by Peter Lance
23. “Hadassah Sets Teas,” Long Beach Press-Telegram, August 12, 1960.
24. “Miss Israel of 1960 on East Honeymoon,” Long Beach Press-Telegram, March 26, 1961.
25. “IBC Beauty in Romance: Miss Israel Elopes, Weds in Las Vegas,” Long Beach Press-Telegram, March 25, 1961.
26. “Miss Israel Gets a Congratulatory Call After the Show,” Long Beach Press-Telegram, August 12, 1960.
27. Ibid.
28. Jerry Capeci, “Ex-Agent Is Probed in Murder of a Doctor,” New York Sun, April 27, 2006.
29. Jerry Capeci, “Search for Lili Dajani,”New York Sun, February 11, 2007.
30. Jerry Capeci, “Prosecutors: Murder Is FBI Man’s ‘Bad,’” New York Sun, September 6, 2007.
31. Ibid.
32. Ibid.
33. Alice McQuillan, “Judge: 5th Mob Hit Can’t Be Linked to DeVecchio,” WNBC-TV, October 10, 2007: “A fifth mob hit can’t be linked to a retired FBI agent about to go on trial for allegedly helping the mafia commit four other slayings, according to a ruling Wednesday. However Brooklyn prosecutors did win their bid to raise allegations that retired agent R. Lindley DeVecchio accepted money and gifts from the mob for feeding confidential law enforcement information to the late Gregory Scarpa Sr., a powerful Colombo family capo who was also a government informant. Brooklyn supreme court justice Gustin Reichbach called the fifth murder ‘highly prejudicial,’ suggesting that prosecutors already had ample allegations of homicide.”
34. FBI letterhead memo (LHM), March 1, 1981, 1–4.
35. Transcript of press conference unsealing indictment in People v. R. Lindley DeVecchio, March 30, 2006.
36. Anderson Cooper, Andy Court, and Anya Bourg, “The FBI’s Lin DeVecchio and ‘the Grim Reaper,’” 60 Minutes, CBS News, May 18, 2011.
37. Anthony Villano with Gerald Astor, Brick Agent: Inside the Mafia for the FBI (New York: Quadrangle, 1977), 68.
38. Jerry Capeci, “Echoes of Mob War Reverberate 15 Years Later,” New York Daily News, July 20, 2006.
39. DeVecchio and Brandt,We’re Going to Win This Thing, 219.
40. Special Agents Jeffrey W. Tomlinson and Howard Leadbetter II, FBI 302 memo re: Carmine Sessa, May 10, 1993.
41. Tomlinson and Leadbetter II, FBI 302 memo, April 27, 1993.
42. Special Agents Jeffrey W. Tomlinson and Howard Leadbetter II, FBI 302 memo re: Carmine Sessa, May 6, 1993.
43. John Kroger, Convictions (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2008), 135.
44. Ibid.
45. Tomlinson and Leadbetter II, FBI 302 memo, May 6, 1993.
46. Ibid.
47. Interview with Little Linda Schiro, “I Married a Mobster,” Investigation, episode 6, Discovery Channel, airdate December 3, 2011.
48. Brad Hamilton, “Daddy’s a Death Machine,” New York Post, May 27, 2012.
49. DeVecchio and Brandt, We’re Going to Win This Thing, 123.
50. Hamilton, “Daddy’s a Death Machine.”
51. “Attorney General’s Guidelines on FBI Use of Informants and Confidential Sources,” part F (promulgated 1980; superseded 1996).
52. “Attorney General’s Guidelines Regarding the Use of Confidential Informants,” part C(l)(b)(i) (promulgated 2002).
53. Kroger, Convictions, 135.
CHAPTER 12: GOING TO HELL FOR THIS
1. “Alphonse Persico, 61, Is Dead; Leader of Colombo Crime Family,”New York Times, September 13, 1989.
2. People v. R. Lindley DeVecchio, testimony of Detective Tommy Dades, NYPD (ret.), August 15, 2007, transcript of Kastigar hearing, 622.
