Happy Birthday, Vincent Gigante "The Chin"

Vincent Louis Gigante ( March 29, 1928 – December 19, 2005), also known as the "Chin", was a New York Italian-American mobster in the American Mafia. Gigante started out as a professional boxer who fought 25 matches between 1944 and 1947. He then started working as a Mafia enforcer for the Genovese crime family. Gigante was one of five brothers: himself, Mario, Pasquale and Ralph all became mobsters in the Genovese family. Only one brother, Louis, stayed out of the crime family, instead becoming a priest.[1] Gigante was the shooter in the failed assassination of Frank Costello in 1959. After sharing a prison cell with Boss Vito Genovese following his conviction for heroin trafficking, Gigante became a caporegime, overseeing his own crew of Genovese soldiers and associates that operated out of Greenwich Village. Gigante quickly rose to power during the 1960s and 1970s. By 1981 he was the de facto boss of the Genovese crime family while Anthony Salerno served as front boss during the 1980s. He also ordered the failed murder attempt of Gambino crime family boss John Gotti in 1986. With the arrest and conviction of Gotti and various Gambino family members in 1992, Gigante was officially recognized as the most powerful crime boss in the United States. Dubbed "The Oddfather" and "The Enigma in the Bathrobe" by the press, Gigante often wandered the streets of Greenwich Village in his bathrobe and slippers, mumbling incoherently to himself, in what Gigante later admitted was an elaborate act to avoid prosecution.[2] The act worked for over 10 years and Gigante was determined to be mentally unfit to stand trial. However, by 1997 he was tried and convicted of racketeering and was given a 12 year sentence. He died while in prison custody in 2005 at the United States Medical Center for Federal Prisoners.