Deal With the Devil: The FBI's Secret Thirty-Year Relationship With a Mafia Killer

by Peter Lance

  ON JANUARY 30, 1990 SOURCE ADVISED THAT HAS RECENTLY BEEN TALKING ABOUT THE “HIT” ON GUS FARACE, AND SAID THAT THE OPERATION WAS SET UP BY LOUIS TUZZIO AT THE REQUEST OF . THE SOURCE SAID THAT WAS SUPPOSED TO BE ONE OF THE SHOOTERS AND WAS AWARE OF THE IMPENDING HIT ON FARACE BUT HAD NO IDEA THAT HE WAS TO BE INCLUDED. AS A RESULT OF BEING SHOT, AND THE FACT THAT IS A GAMBINO MEMBER, JOHN GOTTI ORDERED THE KILLING OF LOUIS TUZZIO.18

  Unless his was one of the redacted names, Scarpa’s account left out any connection between himself and his nephew. But in a line sure to excite the FBI brass, which was obsessed with “getting” John Gotti, the 209 blames the Tuzzio murder on the Gambino boss.

  Despite the anemic file on “34’s” discussion of the Hatcher homicide, Lin went out of his way at the end of that 209 to note that his source had “provided extremely singular information on the murder of federal fugitive Gus Farace.”

  The question is whether DeVecchio sought to press Scarpa for help in the manhunt for Farace, and if he did, whether Scarpa reciprocated. Why had it taken nine and a half months for Mafia killers to catch up with Gus, who was so close to his uncle Greg that Scarpa knew Farace had suspected Hatcher of being an informant? We don’t know whether the DEA was privy to any of those 209s—or, if they were, whether the memos were similarly redacted.

  “The only possible justification for allowing a killer like Scarpa to stay on the loose,” says retired DEA Special Agent Mike Levine, “is for the help he might offer in a case like this. If Scarpa had done anything affirmative to help the FBI find Farace you can bet it would have been in those memos to the Bureau in DC. Instead, all we get are a few lines on one of the most violent murders of a DEA agent in recent New York memory.”19

  The Murderous 1980s

  Whether or not Greg Scarpa Sr. played a role directly or indirectly in the murder of his nephew Gus, the record of homicides associated with “34” in the first ten years he was “controlled” by Supervisory Special Agent Lin DeVecchio is startling. The following chart lists seventeen murders directly attributed to Gregory Scarpa Sr. from June 1980, when he was reopened, to the end of 1989:

  Dominick Somma

  August 1980

  Eli Shkolnik

  December 1980

  Robert “Bucky” DiLeonardi

  July 1981

  Alfred Longobardi, limo driver

  July 1982

  Sal Cardaci

  January 1983

  Jose Guzman, limo driver

  1983

  Loan shark “victim” killed at Occasions

  Date unknown

  Albie Variale

  July 1983

  Mary Bari

  September 1984

  Peter Crupi

  August 1985

  Anthony Frezza

  October 1985

  Albert Nacha

  December 1985

  Michael Yodice and Jose Lopez

  December 1986

  Ray Shapiro

  Date unknown

  Sal Scarpa

  January 1987

  Joe DeDomenico

  September 1987

  With the exception of Sal Scarpa, whose murder by his brother was confirmed by Anthony Casso and Little Linda Schiro, I’ve been able to document every one of these homicides independently via trial transcripts, FBI 302s, or other official sources—except for Variale, Yodice, Lopez, and Shapiro, who were named as Scarpa murder victims by Judge Pierre Leval of the Second Circuit in the appeal of Greg Jr.’s 1989 DEA conviction.20 Of those seventeen homicides, however, the only ones mentioned in Lin DeVecchio’s 209 reports to Washington were Dominick Somma, Joseph DeDomenico, and Peter Crupi.

  As noted earlier, neither the Somma nor the Brewster reports implicated Scarpa. The most glaring omission, of course, was any report marking the homicide of Sal Scarpa, whose murder was covered by the New York Times in two separate stories. The first story appeared two days after his death on January 14, 1987.21 The second came on October 10, when the elder Scarpa’s hit was cited in an article on the ten mob-related rubouts in Brooklyn that year.22

  The headline of the second piece was “Puzzle of Gangland-Style Killings Eludes Brooklyn Police,” and it could hardly have been missed by special agents in the FBI’s New York Office who worked organized crime. Lin DeVecchio, who was already running the Bonanno Squad and about to take over the Colombo Squad, surely saw it. Greg Scarpa Sr. was arguably the most important TE informant in the NYO.