3. Jennifer Fermino and Todd Venezia, “Romance and Rubout of Mafia Kingpin’s Moll Doll,” New York Post, February 26, 2006, reproduced on the website: theChicago http://www.thechicagosyndicate.com/2006/02/romance-and-rubout-of-mafia-kingpins.html.
4. Jerry Capeci, “Former Mob-Busting Agent to Be Charged with Murder in Mafia Hits,” New York Sun, March 9, 2006.
5. John Kroger, Convictions (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2008), 130.
6. Leonard Buder, “Colombo Figure Given 25 Years on ’80 Charge,” New York Times, December 19, 1987.
7. “Alphonse Persico, 61, Is Dead.”
8. Fermino and Venezia, “Romance and Rubout.”
9. People v. R. Lindley DeVecchio, testimony of Carmine Sessa, October 25, 2007, transcript, 1359.
10. Ibid., 1342.
11. Ibid., 1454.
12. People v. R. Lindley DeVecchio, testimony of Larry Mazza, October 18, 2007, transcript, 753.
13. People v. R. Lindley DeVecchio, Sessa testimony, 1360–61.
14. Ibid., 1455–56.
15. Ibid., 1426.
16. People v. R. Lindley DeVecchio, testimony of Linda Schiro, October 29, 2007, transcript, 1601–2.
17. Ibid.
18. People v. R. Lindley DeVecchio, Sessa testimony, 1362.
19. Ibid., 1365–66.
20. People v. R. Lindley DeVecchio, Schiro testimony, 1608. In the New York Post, veteran crime reporter Murray Weiss quoted a grand jury witness who reportedly testified that, in commenting to Scarpa on the placement of Bari’s body, DeVecchio had told him, “You got some pair of balls.” Murray Weiss, “‘Mob’ Fed’s Filthy Lucre—FBI Agent Cashed in as Mafia Slay Mole: DA,” New York Post, March 30, 2006.
21. Michael Brick, “Ex-F.B.I. Agent’s Murder Trial Fizzles, as Does Chief Witness,” New York Times, November 1, 2007.
22. Tom Robbins, “Tall Tales of a Mafia Mistress,” Village Voice, October 30, 2007; Jerry Capeci, “G-Man Wins: Tapes Foil Mob Moll,” New York Sun, November 1, 2007; Scott Shifrel, “Ex–News Reporters Step Forward with Crucial Recordings,” New York Daily News, November 1, 2007.
23. “The Schiro Tapes,” Village Voice, November 1, 2007.
24. Author’s interview with Linda Schiro, November 3, 2007.
25. Judge Leslie Crocker Snyder (ret.), “Report of the Special District Attorney in the Matter of the Investigation of Linda Schiro,” October 22, 2008, 18–28.
26. People v. R. Lindley DeVecchio, Mazza testimony, 713.
27. Ibid., 757.
28. Ibid., 759.
29. Brad Hamilton, “Moll’s ‘G-Man’ Torment: I Gave Up a Lot to Come Forward. I’ve Been Victimized,” New York Post, November 4, 2007.
30. People v. R. Lindley DeVecchio, Dades testimony, 636–37.
31. John Marzulli, “Prober’s Life: Zero to Hero,” New York Daily News, March 12, 2005.
32. Jerry Capeci, “Mob Scion May Bolster Turncoat Case,” New York Sun, June 28, 2007.
33. People v. R. Lindley DeVecchio, Dades testimony, 595–602.
34. Alex Ginsberg, “We’re Going to Hell for This,” New York Post, August 16, 2007.
35. People v. R. Lindley DeVecchio, Dades testimony.
36. Ibid., 622.
37. Fermino and Venezia, “Romance and Rubout.”
38. Buder, “Colombo Figure Given 25 Years.”
39. “Alphonse Persico, 61, Is Dead.”
40. R. Lindley DeVecchio and Charles Brandt, We’re Going to Win This Thing: The Shocking Frame-up of a Mafia Crime Buster (New York: Berkley, 2011), 5.
