The Commission: The Mafia's Original Seven

The head of the Mafia Families and which families they spoke for.

Charles "Lucky" Luciano

Philadelphia

Cleveland

Pittsburgh





Joseph "Bannanas" Bananno
Bananno Family
Colorado
Dallas

Gaetano "Tommy" Gagliano

Soon to be the Luchesse Family

New Orleans

Vincent Mangano

Soon to become The Gambino

New Jersey

New England

Guiseppe "Joe" Profaci

Soon to become the Colombo Family

Tampa

Stafano Maggadino

Buffalo

Al "Scareface" Capone

Chicago Outfit

Los Angeles

San Jose

San Francisco

Milwaukee 

The Last Don: Vincent "The Chin" Gigante

 Who was the "Chin" Gigante                                    

Vincent "Chin" "Gigs" Gigante was the boss of the powerful Genovese crime family for years. Sometimes referred to as "The Oddfather," since the mid-1960s, Gigante had been regularly seen wandering the streets of Greenwich Village, Manhattan, New York City, in his bathrobe and slippers, mumbling incoherently to himself. In 2003, as part of a plea bargain, he admitted in court that his insanity had been a long act staged to avoid conviction under an insanity defense. He was due to be released from prison in 2010 before his controversial death in 2005.

Early on in "Chin" Gigante's Life

He was one of five sons of Salvatore Esposito Vulgo Gigante, a watchmaker, and Yolanda Scotta, a seamstress, both of whom had immigrated from Naples. His mother usually addressed him as "Cincenzo," a diminutive of Vincenzo, the Italian version of Vincent, and his boyhood friends shortened that into his lifelong nickname, "Chin". Gigante dropped out of Textile High School in Manhattan in the ninth grade and became a protégé of Vito Genovese. Between age 17 and 25, Gigante was arrested seven times, but he was fined only once and jailed for a one-time 60 day sentence for a gambling conviction. He claimed to be a tailor but was better known as a boxer, he won 21 of 25 light-heavyweight bouts between age 16 and 19, according to Nat Fleischer's Ring Record Book. Club boxers in those days fought four and six-round contests in neighborhood arenas, usually getting a percentage of the tickets they themselves sold. One of Gigante's managers was a Greenwich Village neighbor, Thomas (Nicholas Pasciuto) Eboli, who later became the boss of the Genovese crime family.

Gigante retired from boxing around 1946 and became involved in organized crime, specifically the Genovese Cosa Nostra family. It is alleged that he was the triggerman in the 1957 botched assassination of Frank Costello, then boss of the Genovese family, in the vestibule of Costello's apartment building. Rumor was that Costello knew "Chin" was the triggerman, but would not identify him publicly - even though Costello's doorman identified Gigante as such - he was acquitted of attempted murder charges in 1958. In 1959 Gigante was imprisoned for dealing in heroin and paroled five years later.

"I Can't Be a Boss, I'm Legally Insane"                    

In 1969 Gigante escaped conviction on bribery charges by producing a number of prominent psychiatrists who testified that Gigante was legally insane, suffering from schizophrenia, dementia, psychosis, and various other mental disorders. With this success he decided to use this as a strategy with which to thwart law enforcement and he allegedly enlisted his mother and wife in this endeavor. In 1986, Anthony "Fat Tony" Salerno was considered to be the boss of the Genovese family when he was convicted on charges of murder and racketeering and sentenced to 100 years in prison. Vincent "Fish" Cafaro, a ranking member of the Genovese family, became a cooperating witness and revealed that Gigante had been the boss since 1981 and that Salerno had been acting as a front man. However, charging and convicting somebody who, like Gigante, exhibited all the hallmarks of mental illness was going to be very difficult.

Gigante brought his sons, Vincent Esposito and Andrew Gigante into the family using Vincent as his messenger to the rest of the family and using Andrew to control the waterfront operations. Gigante was arrested and charged in 1990 on charges of racketeering and murder, but it was another 7 years before he was brought to trial. Throughout those 7 years, Gigante's lawyers produced witness after witness who testified that Gigante was mentally ill and unfit to stand trial. However, all this changed when a number of prominent Mafia members from various families began to cooperate with the government in the early 1990s.

