Louis Gigante

Louis Robert Gigante (March 19, 1932 – October 19, 2022) was an American priest of the Catholic Church and a Bronx community activist, serving as one of the borough's New York City Council members. He founded the South East Bronx Community Organization (SEBCO). He also served as chaplain of the Italian-American Civil Rights League.

Early life Gigante was born in Manhattan on March 19, 1932. His father, Salvatore, was a watchmaker. His mother, Yolanda (Santasilia), worked as a seamstress. Both immigrated to the United States from Naples and did not speak English. As the parish priest, members of his congregation included future Supreme Court Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor when she was a teenager.

In the fall of 1968, he founded the South East Bronx Community Organization (SEBCO), with funds from the federal Section 8 housing program, through which tenants pay 30 percent of their income in rent and the federal government pays the difference. SEBCO was generally considered to be one of the organizations most responsible for the economic and civic rehabilitation of the depressed South Bronx area. Gigante ran unsuccessfully for Congress in 1970.

By 1981, he had orchestrated the construction and rehabilitation of 1,100 federally subsidized apartments in the Hunts Point section of the South Bronx. He claimed credit for the rejuvenation of the Bronx, saying "I brought the neighborhood up from ashes to help the people in the South Bronx. There isn't one other organization that can take credit."

Later life On July 30, 2021, it was reported that Gigante sexually abused a nine-year-old boy on multiple occasions during the mid-1970s while working at St. Athanasius Church. Another lawsuit filed the same year alleged that he sexually assaulted a girl in the early 1960s.