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

by Peter Lance

  Even if DeVecchio never got a call from Scarpa, as he insists, and Favo didn’t pull the surveillance teams away in response, Lin had to know that Grancio was a prime target for the Grim Reaper.

  How can we say that for sure? Because we now have the 209 that Lin wrote on January 8, 1992, the day after the murder. It’s clear from this memo that DeVecchio understood the importance of “Nicky Black” to Vic Orena:

  On January 8, 199[2] advised SSA R. LINDLEY DE VECCHIO that the “hit” on NICKY GRANCIO was done by the PERSICO faction of the COLOMBO Family. The source said GRANCIO was the main go-between for VIC ORENA and was a very influential ally of ORENA’s.38

  Once again, quoting Scarpa, DeVecchio writes that the homicide was done by the “PERSICO faction,” without naming his own informant. But even if we ignore that lapse, or write it off as negligence on Lin’s part, we’re confronted with that line in the Greg Smith–Jerry Capeci piece, “This one’s for Carmine!” The line referred to Carmine “the Snake” Persico, in whose name Scarpa was supposedly waging the war. We know from testimony in the William Cutolo trial that right after he shot Grancio, Scarpa paged the other Carmine—Sessa—and punched in the digits 6-6-6 to let him know that “the work” had been done.39 We know that Capeci spoke to DeVecchio regularly. Could he have learned about Scarpa’s alleged cry of revenge without talking to Lin?

  In my interview with Larry Mazza in January 2013 he shed new light on that issue, insisting that at the time he fired the shotgun blast that killed Grancio, Scarpa Sr. said nothing.

  “This is what happened,” said Mazza. “And it’s the truth. He [Scarpa] never said a word. But after [the shooting] he told Carmine Sessa that he’d said that. ‘This one’s for Carmine . . .’ OK? It was like he had to embellish it. But he never said it at the time.”40

  Clearly that embellishment by “34” was communicated to Lin DeVecchio, who cites the “Carmine” line in his book.41 In any case, following the Grancio rubout, with details only the killer could have known (or made up), Lin had an apparent confirmation that “34” had participated in the grisly homicide. The question is, why didn’t the FBI shut down Scarpa then and there and come clean to EDNY prosecutors, pursuant to DOJ guidelines? Despite mounting evidence that Scarpa had murdered one of Vic Orena’s top captains, they did nothing to rein him in.42

  After the hit on Grancio, Greg Scarpa Sr. went on to commit at least one more murder that he later admitted to, and he has been linked to two others. But it would take months before he was closed as a source—and even after that, Lin DeVecchio would lobby Washington successfully to reopen him. But DeVecchio’s apparent lack of candor in that January 8 memo is the least of the unanswered questions connected to the death of Nicky Black. As we’ll see, in the months ahead, as the FBI desperately sought to explain how so much intelligence was leaking out of 26 Federal Plaza and finding its way to the mob, they acted affirmatively to set up one of their own.

  The Arrest of Detective Simone

  On the morning of his retirement, following a stellar law enforcement career, federal agents appeared at Joe Simone’s door and accused him of being a Colombo mole.

  Not only were the charges patently false, as a federal jury later determined, but in an effort to convict him, FBI agents put Simone himself under the kind of surveillance that would have saved Nicky Grancio’s life. On one occasion, eight separate FBI agents followed him to try to prove that he was secretly talking to wiseguys.43

  One of the best law enforcement officers the Feds had against the Colombo crime family, Detective Joe Simone, was falsely branded a rogue cop. And, though he’s been cleared of criminal wrongdoing, Simone has been fighting ever since to reclaim his NYPD pension and his good name.

  We’ll get to the details of that shocking story after we assess the continuing violence from the third war for control of the Colombo family.

  Meanwhile, despite Greg Scarpa’s prediction to Lin DeVecchio that Vic Orena’s arrest would “temporarily halt the shooting,” it went on long after Orena was locked up—proving that Orena wasn’t the real problem. The third war for control of the Colombo crime family wouldn’t come to an end until the Hannibal Lecter of Brooklyn was finally behind bars.

