Delight at Mob Deaths Dogs Lawmen

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The New York Sun

The Brooklyn district attorney, Charles Hynes, and a retired FBI supervisor, R. Lindley DeVecchio, are adversaries today — enemies is probably a better word — but 15 years ago they were law enforcement allies who appeared to share a cavalier mind-set about an early 1990s phenomenon: mobsters killing mobsters.

During the bloody 1991–93 Colombo family feud, both men voiced a rather bizarre approval of the growing gangster body count as two rival factions of the crime family waged a bloody battle in the city’s streets.

Mr. Hynes’s comments came during a now forgotten but once widely viewed television show. Mr. DeVecchio’s were made privately to a fellow FBI agent, according to sworn affidavits. But coming from top law enforcement professionals, both are pretty astonishing.

“I have no problem letting these folks blow each other away. I think it’s good for us ultimately,” Mr. Hynes said during an interview aired by a short-lived CBS newsmagazine show anchored by the late Ed Bradley, “Street Stories.” The segment, on November 12, 1992, was about a feared gunman, Gregory Scarpa Sr., who killed three intra-family rivals during the war, which was waged primarily on the streets of Brooklyn.

Under questioning by a CBS newsman, Harold Dow, Mr. Hynes credited his decision to issue grand jury subpoenas to 41 Colombo capos, soldiers, and associates with essentially stopping the war, “Because,” the district attorney cracked, “when they’re under subpoena they can’t shoot; they all hide. I guess they watch too many class C movies.”

The backdrop for the show was efforts at the height of the Colombo war involving the city’s entire law enforcement community to quell shooting between rebels aligned with capo Victor “Little Vic” Orena and loyalists of boss Carmine “Junior” Persico that would ultimately leave 12 dead and many others wounded.

“The problem is,” Mr. Hynes continued, conjuring up a Jimmy Breslin-worthy image of a gang that couldn’t shoot straight, “most of them don’t get annual firing practice. So when they start shooting each other, they begin to miss, and they end up killing innocent people.”

Like Mr. Hynes, Mr. DeVecchio was apparently untroubled by the mob killings. Six months before the “Street Stories” interview, on May 22, 1992, Mr. DeVecchio allegedly expressed outright joy when he learned that one of three Orena allies whom Scarpa is said to have killed during the conflict, Lorenzo “Larry” Lampasi, had been shot to death in front of his Brooklyn home, according to court papers filed in the murder case Mr. Hynes’s office is bringing against Mr. DeVecchio.

When he heard the news, according to court papers, Mr. DeVecchio excitedly slapped his hands on his desk and exclaimed, “We’re gonna win this thing,” to the bearer of the good news, FBI agent Christopher Favo.

Mr. DeVecchio’s remark surprised Mr. Favo, who told his then superior that they were FBI agents and “not on either side of the Colombo war,” according to a brief summary of Mr. Favo’s grand jury testimony that appears in the court papers.

Today, those remarks are being used by Mr. Hynes’s office in its prosecution of Mr. DeVecchio, who is charged with four murders he allegedly helped Scarpa commit between 1984 and 1992, a period when the mob capo was doubling as a top-echelon informer for the then FBI agent.

Reached by Gang Land, Mr. Hynes insisted that the only similarity between his and Mr. DeVecchio’s remarks was that they were both made in 1992.

“The clear purport of my remark was that I didn’t want them killing civilians,” the veteran district attorney said. “My point was to do something to stop the shooting. DeVecchio’s statement is one that shows a consciousness of guilt by a defendant, which he is. No one has accused me of committing four murders.”

“DeVecchio’s comment,” Mr. Hynes added, “is in furtherance of a criminal conspiracy. There’s a classic rule of evidence that says you can use someone’s prior statements to establish what’s called a ‘consciousness of guilt’ as proof of the underlying charges.”

