by Peter Lance
On April 4, Palm Sunday, Carmine Sessa, who’d been at large since July, was arrested while attending a secret meeting outside St. Patrick’s Cathedral on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan. Chris Favo later told the OPR agents that as soon as the cuffs were placed on Sessa, Lin DeVecchio, who was present for the bust, “stated that he had to give Jerry Capeci a call so he could send a photographer over.”9 Once the arrestees were taken away, Favo was so concerned about DeVecchio’s comment that he called Joe Valiquette, who was then the Bureau’s public information officer in New York.
Reached at home, according to Favo’s OPR 302, “Valiquette stated that Capeci would be out of town that week and was unlikely to contact him about the arrest.”10 Still, the incident pointed out Lin’s apparent devotion to Capeci, whose weekly “Gang Land” column in the Daily News, according to Favo, benefited from DeVecchio’s leaks.11
In that same 302, Favo told the investigating agents, “Throughout the course of the war, important investigative information was disclosed in Jerry Capeci’s weekly column. . . . On several occasions SSA DeVecchio approached me or another agent with a specific question about the investigation of the war or the Colombo family and our answer to the question appeared in Capeci’s column the following day with an attribution to a law enforcement source or federal law enforcement source.”12
During the first three days after his Palm Sunday arrest, as Carmine Sessa was being debriefed by Special Agent Jeffrey Tomlinson, Lin DeVecchio repeatedly came in to speak with the consigliere of the Persico faction. In his sworn statement to OPR investigators, Tomlinson later stated that he found this “rather unusual,” since he was in charge of the debriefings. “Up to that point,” he confessed, “SSA DeVecchio had been somewhat removed from the investigations and did not generally take such a high profile.”13
Tomlinson stated that Sessa told him “he thought it was unusual that SSA DeVecchio spent so much time in the first three days after he was arrested, talking to him, and that Sessa got suspicious that SSA DeVecchio might be Scarpa Sr.’s law enforcement source.”14
But in light of what we’ve uncovered in this investigation, DeVecchio’s renewed attention to the war probe makes sense. After all, Carmine Sessa had been Greg Scarpa’s surrogate in the conflict. He was now confessing to Tomlinson that he committed thirteen murders and that “Scarpa Sr. was involved in seven or eight of those homicides.”15 More important, as Tomlinson related in his sworn OPR affidavit, “at least two or three of the killings were done because Scarpa Sr. had told Sessa that the victim was going to cooperate or was cooperating with law enforcement authorities.”16
Among Sessa’s extraordinary revelations was the story of how, back in the 1980s, he had found what appeared to be a bug in a pay phone inside the Wimpy Boys club, and Scarpa had dismissed the news, telling Sessa, “It was not a bug and don’t worry about it.”* Later, when a private investigator confirmed that it was in fact a listening device, Sessa was “confused” as to why Greg didn’t want to pursue the issue. This, said Carmine, made him “suspicious that Scarpa [might] be cooperating with law enforcement.”17
Sessa also reported that his wife had picked up phone calls at Scarpa’s house while he was hospitalized, and that the caller had identified himself as “Mr. Dello.”† That caused Sessa to conclude that DeVecchio was Greg’s law enforcement source.18 Another revelation from Sessa during his debriefings was that “Scarpa Sr. had access to telephone numbers, subscriber information and license plate registrations which he got from his law enforcement source.”
Later in that same sworn statement, Special Agent Tomlinson admitted that, after Ambrosino’s June 1992 arrest, when the FBI confirmed Scarpa’s role in the murder of Nicholas Grancio, with corroboration from Carmine Imbriale, “he couldn’t understand why . . . the source [Scarpa Sr.] would continue to be operated.”19
On April 23, 1993, Greg Scarpa Sr. pled guilty to the weapons charge in Brooklyn Supreme Court. As part of a deal with the DA, in which he agreed to accept a guilty plea to federal racketeering charges, the tossed-gun charge—a felony—was reduced to a misdemeanor, and Scarpa was sentenced to a year in a Rikers Island hospital bed.20
In an apparent bid to counter critics who might complain about leniency for the killer, a DA’s spokesperson said that Scarpa was “not expected to survive the year.”