  Chapter 28

  CLOSING AND REOPENING “34”

  Four days after the shotgun blast from Scarpa Sr.’s death car hit Nicky Grancio’s head, Special Agent Chris Favo learned that “34” was responsible. We know that because of the sworn testimony of Detective Pat Maggiore in the 1994 trial of Bill Cutolo.1 Favo himself testified at the same trial that his report to Maggiore on Scarpa’s involvement came on January 11, 1992.2 But despite the mounting evidence of Greg’s direct involvement in the war violence, no search warrants were executed for his home or vehicles. He was never brought in for questioning or made to stand in a lineup. Other than Scarpa’s debriefings like the one memorialized in the “Kitchen 302” and the 209s in which he gave misleading information, there was zero effort by the Bureau to interdict his murder spree. In fact, the FBI actually rewarded him.

  On January 24, almost two weeks after Favo fingered Scarpa as Grancio’s killer, Lin DeVecchio sent a detailed 209 to Washington. After falsely naming “Richie Fusco’s crew” as responsible for the Grancio murder, he noted that, on December 5, “Bureau authority was granted for an additional $5,000 under SAC authority” to be paid to Scarpa. That payment was approved the very day before Scarpa gunned down Vincent Fusaro in front of his wife while he was putting up Christmas lights.3

  But a week later, perhaps sensing that Scarpa’s spiraling violence would eventually result in additional deaths, DeVecchio sent what retired FBI agent Dan Vogel described as a “cover your butt” memo to the New York SAC. It was framed as an eleven-point advisory to Scarpa, whose name was redacted.

  Memorandum

  To: SAC

  Date: 2/3/92

  From: SSA R. LINDLEY DEVECCHIO, C-10

  Subject:

  On 1/30/92, was again advised of the following:

  (A) Assistance voluntary—informant’s assistance is strictly voluntary and will not exempt him/her from arrest or prosecution of any violation of law except where such violations were approved pursuant to Attorney General Guidelines.

  (B) Informant is not an employee or undercover Agent of the FBI.

  (C) Informant’s relationship must be maintained in the strictest confidence and the relationship is not to be divulged to anyone. The FBI will take all possible steps to maintain the full confidentiality of the informant’s relationship with the FBI.

  (D) Informant is to report positive information as promptly as possible.

  (E) The informant was advised of pertinent FBI jurisdiction.

  (F) The informant shall not participate in acts of violence.

  (G) The informant shall not use unlawful techniques to obtain information for the FBI.

  (H) Informant shall not initiate a plan to commit a criminal act.

  (I) Informant shall not participate in criminal activities of persons under investigation except insofar as the FBI determines that such participation is necessary to obtain the information needed for purposes of Federal prosecution.

  (J) All informant payments are income and taxable for Federal income tax purpose.

  (K) Informant’s relationship with the FBI will not protect him/her from arrest or local prosecution for any violation of Federal, state, or local law, except insofar as determined pursuant to Attorney General Guidelines.

  “There’s little doubt,” says Vogel, “that at this point Scarpa had gone way past being an asset and had become a serious and dangerous liability. But apparently the supervisors above DeVecchio were still unwilling to pull the plug on him—so this memo, in which Scarpa was warned not to commit violent crimes, was a way for the brass to insulate themselves later on if the you-know-what hit the fan.”4

  Also at that point, DeVecchio decided to spread the risk. For the first time since 1980, he made an exception to his one-on-one relationshi
p with Scarpa. Chris Favo, who first learned of “34’s” identity in June 1991,5 would now serve as Greg’s backup contacting agent “in an emergency.”6 The admonitions in that February 3 memorandum were clear. Scarpa was forbidden from committing any acts of violence. But if, in fact, DeVecchio actually had the temerity to pass on those warnings to his charge, they had little effect. Scarpa was already planning his next hit.

  On the day before he met with DeVecchio to receive that “advisory,” Scarpa reported on Joel “Joe Waverly” Cacace, a Colombo capo with whom Greg had been feuding for five years, after Waverly began spreading rumors that Scarpa was an informant.7 Now, in his self-serving debriefing with DeVecchio, Scarpa passed on the provocative intelligence that Cacace had “a club on East 14th Street and Avenue U,” where he kept “an apartment upstairs which may now be used as a location for one of the ‘hit’ teams.”8

  Earlier, Scarpa had reported to DeVecchio that “an attempt was made to hit . . . CACACE on December 4th or 5th by The Persico Faction.” But the 209 on that debriefing did not name Scarpa as the one who pulled the trigger.9

  A few days after New Year’s, the killing trio of Scarpa, Mazza, and Del Masto had spotted Waverly in his car on East Third Street and Avenue U in Gravesend and pulled alongside him. Scarpa attempted to fire a TEC-9 auto pistol but it jammed, at which point Cacace fired back from two feet away, shattering the window of their van. Scarpa literally had glass in his hair as the van sped away.10 By late February, he was grinding his teeth for a chance to finish off Cacace.

