Obituary: Vincent 'The Chin' Gigante

Vincent Gigante - "The Oddfather" in 1957

Vincent "The Chin" Gigante, was a high-ranking New York Mafioso who avoided jail for decades by wandering Manhattan streets in a ratty bathrobe and slippers as part of an elaborate feigned mental illness.

In a life story which could have come right out of The Sopranos television series, Vincent Gigante was known as The Oddfather.

Denying he was a gangster, Gigante would wander the streets of his native Greenwich Village neighbourhood in nightclothes, muttering incoherently. Relatives, including a brother who was a Roman Catholic priest, insisted Gigante suffered from paranoid schizophrenia, dementia and Alzheimer's disease.

Born in the Bronx in 1928, one of five sons of Italian immigrant parents, Gigante's nickname - "Chin", short for Vincenzo - was bestowed by his mother.

He became a small-time boxer and drifted into the crime family founded in 1931 by legendary gangster Charles "Lucky" Luciano.

In 1957, Gigante was the hitman in a botched attempt to assassinate the then-boss Frank Costello. After refusing to name his attacker in court, Costello, badly shaken by the incident, retired. This made Gigante's patron, Vito Genovese, head of the family that still bears his name.

Gigante (right) with his son Vincent in 1997

At the height of his power, Gigante's empire stretched from New York to Miami and the New York Times Magazine described him as "the last great Mafioso of the century".

And, until his 1997 conviction, Gigante had served only a five-year heroin rap in 1959. He also turned his claim of mental illness - first used to escape trial in a 1970 police-bribery case - into a full-time strategy, behaving oddly in public, checking into psychiatric treatment clinics whenever the FBI turned up the heat.

Once, agents serving a subpoena found Gigante standing naked in the shower, holding an umbrella. Another time, upon spotting agents watching him, he fell to the sidewalk and prayed.

But the good times ended in July 1997 when he was convicted of racketeering.

In a drama played out in a Brooklyn courtroom, six former gangsters, led by Salvatore "Sammy the Bull" Gravano, a Gotti underboss, described Gigante's role in the Genovese family. All the while, Gigante viewed proceedings from a wheelchair, mumbling to himself and seemingly oblivious to what was going on.

Though Gigante's lawyers said that they could not communicate in any "meaningful way" with a client who did not know where he was, or why, he was still convicted of racketeering, extortion and plotting the murder - never carried out - of ex-mob associate Peter Savino.

Jailed for 12 years, Gigante finally admitted the ruse at a court hearing in April 2003.