By 1993 Scarpa was down from 220 pounds to 160
(Associated Press)
On May 6, Scarpa came before Judge Weinstein, who was on the bench during the Vic Orena trial six months earlier when federal prosecutor John Gleeson admitted that Greg had “probably” been the one stalking Tommy Ocera and Diane Montesano.
At this point Weinstein had no idea of the depth of Scarpa’s involvement in the war—but he listened as the FBI’s star informant admitted to the murders of Fusaro, Grancio, and Lampasi. AUSA George Stamboulidis, who was present, had a much fuller picture of Scarpa’s role in the war violence, but since homicide was a state crime, “34” was allowed to plead guilty to racketeering charges.
For Scarpa, the Killing Machine—who’d told Larry Mazza he’d stopped counting after fifty hits, half of which had occurred on Lin DeVecchio’s watch—this plea was certainly a bargain. But although his HIV infection had turned into full-blown AIDS, Scarpa’s expression of remorse at the hearing was limited.
Of all his horrific crimes, including the brutal slaying of Mary Bari, the spur-of-the-moment rubout of Donnie Somma, and the murders of his brother Sal and Joe DeDomenico, which he’d contracted to others, the only homicide Greg Sr. wanted to talk about was the killing of twenty-one-year-old Joseph Randazzo, Joey’s friend who died after Scarpa’s shootout on December 29. Although he may have been criminally negligent in that killing, it was one homicide that “34” didn’t commit.
Scarpa: I want to thank Your Honor, Mr. Stamboulidis, for the consideration and compassion that has been shown to me from the time of my original arrest. If the good Lord had given me the opportunity to change that particular night where this young boy died who hadn’t even seen the dawn of life, I would certainly look to do it.
At that point, the judge noted that the parties had agreed to postpone the sentencing. There was a brief discussion of the defense’s expectation that Scarpa would do his time at Rikers Island, the city’s principal jail. Greg’s lawyer, Stephen Kartagener, pointed out that Rikers had “one of the leading AIDS hospitals in the criminal justice system.” He then asked that Scarpa be allowed “a very, very brief courtroom visit [with] his two-year-old grandson.” Without objection from Stamboulidis, Weinstein granted that request and the hearing ended with the judge wishing the emaciated killer “good luck.”
Physicians had repeatedly insisted that Greg Scarpa Sr. should have been dead years ago, but before the year was out he was back in front of Judge Weinstein asking that he be allowed to die at home. The Mad Hatter was hanging on with a tenacity that the Mad Monk, Rasputin, himself might have envied.
Before Scarpa’s final sentence was pronounced, however, his status as a TE informant would be the subject of multiple meetings with the Eastern District Feds. His own fate was close to being decided, but his decades-long relationship with the Bureau was in danger of impacting the fate of multiple Colombo war prosecutions.
Scarpa “Had Nothing Left”
During the May 6 hearing before Judge Weinstein, Scarpa had presented himself as being at death’s door. On August 27, though, he was healthy enough to call Lin DeVecchio from his Rikers Island AIDS ward and pass on a new series of allegations regarding his old nemesis Wild Bill Cutolo.
On August 27, 1993, Former telephonically contacted SSA R. LINDLEY DE VECCHIO and provided the following information: Source said WILLIAM CUTOLO is a Capo in the COLOMBO LCN Family who was a strong supporter of VIC ORENA, and continues to be the main force in the ORENA faction. CUTOLO continues to meet at a club on 63rd street and 11th Ave. Brooklyn, New York where he discusses his illegal activities. . . . The source identified the following as bei
ng in CUTOLO’s crew:
FRANK IANNACI . . .
JOSEPH “Jo Jo” RUSSO
VINCENT DIMARTINO
GABE SCIANNA . . .
VINCENT FUSARO—Deceased
The source said the above individuals have conducted loansharking activities for CUTOLO, and were sent out as “hit teams” during the height of the COLOMBO War.21
In his book Lin appears to disparage that report, describing it as “a lot of stale information.” He then denigrates his heretofore trusted source by writing that “Greg Scarpa was well out of the loop at this point.” As if to comment on Senior’s deterioration from AIDS, Lin writes that Greg “had nothing left.”
