Deal with the Devil

by Peter Lance

  “By the fall of 1992, the Feds faced a serious dilemma,” says Flora Edwards, echoing an argument she later made before Judge Weinstein. “They had all these war cases to prosecute, and they knew, or had reason to know, that the principal instigator of the violence was their own informant. But they routinely misrepresented the full truth to juries. As a direct result, defendants like Michael Sessa and Vic Orena Sr. were convicted. You have to ask, where was Chris Favo and his band of agents back then? They were so concerned about the leaks in January 1994 that they blew the whistle on Lin, but beginning with the war trials in 1993, despite their misgivings about their boss DeVecchio dating back a year, these same agents began testifying for the government and they never even hinted at the alleged corrupt relationship between Scarpa Sr. and his contacting agent DeVecchio.”18

  “The record before the Court reveals a systematic government effort to bury every detail about Scarpa’s informant status and his corrupt relationship with a supervisory special agent of the FBI.”19 That was the argument made by defense lawyer Gus Newman, in his 1996 motion asking for a new trial for Vic Orena.

  But three years earlier, when he represented Vic Orena at trial, Newman had no idea about that alleged corruption when he cross-examined Lin DeVecchio, even though the Feds were obligated to disclose it under Brady rules. In his appeal brief, filed on January 16, 1996, Newman pointed out that

  DeVecchio well knew prior to the instant [Orena] prosecution all that Scarpa, [Carmine] Sessa and Mazza had done to incite and perpetuate the so-called war and all that he had done, for the previous ten years, to protect, assist and encourage Scarpa in his criminal activities. As the Supervisor for C-10, with the authority (which he exercised) to steer the investigation away from Scarpa, he personally influenced the direction of the investigation and the course of events which were ascribed to the “Colombo War.”20

  Newman also emphasized how much Chris Favo knew about Scarpa’s violence by the start of Vic Orena’s trial:

  He knew that Scarpa was an informant for the FBI whose handler was DeVecchio. He knew from Imbriale and Ambrosino that Scarpa had committed more violence than any other individual associated with the so-called “war.” He knew the content of the 209 reports in Scarpa’s file and had already concluded that the FBI was “duped” by Scarpa’s purported assistance. Finally, he knew by this time that his supervisor, Lindley DeVecchio, had been compromised—so compromised, in fact, that Favo withheld all information about Scarpa from him after May 1992.

  By his own admission, the pieces had fallen together for Favo long before Mr. Orena’s trial. Favo had witnessed: the disclosure to Scarpa of Imbriale’s cooperation; DeVecchio’s assistance to Scarpa in finding his loan shark victims and in protecting Mazza and Del Masto while fugitives during the war; DeVecchio’s glee at learning that Lampasi was killed and his statement that he and Scarpa were “winning”; DeVecchio’s order halting any further arrests after the Point Pleasant (NJ) incident for fear that Scarpa might be apprehended; and his opposition to the federal complaint and arrest of Scarpa on August 31, 1992.

  And Favo admitted that his failure to report DeVecchio was not due to his uncertainty about DeVecchio’s mishandling of Scarpa but, rather, his fear that DeVecchio’s stature within the FBI meant that Favo would not be believed. Yet, Favo was so certain of DeVecchio’s corrupt relationship with Scarpa that he could not report him for fear that Scarpa would be told and would flee. Favo continued to withhold information about what he knew for more than a year after Mr. Orena’s trial had concluded.21

  In his summation at Vic Orena’s trial, Newman had argued to the jury that “there’s no credible, direct evidence of Mr. Orena conspiring with anyone to kill [Tommy] Ocera . . . from any credible, believable source. There’s no direct proof from a credible, believable source that Mr. Orena conspired with anybody to do anything to anybody from this so-called Persico faction.”22

  But the jurors who eyed the table full of guns—most of which came from the missing plastic bag found under the porch—were never told of Greg Scarpa Jr.’s sworn allegation that the six handguns were planted by his brother under the watchful eye of his father and Lin DeVecchio.23 “They weren’t told,” says Newman, “because we didn’t know those facts at the time of trial.”24