  How was it, then, that in DeVecchio’s 209s to Washington, which reported dozens of other details from Scarpa on the Colombo family, the murder of his own brother wasn’t mentioned? If it was, it wasn’t included in the 1,153 pages of newly released files on DeVecchio’s notorious informant. Even if Lin was ignorant of the fact that his star informant had committed the murder, how could such a high-profile rubout relating to another Colombo capo seemingly go unnoticed?

  The next omission in DeVecchio’s 209s arguably rises to the level of a distortion. It involves the murder of Staten Island drug dealer Peter Crupi, who was shot on August 2, 1985, as part of the takeover by the Scarpas of his distribution network on Staten Island. The rubout of Crupi, along with Albert Nacha, was cited by the EDNY U.S. attorney in the 1987 DEA case against Greg Jr. and his crew. It was that pending indictment that turned Junior into a fugitive. Yet the first reference to Crupi in one of DeVecchio’s 209s didn’t come until February 22, 1989, more than three and a half years later. In a six-page teletype to the FBI director, sent in March 1989, reporting on his debriefings of Greg Scarpa Sr. (“Source”), DeVecchio writes:

  ON FEBRUARY 22ND, 1989 SOURCE ADVISED THAT PETER CRUPI, A SMALL TIME MARIJUANA DEALER WAS KILLED BY A RIVAL DRUG DEALER JIMMY DUNNE IN A RIPOFF OF $25,000.00 BUY MONEY. THE SOURCE SAID DUNNE WAS KILLED IN TURN, BUT NOT BY ANY MEMBERS OF THE COLOMBO FAMILY. THE SOURCE SAID THE HIT ON DUNNE WAS PROBABLY HANDLED BY THE BRENNAN CREW, WHO AT ONE TIME HANDLED ALL THE MARIJUANA DISTRIBUTION IN THE BENSONHURST AREA OF BROOKLYN.23

  Consider this report of a Scarpa Sr. debriefing by Lin DeVecchio against what we now know to be the truth. First, the date suggests that it was fresh intelligence, not information on a murder from 1985. Second, it ignores the alleged involvement of Greg Scarpa Jr. in the homicide. Third, the representation of Crupi, who ran a network grossing $10,000 a night, as a “small time” dealer is another distortion.

  Should Lin DeVecchio have known about all of that? He was well aware of the DEA charges facing Greg Scarpa Jr. and his crew. In fact, he was later accused of leaking them to Greg Sr. Further, a November 1987 New York Times story on the crew’s arrest listed the murders of Crupi and Nacha among the racketeering “acts” Junior was being charged with.24 So it was clearly public knowledge. How could Greg Sr.’s principal FBI contacting agent—a supervisor then running two organized crime squads—allow FBI officials to think that Peter Crupi’s rubout had taken place so recently and was unrelated to the activities of their star informant?

  Could it be that Lin DeVecchio was sanitizing his 209s on “34” to shield his source? If so, that would constitute a serious violation of the Attorney General’s Guidelines and could have amounted to obstruction of justice.25

  As to the sixteen other murders during the 1980s committed by Scarpa himself or by others at his direct order, is it possible that DeVecchio was unaware of Scarpa’s connection to any of them? In his own book, DeVecchio concedes that he knew about Scarpa’s role in the murder of the limo driver who attacked Little Linda Schiro.26 Could he have been clueless about “34’s” roles in the other fifteen?

  But if he was aware, that information never found its way into DeVecchio’s 209s. Was he actively hiding Scarpa’s involvement in those murders? Or did Lin DeVecchio have another motive in turning a blind eye to Scarpa’s death toll?

  As the years passed, homicide was the Grim Reaper’s best cover. It insulated him from suspicion within his own family that he might be an FBI “rat.” Testifying at DeVecchio’s trial in 2007, consigliere Car
mine Sessa actually gave the Bureau more credit than it deserved. The fact that Greg did “so much work,” he said—meaning so many hits—caused other members to question whether he “could . . . be cooperating.”27 The hardened wiseguys in Greg’s circle couldn’t believe that the FBI would tolerate that kind of murderous behavior in a confidential informant.