Then Lin writes that on September 29, he was “summoned to a meeting at Valerie Caproni’s office.” Caproni was the former AUSA who had supervised Greg Jr.’s 1987 DEA prosecution. Back then, she had crossed swords with the Bureau by dispatching U.S. Marshals to find Junior after he’d become a fugitive. In those days there was no love lost between DeVecchio and Caproni, and later, during Lin’s OPR, she told investigators that she was “displeased with the FBI’s efforts to locate Scarpa Jr.”22
Caproni, a tough-talking Southerner with a masculine demeanor, had left the EDNY in 1989, but she returned to Brooklyn in 1992 and was put in charge of the Colombo family war prosecutions. She was later appointed chief of the EDNY’s Criminal Division.23 Now the relationship between DeVecchio and his source threatened to derail the war cases if the full truth of their association came out.
Valerie Caproni
(United Press International)
By the early fall, despite Lin’s suggestion in his book that Scarpa Sr. had pretty much shot his load as a source, Greg Sr.’s attorney Stephen Kartagener made an audacious offer. He actually approached the EDNY and “proffered his client’s cooperation in return for being released from prison.”24
The September 29 meeting in Caproni’s office was attended by Kartagener, Scarpa, DeVecchio, Chris Favo, and George Stamboulidis. Curiously, also in attendance was Special Agent James Brennan from the Lucchese Squad.
Calling “Gaspipe” the Source
At first glance, the attendance of an agent whose work didn’t involve Colombo issues seemed unusual, since Greg Sr.’s secret status as a Top Echelon source was to be the principal topic of conversation. But as the meeting progressed, the reason for Brennan’s presence became clear.
Lin later wrote that at the meeting, Scarpa Sr. appeared “emaciated. His skin was gray and he wore an eye patch.”25 After Greg made what DeVecchio called a “pitch” to cooperate, Lin reportedly left the meeting while Scarpa, his lawyer, and Brennan stayed behind.26 As Caproni later told FBI investigators during DeVecchio’s OPR investigation, she then asked Scarpa if he had a law enforcement source. But Greg reportedly denied it, insisting that “he received his law enforcement information from . . . ‘Gaspipe’ Casso,” the Lucchese underboss, who’d been captured in January.27
That revelation seemed to clear DeVecchio as the source of the leaks.
In his book, Lin treats this Casso disclosure as his ultimate vindication. He writes that he never knew what happened in that meeting after he left until years later, when he was defending his reputation during the OPR. After reading Caproni’s account, DeVecchio writes, “I did some long slow breathing to calm down. Then I put Caproni’s OPR interview down, went to my garage, got out my motorcycle, and went for a long hard ride.”28 He goes on to contend that, since Casso had later confessed to FBI agents Rudolph and Brennan that he’d received intelligence over the years from disgraced detectives Lou Eppolito and Stephen Caracappa, and since Casso and Scarpa had shared members of each other’s Bypass crews, it only made sense that intel from the Mafia Cops had found its way to “34” through Gaspipe.29
But in a subsequent 302, Caproni admitted that after Casso began cooperating he “told the interviewing FBI agents that he never provided any information to Scarpa Sr.”30 And, as we’ll soon see, in the FBI’s interviews with Gaspipe at La Tuna federal prison in the spring of 1994, Casso not only denied leaking intel to Scarpa, he actually accused DeVecchio of being one of the two “crooked agents” he’d received intelligence from over the years.31
It’s worth noting that the idea of Casso as Scarpa’s source could not have come as a surprise to the Feds. It’s only logical that one of the participants at that meeting in Caproni’s office must have had some advance warning that Gaspipe’s name would come up; otherwise, why, out of the hundreds of agents in the FBI’s NYO, would Jim Brennan—a Lucchese Squad agent, who later went on to debrief Casso at La Tuna—be asked to attend? And there’s another question: Why would Scarpa, who’d been supplying the FBI with detailed information—truthful or not—off and on for thirty-two years, suddenly expect to get out of jail in return for “cooperating”?
In an e-mail exchange with me, Brennan, who retired from the FBI, said, “Caproni invited me to the 9/29/93 meeting because I was involved in the ongoing investigation of law enforcement leaks. In that meeting, Scarpa said he never received information from DeVecchio or any other FBI agent. Scarpa added that he did not know the identity of anyone in law enforcement allegedly providing information to Casso.”32
Given all that the Feds had to lose from any further connection to Scarpa, Valerie Caproni passed on his offer to cooperate. But it’s crucial to note that by now, as she supervised the seventy-five war prosecutions, Caproni’s attitude toward Lin DeVecchio shifted from her critical stance back in 1987.
