Is The Godfather Insane, or Crazy Like a Fox?

He often shuffles along the sidewalks of his Greenwich Village neighborhood dressed in a bathrobe and slippers and babbling to himself. Vincent (Chin) Gigante, 62, looks as if he can barely attend to his own affairs, much less oversee the country's most powerful Mob family. His lawyers contend that Chin, a former glass-jawed prizefighter (hence the nickname), is mentally ill. But federal agents believe his behavior is an act designed to avoid prosecution. Recalls John Pritchard, a former FBI supervisor: "Once in 1985 I saw Gigante walk outdoors in a bathrobe. He climbed into a car, and several blocks later the...

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