  Now, as 1989 came to a close, Greg Scarpa might have been dying of AIDS, but he wasn’t showing any signs of slowing down. In fact, as the other members of the Colombo crime family were about to find out, the Killing Machine was just gearing up for his final onslaught.

  PART III

  Chapter 21

  RUMBLINGS OF WAR

  By 1991, Gregory Scarpa Sr. had earned a new nickname. Though he’d been given only months to live back in 1986,1 he’d survived another five years and was strong enough to become the battle commander in the third war for control of the Colombo crime family. So his mob associates, who had long known Scarpa as “the Mad Hatter” and “Hannibal Lecter,” now began referring to him as “General Schwarzkopf,” after the relentless U.S. Army general who had led the coalition forces in Operation Desert Storm.2

  Despite the ravages of HIV, with his T-cell count continuing to plummet, Scarpa was later described by a federal judge as “a prolific killer” who was “perhaps the most violent combatant in the war.”3 Multiple defense attorneys would later contend that Scarpa was “aided and abetted” in his “criminal pursuits” by Lin DeVecchio.4 A series of federal appeals courts disagreed with that conclusion. But, after considering the research uncovered in this investigation, we’ll let the reader decide to what degree, if any, DeVecchio was culpable.

  In a 1992 indictment, federal prosecutors effectively blamed acting boss Vic Orena Sr. (a.k.a. “Little Vic”) for the “violent internal war in the Colombo family.” Arguing that “various members and associates” of the family “had become increasingly disenchanted” with Orena, the Feds alleged that he had been “retaining too great a share of money generated by” the borgata’s “illegal activities” and was bent on becoming “the official boss,” a position held by the imprisoned Carmine Persico.5

  Virtually every media account of the war accepted this premise,6 which was reported by veteran Mafia columnist Jerry Capeci just months before the violence broke out openly in the fall of 1991. In a piece entitled “Colombos Set to Play Family Feud,” Capeci wrote, “Sources say the feud stems from Persico’s desire to turn the crime family over to his son Alphonse, a reputed capo not scheduled to be released from federal prison until July 1993, and Orena’s desire to keep it for himself.”7

  As the OPR internal affairs investigation later revealed, one of Capeci’s alleged “sources” at the time was Lin DeVecchio.8

  But the true origin of the third Colombo war can be traced back to the power vacuum created by Greg Scarpa’s leaks of Colombo intelligence to the Bureau. That gave the Feds the probable cause they needed in the mid-1980s for the wiretaps that fueled the Mafia Commission case. After Carmine Persico was sentenced to 139 years in prison, an opening was created at the top of the family, which Scarpa brilliantly exploited. As we’ll see, while Persico and his son repeatedly trusted Vic Orena with the stewardship of the family in their absence, Scarpa made a series of moves in the background that put pressure on Orena and his most loyal captains. Those actions also sparked jealousy among Persico loyalists. The end result was that Scarpa’s machinations, aided by inside intelligence from the FBI, created a false schism in the Colombos that pitted the twenty-five to thirty Persico soldiers and capos against the seventy-odd members who saw Little Vic as the lawful godfather pro tem.

  In fact, new evidence uncovered in this investigation suggests that Scarpa first used Carmine Sessa as a mole to get close to Orena, then manipulated Sessa into making an attempt on Orena’s life, which was botched.

  But Scarpa, the master strategist, had a backup plan. If Orena couldn’t be removed by force, he would be framed. Compelling new evidence demonstrates that “34,” the FBI’s Top Echelon informant in the Colombo family, conspired to commit a murder that implicated Vic Orena Sr. in a crime he didn’t commit. It was the grisly rubout of Colombo gambler, loan shark, and restaurateur Tommy Ocera.

  Taking Out Little Vic

  At the height of the war, after several failed attempts on his life, Orena was convicted of Ocera’s murder. He was sentenced to concurrent life terms in prison and fined more than $2,250,000.9 But the evidence we’ve developed shows multiple links to Scarpa Sr. in Ocera’s rubout. Not only was there proof that Scarpa stalked him, but Greg Jr. himself has confirmed that his father had guns planted at a safe house where Orena was hiding during the war—evidence seized by the FBI that led to Orena’s guilty verdict and life sentences.10 Thus, in the end, “34,” the Machiavellian plotter, succeeded in getting the Feds to do in court what he couldn’t accomplish in the street through Sessa: namely, taking Little Vic out of play.