  Lin DeVecchio was the lead-off witness at that trial. He drew on his twenty-five years of FBI expertise to detail the war violence for the jury.25 But the jurors had no inkling that Greg Scarpa Sr. had stayed out of jail for years and was literally free to instigate and wage the war from 1991 to 1992 because DeVecchio had gone to bat for him in the 1986 credit card case.26 They had no clue that the address of Orena’s girlfriend’s Queens apartment, which was passed to Scarpa in January 1992, may have come from DeVecchio.27

  For the jury’s edification, the government prepared a huge chart tracking the war violence. Across the bottom of the chart was a series of red boxes, each one marking one of the war deaths. Assistant U.S. Attorney John Gleeson later admitted that Scarpa, “an accomplished killer,” was “responsible for half of the red boxes on the bottom of the war chart.”28

  But the jury was never informed that during that streak of bloodshed, Scarpa was on the FBI’s payroll and had even received cash bonuses for the “intelligence” he provided. In short, the FBI had in its employ the principal perpetrator of the violent crimes now being prosecuted in federal court.

  As noted, Gleeson admitted to the jury in his rebuttal that on October 27, 1989, when Tommy Ocera and Diane Montesano were followed, “it probably” was “Greg Scarpa”29 who was stalking them in the Cadillac. Gleeson went on to say that Vic Orena “tried to get Greg Scarpa to kill [Ocera] . . . assuming it was Greg Scarpa, maybe it was someone else, but it failed.”30

  “So here we have one of the senior EDNY prosecutors admitting that Scarpa Sr. was likely involved in the murder plot,” said Vic Orena’s son Andrew. “What an amazing admission by the Feds.” What Gleeson never explained to the jury was why Vic Orena—Scarpa’s mortal enemy during the war—would ever contract with him to kill Ocera. Why would Little Vic ask Scarpa to stalk Ocera and Montesano the night they left the restaurant? Why would he put himself in the debt of Scarpa, a drug-dealing killer he’d had little to do with before 1989?

  Yet in Gleeson’s rebuttal the government was admitting that it was “probably” Scarpa who took the first pass on Tommy Ocera. And if he tried to kill him once, it’s fair to argue that he would have finished the job—providing the FBI with a perfect excuse for getting Vic Orena off the streets.

  The Isolated Jury

  Given the Feds’ willingness to link Greg Scarpa Sr. to the stalking of Tommy Ocera, one of the most compelling revelations from the Vic Orena trial is how they isolated the jury from any suggestion that the Killing Machine was a Top Echelon source.

  In recounting the war violence, AUSA George Stamboulidis told the jury, “On January seventh of 1992 . . . the Persicos kill Nicky Black.”31 Minutes later, he reiterated, after earlier testimony, that on “February twenty-sixth, Joe Waverly—Joel Cacace—was . . . shot and wounded.” To remind the jury that it was Vic Orena who was on trial, he added that Cacace “was an Orena faction member.”32 But Stamboulidis never let on what he should have known at the time: that both acts of violence were committed by Gregory Scarpa Sr., the man who effectively was the “Persico faction.”

  Judge Jack B. Weinstein, who was on the bench for both the Sessa and Orena trials, issued a number of rulings during Orena’s prosecution and motions for a new trial that seemed to favor the prosecution.33

  In the absence of any physical evidence linking him to Ocera’s murder, Vic Orena was convicted and sentenced to multiple life terms by Judge Weinstein—largely on the weight of hearsay evidence, which also sought to cast Orena as the lead protagonist in the war. The government’s star witnesses, Little Al D’Arco and Sammy the Bull Gravano, also testified about Orena’s alleged admissions regarding Ocera’s death, which were entirely hearsay—and each o
f them was later proven to be to be a liar. Further, the government’s theory that Orena killed Ocera as a favor to John Gotti was entirely discredited.34

  In 1997, lawyers for Vic Orena and Patty Amato petitioned for new trials in light of these revelations and the evidence that had surfaced since their convictions establishing Greg Scarpa Sr. as the primary instigator of the war. Judge Weinstein issued a 101-page decision rejecting those motions. Calling Orena and Amato “murderous criminals” who’d been convicted on “strong evidence,” he wrote:

  Attempting to transform a troubling cloud of questionable ethics and judgment enveloping an F.B.I. Special Agent into a raging storm of reasonable doubt, petitioner-defendants move for dismissal of their indictments or for new trials. . . . The claim is that the government violated its disclosure obligations under Brady v. Maryland, after engaging in and covering up outrageous government misconduct.35

  In that decision, Judge Weinstein acknowledged Orena’s claim that “Gravano’s testimony in another case, United States v. Stancell, 95 CR 503 (N.D.Ga.1996), constitutes newly discovered evidence that contradicts his and D’Arco’s testimony, as well as the government’s argument, at the Orena trial, that Orena’s primary motive to kill Ocera was to please Gotti by retaliating for Ocera’s murder of Greg Reiter.”