At this point, in 1993, the Scarpa-DeVecchio scandal was threatening to undermine many of her war cases. So keeping Lin in the fold was an important strategic move for Caproni. That may explain why, in a second major debriefing by OPR investigators in September 1994, Caproni seemed to go out of her way to note that “SSA DeVecchio did not try to apply any pressure to convince her or her assistants to enter into an agreement with Scarpa Sr. for his cooperation.”33
The War Continues
Meanwhile, if anyone in the FBI’s New York Office thought locking Greg Scarpa away in a prison ward on Rikers Island would end the Colombo war, they were mistaken. On the night of October 20, 1993, three weeks after Scarpa’s offer of cooperation, Joe Scopo, the former Orena underboss who himself had been targeted with Vic back in June 1991, was shot to death by a team of hooded gunmen as he left his house in Queens.
Scopo was the son of Ralph Scopo Sr., the former head of the so-called concrete club who had been convicted in the Mafia Commission case as a result of Title III wiretaps for which “34” supplied the probable cause. The elder Scopo had died in prison the previous March; now the Persico faction added another name to the list of war deaths.34
Joe Scopo had been returning home with his nephew and future son-in-law when the masked assassins fired with a MAC-10 and a .380 semiautomatic pistol. Still in his car when they started shooting, Scopo bolted and ran, but he was hit twice in the abdomen and chest. His nephew was struck in the arm. A total of twenty-three shell casings were recovered following the fusillade. With Scopo’s death, the war officially came to an end.
In varying media accounts, the number of deaths attributed to this third conflict in the Colombo family ranged from ten35 to fifteen.36 By November 1992, testifying as an expert witness at Vic Orena Sr.’s trial, Lin DeVecchio put the number of war deaths at ten, including Hank Smurra, Gaetano Amato, Sam Nastasi, Vincent Fusaro, Matteo Speranza, Nicholas Grancio, John Minerva, Michael Imbergamo, Larry Lampasi, and Vincent Giangiobbe.
At that time, DeVecchio also testified that another “fourteen individuals had been shot,” including the wounding of Colombo associate Steven Mancusi on February 7, 1992.37 But on October 7 a second attempt was made on Mancusi, just as with “Joe Waverly” Cacace—and unlike Waverly, who survived Scarpa’s second fusillade, Mancusi was murdered by unknown assailants, making him the eleventh victim in the war.38 Joe Scopo’s rubout in 1993 rounded out the official toll to a dozen murders—in half of which, as we’ve demonstrated,
Greg Scarpa Sr. played a part.
Moreover, if one accepts the premise that “34” not only engineered the final Colombo conflict but preceded it with his “plan B” attempt to frame Vic Orena for the Tommy Ocera murder, then it’s fair to include Ocera’s homicide in November 198939 and Jack Leale’s killing in November 1991,40 bringing the death toll to fourteen.
Slipping in and out of Reality
On December 15, 1993, Greg Scarpa made one final pitch for a deal. Once again he was the Machiavellian strategist, hoping to parlay his medical condition into another excuse for avoiding jail time. Now, just months after he’d tried to trade his release for “cooperation,” with his lawyer arguing that he still had valuable intel to offer the Feds, Scarpa sent Kartagener to insist that his client was suffering from “AIDS related dementia.” As Scarpa stood beside him before Judge Weinstein’s bench, Kartagener argued that Greg “was . . . slipping in and out of reality.”41
Alleging that Scarpa was “getting into delusional states” as a result of “the drug therapy that he was undergoing,” the attorney asked Weinstein to consider keeping Scarpa “in a medical environment until he may become ready for sentencing, which may never occur.”42
But the judge responded, “Mr. Scarpa appears to me to be understanding exactly what I’m saying,” and Scarpa quickly agreed, saying, “Yes, your honor.”43
“Any prison sentence that’s imposed here in this case, I submit is, of course, the equivalent of a death sentence,” said Kartagener, “even if it’s a year long.” He went on to argue that a presentence report had indicated that Scarpa’s “diseased body” would “warrant downward departure,” or a shorter sentence. “That might sound ironic, when I make an argument like that on behalf of Greg Scarpa,” the lawyer continued. “Mr. Scarpa’s reputation precedes him into this courtroom.”44