  Although Orena appealed the verdict and sought a new trial multiple times, he was repeatedly turned down by Judge Jack B. Weinstein, the former chief judge of the Eastern District, who also rejected multiple arguments by defense lawyers who effectively blamed the war on a conspiracy between Greg Scarpa Sr. and his FBI handler Lin DeVecchio. In a 101-page decision rejecting Orena’s first petition in 1997, Weinstein described the evidence against Orena at trial as “overwhelming.”11

  Then, after new evidence surfaced revealing DeVecchio’s questionable relationship with Scarpa, Orena petitioned again for a new trial. But Judge Weinstein rejected that motion as well.12 Vic Orena’s indictment was one of the first of seventy-five brought by the Feds in connection with the third Colombo war,13 and in a related case in 2001 Weinstein made it clear that pursuing the Scarpa-DeVecchio scandal further might cause those other prosecutions to “unravel.”14

  Today, at the age of seventy-eight, Orena is serving his life sentence at the U.S. penitentiary in Terre Haute, Indiana. At this point, with his appeals exhausted, he has little hope of seeing the light of day outside prison. But while he may be guilty of other, lesser Mafia crimes, a compelling case can be made for his innocence in the Ocera murder—particularly in light of what we now know about Greg Scarpa’s leading role in propagating the war.

  One of the Jolly Boys

  In order to examine fairly whether Vic Orena was framed for the Ocera killing, it is helpful to measure his style of management in the Mafia against that of Greg Scarpa. “Vic was essentially a nonviolent racketeer who was an incredible earner,” says one lawyer who represented him.15 Short and stocky, with piercing green eyes, Orena made millions at the height of his career as an acting boss through loan sharking, labor racketeering, and a scheme to siphon profits from gasoline taxes. But he refused to deal in narcotics, and before the war was sparked—by a threat to him—he never even carried a gun. Orena was a brilliant businessman who reliably kicked his profits up to Persico, which is why the Snake trusted him to be acting boss. But he was a serious impediment to Greg Scarpa, who sought to dominate the family, and new evidence demonstrates that Scarpa Sr. conspired to take him down.16

  I did an extensive series of interviews with three of Orena’s five sons: Andrew, a film producer who was never involved in the mob, and his older brothers, John (known as “Johnny Boy”) and Vic Jr., both of whom were made members of the Colombo family. By 2007, when we first talked, the latter two had each been paroled after serving prison sentences.

  Often referred to as “Vic Jr.,” Victor, the son, was christened Victor Michael Orena. (His father was Victor John.) The younger Vic had been a Colombo captain. As we’ll see, both he and John were initially acquitted by a jury in 1995 after evidence of the Scarpa-DeVecchio relationship surfaced.17 It proved to be a stunning rebuke for the Feds and an embarrassment that threatened all of the Colombo war cases.18 But the brothers were later convicted of other mob-related crimes. The three older sons and their younger brothers, Peter and Paulie (also “civilians”), have worked for years to
establish their father’s innocence in the Ocera murder and secure his release.

  Born Vittorio Orena on August 4, 1934, the elder Orena earned the nickname Little Vic after anglicizing his name to Victor.19 When he was five years old his father died, and according to Andrew, it affected him deeply:

  “My grandfather was dying of tuberculosis,” he told me, “and my father was at his bedside. When my grandfather got thirsty he would ask him for water and my father would run and get it. One day when he was close to the end, my grandfather said, ‘Vito, acqua . . .’ And when my father came back, his father said, ‘I’m not gonna need it. I just saw the Lady in White,’ meaning the Virgin Mary. So when he died, my father took it as a sign that God was not really there for him. After that, without a strong male figure to guide him, he took another path in life.”

  Vic’s antipathy toward the church only increased, Andrew said, after he was sent to Lincoln Hall, a reform school that the New York Times referred to as “a Roman Catholic home for maladjusted boys.”20

  By the time he became a teenager, Vic was running with the Jolly Boys, described by Vic Jr. as “a classic 1950s gang of Italian and Irish kids” who rumbled with other gangs. “It was all leather jackets and zip guns,” he said. “They did a series of petty crimes. But it was around this time that my father experienced a real humiliation from the cops.”

  “He was always a snappy dresser,” Andrew said, picking up the story. “He loved clothes and prided himself in his appearance. He had a great head of hair, which he combed in a pompadour like they did back then. But one day my father took a pinch for some minor offense and the police said, ‘Come here, you little Guinea bastard.’”