Daughter of legendary late Genovese boss requests leniency for turncoat nephew ahead of sentencing
The fruit of late Genovese crime family boss Vincent "Chin" Gigante’s twisted family tree is back for one last court date.
The Chin’s turncoat grandson, Vincent Fyfe, will return to Manhattan Federal Court for a Tuesday sentencing after cooperating with federal prosecutors against his half-uncle Vincent Esposito, who pleaded guilty to racketeering conspiracy in April 2019.
Fyfe’s testimony at a subsequent mob trial was attended by two of Esposito’s sisters, who denounced their nephew as a “piece of s--t” and glared at him with the “malocchio” — Italian for evil eye.
But his aunt Rita Gigante, a spiritual healing masseuse with her own New Jersey business, offered her support for Fyfe, 47, in a presentencing letter asking Manhattan Federal Court Judge Jed Rakoff for leniency.
Rita Gigante — one of the Chin’s six kids with his wife — praised the mob informant for his unflinching honesty despite a family history with generational ties to organized crime.
“Vincent has empowered himself by finding his Truth, having the courage to speak his truth and has learned that his truth has set him free,” she wrote. “This realization has changed the course of his life forever and for the better as well as helped change the family lineage of the Gigantes.”
Rita Gigante and Fyfe come from same side of the infamous bathrobe-wearing don’s complicated non-Mafia family life. Gigante and wife Olympia welcomed six children, with Rita the youngest, before the mob boss took up with mistress Olympia Esposito and fathered two daughters and son Vincent.
Fyfe’s mother is Rita Gigante’s sister, Yolanda, and Rita offered fond recollections of her nephew.
“I have had the honor of watching Vincent grow from a little boy into the man he is,” she wrote in a five-paragraph letter. “My deep connection with him comes from having the privilege of mentoring him over the years and helping him through his struggles by introducing spirituality to him.”
Fyfe, who was hired as a union executive in 1995 with a recommendation from his grandfather, is hopeful of avoiding prison time for his cooperation against Esposito and four other defendants.
The 53-year-old Esposito, currently housed at a Brooklyn federal facility, is due for release on Valentine’s Day. The April 2019 guilty plea spared Fyfe from taking the stand against his relative.
Fyfe pleaded guilty to embezzling $15,000 in union funds between 2005-08.
His namesake grandfather, who died in 2005, ruled atop the might Genovese family for nearly two decades before his 1997 racketeering conviction and a subsequent federal guilty plea in 2003.
The “Oddfather” dodged conviction for years with his unprecedented “crazy act,” where Gigante walked the streets outside his Greenwich Village headquarters in the garb of a mental patient — a ratty robe, slippers and a floppy cap.
https://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/ny-vincent-chin-gigante-grandson-sentencing-20210130-sh5mb5iagjhx7owaa6k7sd5qnu-story.html
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