it was not until 2003, after more than three decades of faking mental illness, that Gigante admitted in court that he did it to avoid prosecution. … Read full obituary

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