James "Jimmy" Casci was a man of flamboyant extremes.

The man who once drove a black Corvette with a sign on its door announcing "St. Paul's Next Mayor" died this week of natural causes in his East Side home. He was 64.

He was short — 5 feet 2 — but made up for it by wearing suit coats several sizes too big and yelling in the face of anyone who crossed him, including cops and politicians.

"He liked people, he liked controversy, and he liked stirring up the pot," friend Shane Sigal said.

The 2005 mayoral candidate was the only son of Italian immigrants who owned the former Roma Bakery on the East Side. He helped his father buy and sell houses and later ran a business booking topless dancers. But what he really loved was schmoozing, said Jon Christen, who became friends with Casci after he sold Casci three cell phones — one for himself, one for his limousine driver and one as a spare.

"He had Rolodexes full of people," said Christen, who is handling funeral arrangements. "I'm sure during the course of the day he talked to 20, 30 people. He didn't care if you were penniless or the mayor of St. Paul. Maybe it was a self-absorbed thing. If you listened to him, he liked you."

When Casci still had money, he bought a limo, hired a friend to drive it and flew every weekend to New York or Las Vegas. But friends say serious health problems and medical bills a few years ago cleaned him out, and he died with barely enough to cover funeral

expenses.

Casci made his foray into politics in 2005 with a write-in campaign for mayor that, according to the Pioneer Press City Scoop blog, seemed to consist of driving around downtown with his "next mayor" sign and blaring a techno remix of "My Way" through open windows.

That same year, Casci was arrested but not charged after a conversation with then-St. Paul Police Chief William Finney in which he apparently suggested he might approach other candidates with loaded firearms, according to Finney.

Casci also sought the Ward 7 seat on St. Paul's City Council in the 2007 primary election.

When Christen once asked him why he was so belligerent, Casci responded: "I'm just a smartass. I've always been a smartass."

But Casci had a generous side as well. He once let a homeless man stay in his house, Christen said. For the last year, he volunteered at Merrick Community Services food shelf and faithfully dropped by a weekly senior citizen gathering at the Salvation Army, where he was "quite the ladies man," according to a regular.

Rochelle Montpetit, who had known Casci since high school, will never forget the time she asked him for a ride home from work.

"He was going 90 miles an hour down Shepard Road and I was thinking, 'I will never ride with this guy again.' He got stopped by a cop. He gets mad at the cop! He's yelling at the cop for giving him a ticket! I'm going, 'Oh, my gosh. Are you nuts."

Then Montpetit added: "He was a one of a kind. He was very sincere and goodhearted."

Maja Beckstrom can be reached at 651-228-5295.