Sep 30 2007
He helped the FBI break the mob. But was he helping the mob, too?
R. Lindley DeVecchio
A retired FBI agent will enter a Brooklyn courtroom Monday to face charges that long before he tooled around Sarasota on his motorcycle, and prior to running a homeowners association at a quiet gated community, he helped the mob commit murder.
Prosecutors in the Brooklyn District Attorney’s Office say the ex-agent, R. Lindley DeVecchio, leaked confidential information to a Mafia informant that led to four gangland killings from 1984 to 1992. In exchange, prosecutors allege, DeVecchio took cash and crime tips that bolstered his 33-year career with the bureau.
Former FBI agents, Mafia defectors and molls are expected to take the stand, where they will describe wiseguys picking off rivals and rats, alleged payoffs, and bloodshed inside the Colombo family’s Brooklyn hangout, the Wimpy Boys Social Club.
Over the next few months, DeVecchio’s trial will offer a rare, real-life glimpse into a bygone era when mob bosses ran labor unions and owned politicians, and were dogged by an FBI whose top priority was dismantling organized crime.
His case is at once a throwback and a first.
“I don’t know of another case in the history of the United States where an FBI agent has been accused of four murders,” said Jerry Capeci, a former New York Daily News reporter who publishes the Web site ganglandnews.com.
‘Mr. Organized Crime’
The crux of the DeVecchio case is his relationship with a murdering, loan-sharking, drug-dealing mobster who has been dead for more than a decade.
As a supervisory special agent, DeVecchio, 67, worked numerous Mafia insiders for information, but none as ruthless and plugged into the underworld as Gregory Scarpa Sr.
The Grim Reaper, as Scarpa was called, was a captain in the Colombo family and one of the FBI’s most important sources, a top-echelon informant with extensive knowledge of New York’s five organized crime families.
Once said to have lamented that he hated a guy he killed so much he wanted to dig him up and kill him again, Scarpa was admired by his cohorts for evading law enforcement through four decades of brazen crime.
DeVecchio was known around the office for his liberal use of four-letter words and his expertise in developing informants.
He started handling Scarpa in 1980 and got permission from the bureau to meet him alone. Scarpa explained to him the organization of the Colombo family, including which crews committed what types of crimes, court documents say.
And he gave DeVecchio tips, such as that a Staten Island Holiday Inn was a known wiseguy meeting place, according to court files.
DeVecchio, whom friends call “Lin,” got a promotion while handling Scarpa and received accolades from his superiors and colleagues for his investigative savvy.
His work helped investigators set up electronic surveillance, locate witnesses and ultimately prosecute landmark cases that broke the back of the mob. And it reportedly won him the nickname “Mr. Organized Crime.”
But quietly, some agents suspected DeVecchio had turned into a mob mole, and was taking sides in an internal fight over control of the Colombo family. Learning that a Scarpa rival had been shot, DeVecchio allegedly slapped his hand on his desk and said, “We’re gonna win this thing.”
He helped the FBI break the mob. But was he helping the mob, too? - By CAROL E. LEE - Last modified: September 30. 2007 4:47AM - http://www.heraldtribune.com/article/20070930/NEWS/709300642