  Now on February 26, a little over three weeks after that memo reminding Scarpa that he was forbidden from participating in “acts of violence,” he fired fourteen shots with a rifle as Cacace left his dry cleaner near the Party Room Social Club in Sheepshead Bay.11 Although Cacace returned fire with a handgun, he was no match for Scarpa, who was an expert marksman. Cacace fell to the ground seriously wounded in the stomach and groin.12

  Mazza, who had been listening to a police scanner, heard a report that a man had been shot and ambulances were on the way, so Scarpa’s murder wagon sped off. Mazza later testified that they switched vehicles and returned to Scarpa’s house.13 Greg then reported the shooting to Carmine Sessa, noting that he’d hit Cacace a few times in the stomach.14

  DeVecchio Warns “34” of an Arrest

  The next day, Carmine Imbriale, a member of Carmine Sessa’s crew, was arrested on a drug charge by veteran detective George Terra of the Brooklyn DA’s office. Imbriale soon agreed to flip, not only to become a cooperating witness (CW) but also to strap on a wire and bravely go back into the street to try to incriminate other members.

  In a phone conversation after the arrest, Terra told Chris Favo that Imbriale had attended a dinner the night before at a Red Lobster restaurant where Scarpa had bragged about wounding Cacace that morning.15

  Then, after hanging up with Terra, Favo briefed his boss, Lin DeVecchio, on Imbriale’s admissions. In an FBI 302 written during Lin’s OPR, Favo made a stunning allegation about a phone call DeVecchio then received from Scarpa on C-10’s “Hello” phone:

  During the briefing, DeVecchio received a telephone call. DeVecchio listened to the caller and then said, “I don’t know what he’s saying about you. We haven’t even talked to him yet. The Brooklyn DA has him.” From the context of the conversation I suspected he was talking to Scarpa. When DeVecchio hung up the phone I asked him who he spoke to and he stated it was “34” . . . a name which DeVecchio used when referring to Scarpa.16

  Favo later testified that he was alarmed at this disclosure because it put Imbriale at great risk of being killed by Scarpa.17 In fact, Favo was so concerned about the jeopardy that Imbriale was now in, thanks to Lin’s “Hello” phone leak, that he suggested to DeVecchio that he should tell Scarpa he’d been overheard on a wiretap threatening the new snitch, and that “if anything happened to Imbriale, Scarpa would immediately be arrested.”

  Favo testified that at first he thought that DeVecchio had been merely “careless” in disclosing Imbriale’s arrest to Scarpa, but over time he came to conclude that what DeVecchio had done, in potentially threatening Imbriale’s safety, was “criminal.”18 In his memoir, DeVecchio writes that after that phone call Favo started “withholding significant information from [DeVecchio], his supervisor.”19

  Later, when he interviewed Imbriale himself, Favo learned that at that Red Lobster dinner Scarpa had literally “toasted” his shooting of Cacace, exclaiming, “This is one for the good guys.”20 That story only confirmed what Favo already knew in relation to the Grancio murder: that Scarpa was committing new acts of violence during the war, in violation of the February 3 memorandum.

  On February 25, DeVecchio filed a 209 in which he quoted Scarpa as disclosing that “a contract to hit Frankie the Bug SCIORTINO had been put out from CARMINE PERSICO to his brother Teddy PERSICO, who, in turn, got word to Joe ‘Fish’ MARRA.” Marra was a member of Scarpa’s crew and was so close to Greg Scarpa that he’d been with him during the alleged shootout outside his house on Eighty-Second Street in November. According to that 209, Marra was told to “reach out” to a pair of Colombo associates to kill Sciortino, who was then serving time in a federal prison.21

  That report became hugely significant because the contract passed to Joe Fish had to have come from Scarpa, his immediate supervisor in the family. To make matters worse, another Top Echelon informant had independently confirmed that Scarpa himself was involved in the murder plot.22 That constituted another direct violation of one of the warnings in that February 3 memo—that Scarpa couldn’t “initiate a plan to commit a criminal act.”