Foremost among the cooperating witnesses was Salvatore Gravano, aka "Sammy the Bull," former underboss of the Gambino crime family, who became a cooperating witness in 1991 and testified that on two occasions when they met, Gigante was perfectly lucid and clear in his thinking. Other "turncoat" witnesses such as Phil Leonetti of the Scarfo (Bruno) crime family of Philadelphia implicated Gigante in ordering a series of murders in the early 1980s of members of the Bruno family. Additionally, Anthony "Gaspipe" Casso, former underboss of the Lucchese crime family, implicated Gigante in enlisting Casso and other members of the Lucchese family to kill John Gotti, Frank DeCicco and Gene Gotti, all members of the Gambino family, soon after John Gotti became boss of the Gambino family in early 1986. Gigante used a new structure to control the Genovese family. The structure was set up with an Official Boss who would pass orders through a Messenger to the Street Boss and the Street Boss would then give orders to the Underboss of the family and the Capo's would either answer to any one of the 3 positions and never Gigante directly. This was Gigante's way of keeping a low profile and making sure no one knew who he was.

"Chin" Gigante Finally Gets Sent to Prison

Gigante was finally convicted on several racketeering, conspiracy, and related charges in the summer of 1997 and sentenced to 12 years in a federal prison. Despite his lawyers' and psychiatrists' claims that he has been legally insane for more than 30 years, and thus incapable of running a large and sophisticated organized crime operation, the jury convicted him on all but the most serious charges of murder which would have mandated a life sentence without the possibility of parole. Gigante continued to run the crime family from his cell, the administration was organized with a Ruling Committee who answered to the Street Boss and the Street Boss would get orders from Gigante from the person who was the family Messagario(messenger), which was his son Vincent Esposito.

As part of a plea bargain in an obstruction of justice trial stemming from his efforts to delay his racketeering trial, on April 7, 2003, Gigante admitted in court that his insanity was an act. He received a sentence of three years to be served after his current sentence was completed. He was due for release in 2010.

The Death of the "Chin" Gigante

Gigante died on December 19, 2005 from complications of heart disease at the same federal prison hospital in Springfield, Missouri, where John Gotti died three years earlier. On Friday, December 23, 2005, after a service at Saint Anthony of Padua Church in Greenwich Village, his body was cremated at the historic Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, New York. He is survived by eight children (5 from his wife and 3 from his mistress) and his prominent cousins from Boston. (The cousins spell their name both Gigante and Giganti.) Gigante's lawyer, Flora Edwards, has said that the family intends to sue the federal government over Gigante's health care treatment while in prison. In November 2005, Edwards filed a lawsuit in federal court to compel officials at the Medical Center for Federal Prisoners in Springfield, Missouri to transfer Gigante to an acute care hospital. The federal government responded to that in sealed court papers. Gigante rallied physically--from labored breathing, oxygen deprivation, swelling in the lower body and bouts of unconsciouness when he was transferred and placed under private care. After leaving the private health care facility, he returned to the Federal Prisoner's Medical Center in Springfield, MO, where he died 10 days later on December 19, 2005.

Albert "High Lord Executioner" Anastasia

Umberto Anastasia was born September 26, 1902 in Tropea, Italy. On October 25, 1957, in New York City, New York, Anastasia, than one of the most powerful Mafia bosses in the city was gunned down in a barber shop.

Anastasia's Start

Growing up fast in Calabria, Italy, Anastasia had it rough. He only got to the fifth grade before needing to dropout of school to go work to help out his family. After working numerous jobs, Anastasia and his brothers found work on a ship as a deckhand Men. A rough and dangerous job that would end up paying off in the end. This deckhand job would eventually lead him to his stomping ground in New York City, where he became one of the most brutal crime boss ever to exist in the Italian mafia.

The first showing of how tough he really was, came in 1921. Anastasia got into a fight with a man he claimed was steeling the better dock jobs from him and his fellow workers. The two men got into a fight and Anastasia lost his control and stabbed the man to death.

This fight would lead to what was supposed to be his one in only trip to the infamous Sing-Sing prison. But because of is impeccable toughness, he would see a different fate. A old time mobster barber watched him in many fights where he notice his real violent talent. The barber notified big time gangster like the famous Lucky Luciano and others. After this information, the mob pulled some strings to get a new trial for Anastasia and they succeed. This time around, with this new trial, magically three witnesses against him would be abruptly murdered and one would disappeared. With no witnesses against  him, Anastasia was free to roam the streets again.

Anastasia's Mob Life

Anastasia found himself a cozy job at doing what he knew best, working as a muscle for the mob and murdering if he needed. It was said that he enjoyed his work when it came to killing, even watching people get whacked and enjoying it when he wasn't involved, earning him the name "Lord High Executioner".  In addition to being the muscle, he engaged in a number of different crimes, including loan-sharking and gambling. His brother Anthony became a local union boss, which helped Anastasia gain greater strength in the underworld of the Brooklyn waterfront.

