Genovese gangster is released on $10M bond
A taste of freedom was hardly free for the son of late mob boss Vincent "Chin" Gigante.
The former Genovese family leader’s namesake love child was released last week on a $9.8 million bond backed by $1 million cash and his mom’s Upper East Side townhouse, the Daily News has learned.
Vincent Esposito, 50, was jailed immediately after his January arrest on charges linked to a long-running Mafia shakedown of local unions. He pleaded not guilty to the charges.
Esposito was “obviously thrilled to be out” after his three-month stay inside the Metropolitan Correctional Center, said his attorney Jeffrey Lichtman.
He is now back living with his mother under house arrest inside her $8.3 million E. 77th St. townhouse, a home with a long mob history.
“No comment, no thank you,” said Esposito, in a white T-shirt and pajamas pants, when he answered the door Thursday. “Please don’t come back here.”
His mother Olympia Esposito, the Chin’s longtime mistress, took ownership of the property in 1983 when mobbed-up record company executive Morris Levy transferred the building into her name for $16,000.
Even then, the building was valued at $1 million.
According to court filings, Esposito’s bail terms also include the hiring of a round-the-clock armed security guard “in order to prevent any unauthorized exit.” The defendant would pay for the guard.
Lichtman said they will fight the costly requirement, which he estimated could run as high as $500,000. Esposito’s trial is set for a Sept 24. start.
Real-time video surveillance at the front and back doors is another requirement of his release, allowing 24-hour federal monitoring, court filings indicated.
A search of the four-story home after Esposito’s arrest turned up $3.8 million in cash stuffed inside old ammunition boxes, sacks, shoe boxes and envelopes.
The building also came under FBI scrutiny in the 1980s as the feds pursued Gigante, considered the city’s most powerful mob boss.
Agents observed the Chin behaving like a normal, rational man, undercutting Gigante’s long and successful dodge of prosecution by feigning mental illness.
Gigante died in federal prison in December 2005.
http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/nyc-crime/son-mob-boss-chin-gigante-free-costly-9-8m-bond-article-1.3943261
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