An attorney for Mr. DeVecchio, Mark Bederow, said: “I think it’s ridiculous for the district attorney to go on television and condone gangsters killing gangsters in 1992 and then, 14 years later, cite as compelling evidence the allegation that, in 1992, Lin” — the nickname by which Mr. Bederow refers to Mr. DeVecchio — “said, ‘We’re gonna win this thing,’ upon learning that Larry Lampasi had been murdered. It’s truly astounding for a prosecutor to say he has no problem with folks blowing each other away during a mob shooting war. The suggestion that Lin’s alleged statement — in that context and in that time — is consciousness of his guilt in Lampasi’s murder is laughable.”

Mr. DeVecchio is charged with feeding information to Scarpa that aided him in killing Lampasi and three others, including the 1984 murder of a Brooklyn woman. A pretrial hearing in his case is scheduled to begin in August.

Meanwhile, a pretrial hearing for a co-defendant of Mr. DeVecchio’s, John Sinagra, who is charged in the 1990 murder of a potential witness against Scarpa’s son, ended Tuesday with Brooklyn Supreme Court Justice Gustin Reichbach expressing dismay and disgust with the actions of Mr. Hynes’s prosecutors and investigators, as well as with those of the police department, in the prosecution of Mr. Sinagra.

Judge Reichbach reserved a final decision but indicated he was seriously considering a defense motion to dismiss the charges because authorities improperly ignored allegations that clearly implicated Mr. Sinagra in the murder for more than 10 years before finally investigating them.

***

He’s called “The Lion,” but the acting Genovese family boss, Danny Leo, surrendered like a lamb yesterday when members of the FBI’s Genovese squad cornered him at his secluded $2 million home in the historic Palisades town of Rockleigh, N.J., and hit him with federal loan sharking and extortion charges.

The process was just a little more complicated than most earlymorning arrests, however. Before the team of agents and NYPD detectives could cuff the Lion, they had to locate him. His less than cooperative wife would only tell them that their prey wasn’t home.

Faced with the dilemma of where to look for him at 6 a.m., they simply waited for the Lion to come back to his lair. Their patience was rewarded about 40 minutes later when, clad in sweatpants, he returned from an early morning workout and learned he would have to take a shower later.

Leo, whose ascension to Genovese boss from humble beginnings as a member of the violent, drugdealing, East Harlem-based Purple Gang in the 1970s was first reported by Gang Land last November, is charged with loan sharking and extortion with regard to an owner of a car service, as well as the shakedown of two brothers who have operated a mob-connected bookmaking business for decades.

Law enforcement sources say Leo, who maintained a very low profile while climbing the ranks of the family, was named acting boss less than a year after the death of legendary Genovese boss Vincent “Chin” Gigante.

During a four-year period that ended last November 30, the Lion is charged with making three highinterest $50,000 loans to a livery car businessman and with threatening him with violence when he had trouble making his payments, according to a four-count indictment that was unsealed yesterday.

During the same period, Leo, 65, allegedly used an underling to extort yearly protection payments from the bookmaking brothers, last year increasing the payoff to $25,000 from an initial $10,000, according to the court papers, which name Charles “Fat Charlie” Salzano as the Lion’s enforcer in both shakedowns.

Salzano, a burly 370-pound wiseguy who was described last year by Assistant U.S. Attorney Eric Snyder as Leo’s “right-hand man,” was allegedly tape-recorded threatening to cripple the taxi company owner and put him in a wheelchair, according to court papers.

In another conversation described by Mr. Snyder, Fat Charlie is alleged to have threatened to kill the businessman, invoking the Lion’s name while issuing the following threat: “I’m gonna shoot you by Danny. ‘Cause I told you, you never seen him and you never seen me.”

At Leo’s arraignment yesterday, Mr. Snyder said the Lion, as boss of the “largest and most violent crime family that exists,” has the power to “order acts of violence” and had done so in the past; Manhattan Federal Judge Lewis Kaplan ordered him held without bail.

Still unshowered but now clad in fresh, casual attire, Leo the Lion was escorted to the federal lockup in Manhattan to await his next court appearance, which is scheduled in two weeks.

This column and other news of organized crime will be available today at ganglandnews.com.


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