Around this time, Lucky Luciano was lusting for power and coined an ideal to take out two of the top bosses in order to gain control of the criminal underworld. His first move was to take out Joe Masseria. Lucky put together a plan and lured Masseria to a Coney Island. Lucky excused himself to the bathroom, and then shortly after the murder was carried out by Anastasia and a few other gangland associates. This murder was what made the Ace of Sades famous as the death card, as it was placed in the hands of Masseria after he was killed. One boss down Salvatore Maranzano left. The murder of Maranzano was eventually carried out carried out shorty after Masseria, but Anastasia would sit it out.

This was huge for Anastasia, this would mean he would be second in command to his new boss Vincent Mangano. More importantly he was told to work with a Jewish gangster named Louis "Lepke" Buchalter. The two worked well together and formed a gang of ruthless gangsters that would be later named Murder Inc. A fitting name since they are said to be responsible for an unconfirmed 1000 deaths around the US.

This gang would final be taken down when one of their own would flip and become states evidence. Abe "Kid Twist" Reles, a member of Murder Inc. had enough dirt on the gang to put almost all of them in jail and a better part of them on death row. Even "Lepke" Buchalter, which became the first boss to ever be executed by electrocution in the US.

Anastasia was lucky enough to be able to avoid this serious crack down, but "Kid Twist" Reles was ready to finish off the last of Murder Inc. Unfortunately for the "Kid", he would never get the chance. It was siad he was trying to escape from his fifth floor window where he was being held and instead fell to his death. Most believe it was the mob and he was pushed, but either way he earned the nickname "the canary that could sing, but could not fly".

 Anastasia's Down Fall

This left Anastasia free to keep up his criminal activity, and that he did. All though still second in command to Mangano, most knew that Anastasia called the shots. Taking out the boss of a family is a serious no-no in the mob, but Anastasia's lust for power and inpatients would lead to Mangano's death. Although he was given a pass by the commission because ally Frank Costello stuck up for him and claimed it was in self defense, this would be the first infractions of mob rules of many. 

Anastasia's biggest move that got not only the Mafia, the FBI but also the public looking at him like he was public enemy #1, was the murder of a hero civilian. A notorious bank robber William Sutton, who escaped from prison, was shortly captured by the help of  Arnold Schuster, a 24-year-old Brooklyn clothing salesman. Anastasia enraged by the taddle-tell, for he lived by the underground rules where rats die, order Schuster dead. The innocent salesman was hunted down and murdered in the streets in cold blood, this was another serious infraction of mob rules.

That did not help with his reputation with the FBI. The FBI started to focuses on Anastasia's taxes in hopes to bring him down the same way they brought Al Capone down. The FBI had one key witness, a plumber that could verify that he was paid more for his work then what Anastasia claimed in taxes all year.

Despite the tons of murder evidence at Anastasia's house, the plumber would disappear and charges would never be brought about for the murder. But the FBI was not ready to give up on tax evasion, Anastasia recognized this and decided to take a plea so he could get a slap-on-the-wrist and a slap-on-the-wrist is what he got. Spending one year in prison, Anastasia was back on the streets and back to what he knew best.



At this point there was a power struggle going on in the mob. Vito Genovese wanted long time mobster boss Frank Costello out of the way. An attempt on his life would do the trick. After a bullet grazed Costello's head, Anastasia's best ally would take a retirement. But Anastasia still had no worries as he was on full throttle to take power. Even after being warned by long time Jewish gangster, Myer Lansky, to stay away from the Havana gambling rackets, Anastasia would not listen and tried to muscle in on what most did not view as his or fair game.

This was Anastasia's last mistake, Vito Genovese petitioned to the commission that it was time for him to go. Reportedly saying if he won't listen to the commission, won't follow mob rules and thinks he can take whatever he wants, who is safe from his dangerous ways. The commission agreed. Genovese approached what would soon become the head of the most power crime family in New York, Anastasia underboss, Carlo Gambino. He asked him for help planning the murder and Gambino agreed.

Anastasia's Death

October 25, 1957, Anastasia went to his favorite barber for a fresh shave and a manicure. After his bodygaurd took a walk, Anastasia relaxed with a hot towels over his face, as he relaxed, two lone gunmen entered the shop and shot until he was died.

The best way to describe Anastasia's bloody, murderous life of crime is the turn-out at his funnel. Most Mafia funnels have major turnouts that include family, friends and fellow gangsters, but 12 people showed up to Anastasia's funnel.