  Then he went further:

  During the Stancell proceedings and outside of the jury’s presence, Gravano testified that the Ocera homicide had no connection to Greg Reiter’s disappearance and murder. . . . Orena then points to another case, United States v. Brennan, 95 CR 941[,] . . . in which the government charged that defendant Robert Scott Brennan murdered Dennis Harrigan in retaliation for Harrigan’s murder of Greg Reiter. Harrigan was murdered on October 1, 1991. . . . Thus, Orena now argues that the facts of Brennan and Gravano’s Stancell testimony contradict the government’s theory of motive for the Ocera murder case against Orena. If the elder Reiter believed, so the argument goes, that Harrigan and Bright were responsible for Greg’s murder, then it makes no sense at all that Gotti believed that Ocera was responsible and communicated that to Orena. Further, Gravano’s testimony in Stancell indicates that a different motive existed.

  But having acknowledged all that, Judge Weinstein nevertheless concluded that “this argument misses the mark . . . the primary motive for the Ocera murder the government advanced at trial was Orena’s concern that Ocera allow his loan shark records to fall into the possession of law enforcement.” Weinstein then concluded that “Orena’s desire to ingratiate himself with Gotti was a subsidiary motive, not the principal one, as Orena now argues.”36

  The Prosecutor’s Emphasis on the Gotti Theory

  However, in that decision, Judge Weinstein, one of the smartest judges in the federal judiciary, seemed to overlook the emphasis that Assistant U.S. Attorneys Stamboulidis and Gleeson had placed on the testimony of D’Arco and Gravano in their closing arguments to the Orena jury. In his summation, which filled 150 pages of transcript, Stamboulidis cited D’Arco and Gravano or the Greg Reiter–Gotti theory on forty-four of those pages (nearly one out of every three), saying emphatically at one point, “Tommy Ocera had been murdered. The contract was fulfilled. Gotti got his favor.”37

  Further, in his rebuttal, AUSA Gleeson cited Gravano, D’Arco, or the Reiter murder motive in eleven out of forty-one pages (one in four)—reminding the jury of the pedigree of the government’s witnesses: “You heard the big shots from the other families, Al D’Arco, Sammy Gravano,” he said. “There are a lot of documents, a lot of physical evidence. I’m not going to go over all of them.”38

  So, while the Gotti “favor” theory may have represented a secondary motive, in Judge Weinstein’s view, it was certainly front and center in the hours before the jury got the case.

  Weinstein also rejected Orena’s argument that “since the completion of the trials, new evidence has emerged that bears upon the credibility of both Gravano and D’Arco.” He acknowledged Orena’s contention that “Gravano lied about the full extent of his prior criminal conduct,” including drug dealing and evidence in published reports that Sammy “the Bull” had engaged in two additional murders. Yet he dismissed this new information as “the evidentiary equivalent of a grain of sand on Jones Beach.”

  And when it came to the real “elephant in the room”—the fact that Lin DeVecchio had testified in detail about the war murders without informing the judge or jury that Greg Scarpa, the lead antagonist, was his asset—Weinstein minimized it, concluding, “On cross-examination, defense counsel offered no impeachment of DeVecchio regarding his truthfulness, bias or motive to obtain a conviction against Orena.”39

  But “how in God’s name,” asks Flora Edwards, “was Gus Newman supposed to attack Lin’s credibility when nobody outside of the Justice Department had a clue at the time of that trial that Lin was conspiring with his own CI?”40

  Now, as 1993 unfolded and more members of the Persico faction were arrested and agreed to cooperate, the details of Greg Scarpa’s extraordinary get-out-of-jail-free card with the Feds became increasingly apparent. It would prove to be a year of conflict between the FBI agents at 26 Federal Plaza, who were making the war arrests, and the prosecutors of the Eastern District in Brooklyn, who had to bring them to trial. Chris Favo, a Jesuit-trained Roman Catholic, was perhaps the most conflicted of all. The problem the Feds now faced was how to explain the hemorrhaging leaks that had occurred for years.

