HOME IS WHERE THE HEART IS

By Jerry Capeci

VINCENT (Chin) Gigante may be a multiple murderer, and he may head the most powerful organized crime family in the country, but deep down he's still a mama's boy.

And where mama goes, Chin goes.

Last friday, the reputed Genovese boss petitioned Brooklyn Federal Judge Eugene Nickerson for permission to move from his 94-year-old mother's Greenwich Village apartment to the New Jersey home where she recently moved..

Until recently, Yolanda Gigante had been caring for the 68-year-old Chin - short for Cinzino, little Vincent - at the flat. Even after she was mugged in July, she still tended to the needs of her Cinzino, who, she told The New York Post, was "very sick" and anything but a crime boss.

"Boss? No boss," she said. "He's boss of the toilet. My son is sick. Boss of shit. Six years he lives here with me. Every day I care for him. I feed him, I wash him, I cry over him."

Recently, however, according to Chin's lawyer James LaRossa, she fell and broke a vertebrae and hasn't been able to take care of her little boy.

Gigante's sons and his brother, the Rev. Louis Gigante, started visiting him more, trying to pick up the slack. But Gigante feels lost without her and wants to relocate to New Jersey to be with her.

If you've been following Chin's story, this may not seem all that startling. But what is unusual is that Chin's mother moved in with Gigante's estranged wife, Olympia.

That's right. Gigante's estranged wife is nursing Gigante's ailing mother and Chin wants to move in.

Nickerson, who ruled two months ago that Chin has feigned insanity for 30 years with the help of his wife and mother, approved the move and Gigante was expected to make the trek across the Hudson River over the weekend.

Figuring one Olympia was enough for any man, prosecutors George Stamboulidis and Andrew Weissmann asked Nickerson to rescind an order granting Gigante permission to visit the East Side townhouse of his long time paramour, Olympia Esposito. You can't make this stuff up.

Nickerson must be a romantic. He rejected their request and Gigante, who according to court records visits Esposito three or four times a week, will still be able to eat his cake and have it too - so to speak.

However, Nickerson did order LaRossa to submit medical reports to back up his claim that Chin has an aneurysm which is likely to burst if he comes to court next time. Gigante, who underwent heart surgery in 1988, needs another operation, according to his doctors.

So far, Nickerson has held fast to a scheduled Mar. 17 trial date.

"If it turns out to be true that he needs an operation," Weissman said, "we wish him a speedy recovery so he can go to trial on Mar. 17."

Gigante has managed to avoid the joint for 32 years - since 1964 when he was released from federal prison after a five-year bit for drug trafficking. But if it turns out that he goes back, it doesn't have to be all bad, as these pictures taken at the Federal Correctional Institution in Lompoc, CA attest. In the jailhouse rock photo at left, that's Colombo boss Carmine (Junior) Persico on the drums and Boston consigliere Joseph (J.R.) Russo on guitar. On vocals, that's Gambino associate Mark Reiter (left) and Luchese soldier Anthony Senter. In the photo at right, Persico stands over a rose garden he cultivated in a small patch of the sunny outdoor prison yard about five miles from the Pacific Ocean. At the bottom, Persico rides a mechanical bull as Russo (right) and late Philadelphia mobster Nicholas (Nicky Blades) Virgilio stand at the ready in a posed shot taken during a 1992 prison rodeo.