Mario "the shadow" Gigante (November 4, 1923 – March 10, 2022) was an American

mobster A gangster is a criminal who is a member of a gang. Most gangs are considered to be part of organized crime. Gangsters are also called mobsters, a term derived from '' mob'' and the suffix '' -ster''. Gangs provide a level of organization and ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

who served as

caporegime A caporegime or capodecina, usually shortened to capo or informally referred to as "captain" or "skipper", is a rank used in the Mafia (both the Sicilian Mafia and Italian-American Mafia) for a '' made member'' of an Italian crime family who he ...

for the

Genovese crime family The Genovese crime family, () also sometimes referred to as the Westside, is an Italian-American Mafia crime family and one of the "Five Families" that dominate organized crime activities in New York City and New Jersey as part of the American M ...

. He was the elder brother of late family boss Vincent "The Chin" Gigante.

Biography

Gigante was born in

Greenwich Village Greenwich Village ( , , ) is a neighborhood on the west side of Lower Manhattan in New York City, bounded by 14th Street to the north, Broadway to the east, Houston Street to the south, and the Hudson River to the west. Greenwich Village ...

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

, to Salvatore Esposito Vulgo Gigante (April 26, 1900 – April 1979), a jewel engraver, and Yolonda Santasilia-Gigante (1902 – May 10, 1997), a seamstress and maternal niece of Dolores Santasilia. His parents and aunt were first-generation immigrants from

Naples Naples (; it, Napoli ; nap, Napule ), from grc, Νεάπολις, Neápolis, lit=new city. is the regional capital of Campania and the third-largest city of Italy, after Rome and Milan, with a population of 909,048 within the city's adminis ...

, Italy, and never learned the

English language English is a West Germanic language of the Indo-European language family, with its earliest forms spoken by the inhabitants of early medieval England. It is named after the Angles, one of the ancient Germanic peoples that migrated to the ...

. Vincent and his extended family relatives settled in New York City and Westchester County including Connecticut and Massachusetts. He had four brothers, Vincent, Pasquale A. Gigante (October 18, 1921 – January 7, 1983) and Ralph Gigante (March 14, 1930 – 1994), who followed his brother Vincent into a life of organized crime. His last brother Louis Gigante became an ordained Roman Catholic priest at St. Athanasius Church in the South Bronx and city councilman. Gigante had two sons Salvatore and Louis. His son Salvatore would follow him into a life of organized crime.

Criminal career

Mario began his criminal life as a "

made man In the American and Sicilian Mafia, a made man is a fully initiated member of the Mafia. To become "made", an associate first must be Italian or of Italian descent and sponsored by another made man. An inductee will be required to take the oa ...

", or full family member, in caporegime

Vito Genovese Vito Genovese (; November 21, 1897 – February 14, 1969) was an Italian-born American mobster who mainly operated in the United States. Genovese rose to power during Prohibition as an enforcer in the American Mafia. A long-time associate and chi ...

Greenwich Village crew The Greenwich Village Crew is a crew within the Genovese crime family, active in the Greenwich Village area of Manhattan. It was originally controlled by Don Vito Genovese from the early 1920s until his arrest in the late 1950s.G. T. Harrell. ''F ...

. At that time, his brother Vincent was Genovese's chauffeur. During the power struggle between Genovese and then boss

Frank Costello Frank Costello (; born Francesco Castiglia; ; January 26, 1891 – February 18, 1973) was an Italian-American crime boss of the Luciano crime family. In 1957, Costello survived an assassination attempt ordered by Vito Genovese and carried out by ...

, the Gigante brothers were reportedly involved in several significant hits for Genovese. On August 12, 1957, the day after the attempted assassination of Costello, New York Police Department (NYPD) detectives were watching Vincent's house in

. When Mario drove up, detectives took him out of the car and one tried to search him. Mario punched the detective and was arrested for assault. In court, the charge was reduced and Mario paid a $25 fine. By the 1970s, both Mario and Vincent were capos of their own crews. Neither brother had served significant prison time as they both kept low profiles. In the early 1980s, Vincent became the boss of the Genovese family. Mario rose to become one of the family's highest earners, involved in

illegal gambling Gaming law is the set of rules and regulations that apply to the gaming or gambling industry. Gaming law is not a branch of law in the traditional sense but rather is a collection of several areas of law that include criminal law, regulatory law, ...

loansharking A loan shark is a person who offers loans at extremely high interest rates, has strict terms of collection upon failure, and generally operates outside the law. Description Because loan sharks operate mostly illegally, they cannot reasonably ...

, and other rackets. On January 25, 1975, Mario was indicted on charges of illegal gambling. On June 16, 1983, Mario was convicted of loansharking and received an eight-year prison sentence. However, former New York Senator Alfonse D'Amato allegedly lobbied

U.S. Attorney United States attorneys are officials of the U.S. Department of Justice who serve as the chief federal law enforcement officers in each of the 94 U.S. federal judicial districts. Each U.S. attorney serves as the United States' chief federal ...

Rudolph Giuliani to reduce Mario's sentence. In 1989, Mario's sentence was reduced to six years in prison. Mob turncoat Vincent "Fish" Cafaro later alleged that he had approached power broker and attorney Roy Cohn to bribe a judge to lower Mario's sentence. Cafaro said he delivered a $175,000 "payoff" to Cohn in three installments, dropping off the final $50,000 with Cohn's law partner, Thomas Bolan. These allegations were investigated, but no charges were ever filed. In June 1996, Gigante was indicted along with his son Salvatore and five others on charges of using threats and violence to keep potential competitors from entering the garbage collection business in Westchester, Orange, Rockland, Ulster and Dutchess Counties in New York, southwestern Connecticut and Mahwah and Edison in New Jersey. After Vincent was sent to prison in the summer of 1997, the family switched to a collective decision-making system. On October 1, 1997, Mario and other Genovese mobsters pleaded guilty to racketeering charges involving the trash hauling industry in Westchester, Rockland, and Orange counties in New York. According to prosecutors, the Genovese family maintained a "property rights" system in which they took control of local hauling firms and then insisted each firm had a "permanent right" to every customer. On one occasion, Mario enforced those rights by ordering the

baseball bat A baseball bat is a smooth wooden or metal club used in the sport of baseball to hit the ball after it is thrown by the pitcher. By regulation it may be no more than in diameter at the thickest part and no more than in length. Although histor ...

beating of an uncooperative hauler. Mario was released from prison in June 2001 after serving five years for extortion and racketeering in the solid waste hauling industry. In 2005, his brother Vincent died. Gigante died on March 10, 2022, at the age of 98.

Biography

Criminal career

References

Further reading