  Chapter 32

  EXPECTING TO GO HOME

  On January 19, 1993, after thirty-two months as a fugitive, Anthony “Gaspipe” Casso, the acting underboss of the Lucchese family, was arrested in Mount Olive, New Jersey.1 James Fox, the FBI’s assistant director in charge in New York, called Casso “a psychopath whose name should be Mad Dog.” Federal prosecutor Greg O’Connell called him “the most dangerous, cunning, ruthless Mafia leader left on the streets,” and with Greg Scarpa Sr. finally behind bars, that may have been a fair assessment.2 Casso and Scarpa had worked together on countless scores over the years, and Gaspipe himself told me that he used intelligence provided by Greg to hunt down the shooters who had attacked him in 1986.3 Scarpa, he said, had actually handed him a file containing the names of the shooters—a file that he maintained came from Lin DeVecchio.

  On the day of his arrest, by Casso’s own account, he was taking a shower in his New Jersey hideaway when the Feds, clad in flak jackets and carrying machine guns, surrounded the house. They reportedly banged on the front door and shouted, “FBI! Come out with your hands up!”4 In Phil Carlo’s Gaspipe, Casso said that after the Feds kicked in the front door and stormed inside, he nonchalantly proceeded to get dressed in an upstairs bedroom while they shouted, “Anthony, give it up.”

  “I ain’t coming down until I’m dressed,” the hardened mob boss yelled back. So the fugitive arrest team rushed upstairs and cuffed him.

  As a measure of the kind of wealth Casso had amassed over the years, the FBI found $375,000 in that safe house, another $200,000 in a safe-deposit box that Anthony had hidden away to pay for his daughter Jolene’s wedding, and a third safe-deposit box containing half a million dollars in jewelry he’d bought for his wife, Lillian. When she heard that the house he’d been hiding in was owned by Rosemarie Billotti, a childhood girlfriend of Anthony’s, Lillian reportedly wouldn’t talk to him for months.5

  Casso himself was just as stone-faced with the Feds after they locked him up. Initially he refused to cooperate until they offered him the kind of deal he knew they’d given Sammy Gravano—five years for nineteen murders. Gaspipe was also well aware of the decades-long leniency the Justice Department had shown toward his good friend Greg Scarpa, and he expected no less if he was going to betray Cosa Nostra.

  Casso later concluded that it was his honesty about the extent of Gravano’s drug dealing that ultimately caused the Feds to renege on the plea bargain agreement they offered him. But in the hours following his arrest, as he was transported to the Metropolitan Correctional Center (MCC),
Gaspipe was confident.

  The first cell they put him in was on Eleven North, the same tier where Scarpa was being held. At that point, Casso had every reason to expect that if he cooperated, the Feds would reciprocate. After all, Scarpa was dying, and his usefulness to the government was diminishing. In fact, he could even become a liability with the Colombo war trials ahead if his special relationship with Lin DeVecchio was exposed. On the other hand, Casso was in bulldoglike health. He had a photographic memory. And the hard drive in his head held a treasure trove of Mafia secrets.

  Hospital Bed vs. Jail Cell

  On February 4, 1993, Greg Scarpa Sr. was indicted for the murders of Fusaro, Grancio, and Lampasi. He was also charged with murder conspiracy stemming from the war and with a probation violation for the tossed gun.6 Two weeks later, after being locked up as a result of his Bay Ridge shooting rampage, sixty-four-year-old Scarpa came before Judge Weinstein. Despite having broken house arrest, killing one person and causing the death of his son’s friend, he audaciously reapplied for bail. At the hearing, Weinstein noted that since returning to the MCC Scarpa had offered credible medical evidence that his condition had “seriously deteriorated.” Thus, despite his “proven dangerous propensities,” Weinstein ruled that Scarpa could spend the rest of his days incarcerated in a hospital bed within a medical ward as opposed to a jail cell.7

  Meanwhile, with its field general out of commission, the FBI started rolling up his various lieutenants. Larry Mazza had gone on the lam in June after Scarpa tipped off him and Jimmy Del Masto to their indictments, but on February 9 he was arrested in Florida. He soon agreed to cooperate with the Feds and convinced Del Masto to surrender.8