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Since 1981 the family has reputedly been run by Gigante, 62, who operates out of a seedy social club in Greenwich Village. Gigante is rarely seen in public without his trademark bathrobe and slippers, which he allegedly wears to feign mental illness and avoid prosecution. Despite such behavior, federal agents portray Gigante as the CEO of a conglomerate-like enterprise. He has been linked to activities as diverse as record-industry extortion, the improper sale of taxicab meters and the defrauding of a credit union.
A point of keen speculation is whether Gigante talks business with his younger brother Louis, a cussing, cigar-chomping, Roman Catholic priest who is celebrated for overseeing the creation of 2,000 low-income housing units. That reputation has been tarnished by accusations that Father Gigante's nonprofit group doled out tens of millions of dollars in government housing grants to Genovese-tied subcontractors. The priest claims he had nothing to do with the selection of these companies. "I purposely stayed out of it," he says. But the priest does commend one contractor, a Genovese captain who is now imprisoned: "If you would talk to work forces in the South Bronx, you would also get a lot of praise for him."
Even the currently troubled Donald Trump has allegedly paid his Genovese dues, perhaps unwittingly. Last month Trump took the stand in Manhattan's federal court to deny that he knowingly hired 200 illegal Polish aliens to demolish a building in Manhattan in 1980 to make way for his glittering Trump Tower. Members of Housewreckers Local 95, who also accuse their own president in the scheme, allege that Trump was able to avoid making payments that would now total $1 million (including interest) into the union's pension funds. % "You can bet there was a wise guy somewhere in the background," says an FBI specialist on the Genovese family. Says labor consultant Daniel Sullivan, an FBI source on the Mob who has testified in the case: "It's a classic Mob relationship. Trump or his people had to have a deal to get such a sweetheart contract."
A Trump spokeswoman calls this speculation "preposterous." Maybe so, but Housewreckers Local 95 was identified in a 1987 government report as being controlled by the Genovese gang. In 1984 the union's three highest officials were convicted of racketeering in an unrelated case.
The Genovese family's quiet, pervasive power is a long-standing tradition. After years of Mob warfare, the family's founding godfather, Charles (Lucky) Luciano, took charge of the entire underworld in 1931. He imposed a panel of bosses, the so-called Commission, that oversaw all the rackets in the U.S. Luciano was considered "first among equals," and few Mob ventures went forward in the 1930s without his approval -- and without his getting a piece of the action.