41. Kroger, Convictions, 135–36.
42. Todd S. Purdum, “Puzzle of Gangland-Style Killings Eludes Brooklyn Police,” New York Times, October 10, 1987.
CHAPTER 13: LOVE COLLISION
1. Brad Hamilton, “My Life as a Colombo Hit Man,” New York Post, March 4, 2012.
2. Carmine Persico was a member of an early 1950s gang called the South Brooklyn Boys, which was an outgrowth of a violent World War II–era gang known as the Garfield Boys. “Boy 16, Arraigned as Gang Slayer; Father of Victim Accuses Police,” New York Times, May 14, 1950.
Salvatore Gravano was a member of the Rampers, an early 1960s gang that roamed the streets of Bensonhurst, Brooklyn. Peter Maas, Underboss: Sammy the Bull Gravano’s Story of Life in the Mafia (New York: HarperCollins, 1997), 13.
While Persico and Gravano came from working-class fa
milies (Carmine’s father was a legal stenographer, Sammy’s father a housepainter who owned his own home), they both gravitated to criminal activity in their midteens. By Mazza’s account he didn’t commit his first felony until he was in his early twenties.
3. Author’s interview with Larry Mazza, January 8, 2013.
4. People v. R. Lindley DeVecchio, testimony of Larry Mazza, October 18, 2007, transcript, 715–48.
5. Author’s interview with Little Linda Schiro, November 3, 2007.
6. People v. R. Lindley DeVecchio, testimony of Linda Schiro, October 29, 2007, transcript, 1536–38.
7. Ibid.
8. Ibid., 1539.
9. Ibid., 1543.
10. John J. Goldman, “Gotti Accuser Sentenced to Five Years in Plea Deal: Mafia: Salvatore Gravano Is Rewarded for Testifying Against the Notorious Gambino Family Boss and Other Organized Crime Figures,” Los Angeles Times, September 27, 1994.
11. Gregory Scarpa v. Victory Memorial Hospital et al., deposition transcript, March 1, 1988, 6–7.
12. People v. R. Lindley DeVecchio, Schiro testimony, 1157–58.
13. Schiro interview.
14. Hamilton, “My Life as a Colombo Hit Man.”
15. Ibid.
16. People v. R. Lindley DeVecchio, Mazza testimony, 747.
17. Ibid., 745.
18. Hamilton, “My Life as a Colombo Hit Man.”
19. People v. R. Lindley DeVecchio, Mazza testimony, 745.
20. Hamilton, “My Life as a Colombo Hit Man.”
21. People v. R. Lindley DeVecchio, Mazza testimony, 721–22.
22. Hamilton, “My Life as a Colombo Hit Man.”
23. John Kroger, Convictions (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2008), 132–33.
24. People v. R. Lindley DeVecchio, Mazza testimony, 739–40.
25. Schiro interview.
26. People v. R. Lindley DeVecchio, Schiro testimony, 1553.
27. Nicholas Gage, “Organized Crime Reaps Huge Profits from Dealing in Pornographic Films,” New York Times, October 12, 1975.
28. Attorney General’s Commission on Pornography, “The Meese Report,” final report, July 1986, 1168, http://www.porn-report.com/404-organized-crime-and-pornography.htm.
29. Peter Maas, The Valachi Papers (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1968), 95–99.
30. Selwyn Raab, Five Families: The Rise, Decline, and Resurgence of America’s Most Powerful Mafia Empires (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2005), 26–30.
31. Edna Buchanan, “Lucky Luciano: Criminal Mastermind,” Time, December 7, 1998.
32. “Anthony Peraino,” Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Peraino.
33. Gage, “Organized Crime Reaps Huge Profits.”
34. Commission on Pornography, “The Meese Report,” 1145.
35. Ibid.
36. Ibid., 1179.
37. “8 in ‘Deep Throat’ Case Receive Prison Sentence,” New York Times, May 1, 1977.
38. Schiro interview.
39. Bruce Weber, “Joel J. Tyler, Judge Who Pronounced ‘Deep Throat’ Obscene, Dies at 90,” New York Times, January 15, 2012.
