https://www.google.com/amp/s/nypost...ssociates-charged-with-racketeering/amp/Son of infamous crime boss charged with racketeering
By Priscilla DeGregory and Bruce Golding
January 10, 2018 | 5:46pm
Son of infamous crime boss charged with racketeering
By Priscilla DeGregory and Bruce Golding
January 10, 2018 | 5:46pm
​Looks like a son of infamous crime boss Vincent “The Chin†Gigante ​is following in the shambling footsteps of his late dad.
Vincent Esposito, 50, was identified by prosecutors ​Wednesday ​as “a person of influence†in the Genovese crime family once headed by his father, who was dubbed the “Oddfather†for wandering around Greenwich Village in pajamas, a bathrobe and slippers.
Esposito and four other reputed Genovese mobsters ​were charged in a long-running racketeering scheme that the feds say involves “multiple acts†of extortion and other crimes between 2001 and 2017.
Esposito and t​w​o co-defendants — Steven Arena and Vincent D’Acunto Jr. -— were specifically accused of extorting annual payments from a union official between 2001 and 2015.
The men threatened “force and violence†to make the victim cough up cash so he could keep his position, according to a Manhattan federal court indictment.
Authorities found two unlicensed guns, a set of brass knuckles ​and ​more than $1 million cash inside the $12 million E. 77th St. townhouse Esposito owns with his mom and two sisters, p​​rosecutor Jared Lenow said.
​But the feds also found a real mafia no-no in his basement, what old-time wiseguys might have called an “infamnia†— a​n actual​ list of “made members of La Cosa Nostra​,​†​the prosecutor said. ​
The dumb-fella move harks back to the hand-written, two-page list of mobsters kept by fellow mob scion John “Junior†Gotti, who carefully recorded how much cash each one gave him at his lavish 1990 wedding.
Those ledger pages were introduced by the feds ahead of Gotti’s 1999 sentencing to 77 months for crimes including bribery, extortion, gambling and fraud.
The feds also have about six months​’​ ​worth ​of wiretap evidence and a cooperating witness who’s “very close with the defendant, who’s part of his family who will be expected to testify against him at trial,†Lenow said.
Lenow didn’t specify Esposito’s rank in the Genovese family, but said “money was kicked up to him,†with “at least several layers of lower-level workers†beneath the mob scion.
The government’s secret recordings also reveal “numerous references to his high-level position†and “people doing his bidding,†the prosecutor said.
Esposito is one of three children Gigante fathered with his longtime mistress, Olympia Esposito, to whose home he routinely would be driven following his sleepwear strolls downtown.
The feds claimed Gigante’s wacky behavior was an act intended to bolster claims of mental illness and shield him from prosecution for running one of the Mafia’s “Five Families.â€
But he was convicted of murder conspiracy in 1997 for scheming to kill other gangsters, and died in 2005 while serving a 12-year sentence in the federal lock-up in Springfield, Mo.
Esposito was ordered held on $6 million bond, with release conditions including electronically monitored house arrest.
Defense lawyer Flora Edwards, who argued that Esposito shouldn’t be locked up “because of his paternity,†declined to comment outside court.