  So on February 27, the day after Scarpa “gut-shot” Cacace, DeVecchio’s supervisor, Donald North, issued a directive for him to close Scarpa “immediately.”23 According to that closing memo, DeVecchio was instructed not to “initiate any contact with the source . . . and that [Scarpa] should remove himself from any involvement in the factional war.”24

  Naturally, the Mad Hatter ignored the warning.

  The Pastry Shop Murders

  On the night of March 25, John Minerva, a Colombo captain, was closing up the pastry shop he owned on North Broadway in Massapequa, Long Island.25 He walked to his car, which was being driven by an associate named Michael Imbergamo. Shortly after Minerva got in, shots rang out and the two men were murdered.

  Five days later, despite his inactive status, Scarpa contacted DeVecchio and blamed the killings on forces loyal to “Jo Jo” and Chuckie Russo, members of the Persico faction.

  March 31, 1992: The source said that the hit on JOHN MINERVA was handled by Jo Jo and Chuckie RUSSO’s people. The source said MICHAEL IMBERGAMO who was shot with MINERVA was a COLOMBO associate and was purposely taken out along with MINERVA.26

  As far back as January 1982, Scarpa had implicated the Russos in the attack on Colombo family pornographer Joseph Peraino Sr. and his son, who were on the receiving end of gunfire from a crew that included Minerva. It was that home-invasion shotgun murder that also led to the tragic death of the former nun Veronica Zuraw.27 Now, in what became known as “the pastry shop murders,” the supposed motive for the double slaying was that Minerva, a longtime Persico loyalist, had changed sides during the war.

  But after Carmine Sessa began talking to the Feds new evidence surfaced suggesting the Russos weren’t involved. Once he became a cooperating witness in 1993, Sessa reported that Minerva owed the Russos some $90,000 in a loan-sharking debt. That made him a highly unlikely target if they ever wished to collect.28 In the Colombo family, where soldiers often changed loyalties to capos, a money debt routinely trumped a violation of allegiance as a factor in who lived or died.

  Following their convictions, the Russos and a codefendant, Joseph Monteleone, argued that it was Greg Scarpa Sr. who was responsible for the Minerva-Imbergamo hit—and, in testimony at a later hearing, Greg Jr. agreed.29

  The younger Scarpa testified under oath that the hit had been carried out by his father and “a k
id” named Eric Curcio. Senior reportedly told his son that Curcio “took a shot” at Imbergamo and missed, so Junior’s “father and this Curcio located him and took him out. The fellow in the car with him was also taken out,” Junior said.30

  The Russos and Monteleone argued on appeal that the Feds had withheld key exculpatory evidence in the form of DeVecchio’s 209s, which would have proven to a jury that Scarpa had repeatedly lied to DeVecchio about other war murders he’d committed. So they were granted a new trial.31 But the Second Circuit reaffirmed the guilty verdicts, concluding that the evidence of Scarpa’s involvement in other murders was insufficient to clear the Russos for the Minerva and Imbergamo slayings.32

  Years later, in 2011, new evidence surfaced calling their conviction into question. Frank “Frankie Blue Eyes” Sparaco, whom Colombo capo Sal Miciotta had fingered as one of the members of the 1982 Peraino hit team, admitted that he’d previously lied to the Feds about his role in the Minerva-Imbergamo killings. His admission caused headlines because of the revelation that at the time of the pastry shop murders, Sparaco was also acting as an FBI informant.33 It was an extraordinary revelation. It meant that besides Greg Scarpa, the Bureau had a second CI during the Colombo war who was committing murders while passing information to Bureau agents.

  The Russos’ culpability was further called into question following a June 4, 2008, indictment by the U.S. attorney in Brooklyn, charging Thomas Gioeli, the acting Colombo boss, with the Minerva and Imbergamo hit.34 On May 9, 2012, while convicted on racketeering and conspiracy charges, Gioeli was cleared of direct involvement in the pastry shop murders. The jury didn’t believe that he’d pulled the trigger himself.35