40. Mitchell Maddux and Jeremy Olshan, “Mobster Admits Nun Slay, Fears He’ll Rot in Hell!,” New York Post, May 13, 2011.
41. R. Lindley DeVecchio, FBI 209 memo for Top Echelon (TE) informant designated “NY3461,” September 17, 1982.
42. William Bastone, “The Wiseguy and the Nun,” Village Voice, February 9, 1999.
43. U.S. v. Victor M. Orena et al., testimony of Chris Favo, May 17, 1995, transcript, 5218.
CHAPTER 14: TWENTY GRAND A WEEK
1. Memo from FBI New York Office to director, FBI, December 11, 1981, section 2 of four, 2–3.
2. Ibid., 6.
3. Ibid., section 3 of four, 4.
4. Memo from FBI New York Office to director, FBI, September 17, 1982, section 1 of four, 2–3.
5. Ibid., section 2 of four, 2.
6. Ralph Blumenthal, “28 Are Ordered Arrested in USA Mafia Inquiry,” New York Times, October 2, 1984.
7. Selwyn Raab, Five Families: The Rise, Decline, and Resurgence of America’s Most Powerful Mafia Empires (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2005), 345.
8. Gene Mustain and Jerry Capeci, Mob Star: The Story of John Gotti (New York: Franklin Watts, 1988), 190–91.
9. U.S. v. William Cutolo et al., October 1994, transcript, 3418–19.
10. Ibid., 3498.
11. Ibid., 3528–29.
12. Special Agents Jeffrey W. Tomlinson and Howard Leadbetter II, FBI 302 memo re: Larry Mazza, April 28, 1994.
13. Robert D. McFadden, “8 Charged with Mafia Drug Plot Including Murders and Extortion,” New York Times, November 13, 1987; John Kroger, Convictions (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2008), 133.
14. Ibid.
15. Ibid.
16. U.S. v. Gregory Scarpa Jr., Second Circuit Court of Appeals 897 F2d 63, February 23, 1990.
17. Robert M. Stutman and Richard Esposito, Dead on Delivery: Inside the Drug Wars, Straight from the Street (New York: Warner Books, 1992), 251–52.
18. U.S. v. Victor M. Orena, testimony of FBI agent Howard Leadbetter II, April 1994, transcript, 1667–69.
19. People v. R. Lindley DeVecchio, testimony of Carmine Sessa, October 25, 2007, transcript, 1373–74.
20. Special Agent Howard Leadbetter II, FBI 302 memo re: William Meli, January 21, 1994.
21. Special Agent Howard Leadbetter II, FBI 302 memo, April 6, 1994.
22. Pasquale Amato and Victor Orena v. U.S., hearing before Hon. Jack B. Weinstein, January 7, 2004, transcript, 41.
23. Supervisory Special Agents Timothy T. Arney and Robert J. O’Brien, FBI 302 memo re: Mario Parlagreco debriefing, May 12, 1994.
24. Ibid.
25. Agents John L. Barrett and Thomas V. Fuentes, FBI 302 memo re: Valerie Caproni, February 1, 1994.
26. Ibid.
27. Jan M. Von Bergen, “TV Show Aids in Arrest of Fugitive at Motel,” Philadelphia Inquirer, August 20, 1988.
28. Ibid.; Tomlinson and Leadbetter II, 302 memo, April 28, 1994.
29. FBI 302 memo re: Valerie Caproni, January 26, 1994.
30. Ibid.
31. R. Lindley DeVecchio, sworn statement in OPR investigation, May 5, 1995.
32. Greg Smith and Jerry Capeci, “Mob, Mole & Murder,” New York Daily News, October 31, 1994.
33. Sworn affirmation of Valerie Caproni in OPR investigation, April 12, 1995.
34. Pasquale Amato and Victor Orena v. U.S., hearing before Hon. Jack B. Weinstein, January 7, 2004, testimony of Gregory Scarpa Jr., transcript, 40.
35. Arney and O’Brien, FBI 302 memo re: Parlagreco debriefing, May 12, 1994.
36. Kroger, Convictions, 147.
37. Ibid.
38. Ibid.
39. R. Lindley DeVecchio and Charles Brandt, We’re Going to Win This Thing: The Shocking Frame-up of a Mafia Crime Buster (New York: Berkley, 2011), 168.
40. Special Agent Michael Tabman, sworn affidavit, August 16, 1994.
41. Ibid., 4.
42. DeVecchio, OPR sworn statement.
43. Author’s interview with FBI Special Agent Dan Vogel (ret.), October 14, 2011.
44. Tabman sworn affidavit, 3.
45. DeVecchio, OPR sworn statement.
46. Ibid.
47. Marlene Malamy, “In the Matter of and Placement of Eavesdropping Devices to Overhear and Record Certain Communications within a Social Club Located at 7506 13th Avenue, Brooklyn, New York,” July 11, 1986.
48. U.S. v. Gregory Scarpa Jr., Valerie Caproni, sealed affidavit, April 29, 1988.
49. U.S. v. Gregory Scarpa Jr., testimony of R. Lindley DeVecchio, October 14, 1998, transcript, 3386–87.
50. Ibid., 3360.
51. DeVecchio and Brandt, We’re Going to Win This Thing, 162–63.
52. Ibid.
53. R. Lindley DeVecchio, FBI 209 memo for Top Echelon (TE) informant designated “NY3461,” September 17, 1982.
54. Arney and
O’Brien, FBI 302 memo re: Parlagreco debriefing, May 12, 1994.
CHAPTER 15: ENTER THE SECRET SERVICE
1. Memo from director, FBI, to FBI New York Office, March 15, 1985.
2. Memo from FBI New York Office to director, FBI, March 2, 1985, 2.
3. FBI memo, March 8, 1985.
4. FBI memo, March 2, 1985.
5. Ibid.
6. Ibid.
7. While in most of the Scarpa Sr. 209 informant memos from 1980 to 1992 the author’s name was redacted, Lin DeVecchio made it clear in his book that he had written them. R. Lindley DeVecchio and Charles Brandt, We’re Going to Win This Thing: The Shocking Frame-up of a Mafia Crime Buster (New York: Berkley, 2011), 7, 67–71, 106, 113, 115, 117. And since he was the only contacting agent authorized to interact with Scarpa during this twelve-year time frame—except for a brief period during Senior’s final year as a TECI—DeVecchio was the only agent who could have supplied the details from “34” in those confidential informant memos.
8. The amount is $32,094.01 according to http://www.usinflationcalculator.com.
9. Memo from director, FBI, to FBI New York Office, March 15, 1985.
10. Letter from Edward A. McDonald, attorney in charge, Organized Crime Strike Force, EDNY, to Judge I. Leo Glasser, July 22, 1986.
11. Memo from FBI New York Office to director, FBI, November 18, 1985.
12. Memo from director, FBI, to FBI New York Office, December 18, 1985.
13. Memo from FBI New York Office to director, FBI, January 2, 1986.
14. Ibid.
15. Ibid.
16. Memo from director, FBI, to FBI New York Office, January 15, 1985.
17. Author’s interview with Special Agent James Whalen (ret.), May 19, 2011.
18. U.S. v. Michael Sessa, direct examination of Supervisory Special Agent R. Lindley DeVecchio, November 2, 1992, transcript, 118–19.
19. R. Lindley DeVecchio, sworn statement in OPR investigation, May 5, 1995, 6.
20. Ibid., 8.
21. Bios of Norman Bloch and Douglas Grover, website of Thompson Hine, http://www.thompsonhine.com/lawyer/NormanBloch/; http://www.thompsonhine.com/lawyer/DouglasGrover/.
22. U.S. v. Gregory Scarpa Sr., indictment no. CR 86-00351, 1986.
23. Memo from S. L. Pomerantz, chief, Investigative Support Section, FBI, to Paul E. Coffey, deputy chief, Organized Crime and Racketeering Section, Department of Justice, April 22, 1986.