Former FBI Agent Linked to Mob Murders

The Brooklyn district attorney, Charles Hynes, will announce the filing of murder charges today against a former mob-busting FBI agent, Lindley DeVecchio, for complicity in four gangland-style slayings in Brooklyn from 1984 to 1992, Gang Land has learned.Sources say a grand jury has indicted the retired agent for the murders of a flashy dark-haired mob moll, two Colombo family gangsters, and an 18-year-old hoodlum who had begun cooperating with police.Mr. DeVecchio allegedly provided information to Gregory Scarpa Sr. – a Colombo capo who was the agent’s top echelon informer for 12 years – that caused and aided the mobster to murder three victims and to order and entrust a fourth killing to others.“Essentially,” one law enforcement official asserted, “DeVecchio knew that the information he was giving Scarpa about those four people would cause him to murder them.”“We deny the charges in the strongest, most meaningful terms possible,” Mr. DeVecchio’s lawyer, Mark Bederow, said. “The charges are fabricated. He didn’t do it. We believe they’ve indicted an innocent man. And that’s a shame.”In addition to the teenage Patrick Porco’s murder, the grand jury indicted Mr. DeVecchio for the murder of a onetime paramour of a top Colombo mobster, Mari Bari, in 1984; the execution of a Scarpa crew member, Joseph (Joe Brewster) DeDomenico, in 1987, and the rubout of a mob rival, Lorenzo (Larry) Lampesi, in 1992. If convicted, he faces 25 years to life in prison.Mr. Hynes also will announce the arrest and indictment of John Sinagra, 41, for the Porco slaying, and of Craig Sobel, 38, for the murder of Dominick Masseria, 17, on October 31, 1989.According to law enforcement officials, court records, and other sources, the police investigation into the Masseria killing ultimately led to the murder of Porco. The deadly insider tip that led to Porco’s death, according to the investigation by assistant district attorneys Michael Vecchione and Noel Downey, allegedly came from Mr. DeVecchio after he learned Porco was cooperating with police about Masseria’s killing.The agent contacted Scarpa and told him that Porco “was talking to the cops and he could hurt your son [Joseph],” according to one source.Scarpa, who had been grooming Joseph, his son with his longtime companion, Linda Schiro, to take over his many moneymaking rackets, ordered Joseph to kill Porco. At the time, the elder Scarpa, who had contracted the AIDs virus during a transfusion in 1986, had become even more bloodthirsty than he had been in previous years. He died in 1994.Sources said Joseph, who was later murdered in 1995 in a drug dispute, accompanied Sinagra during the murder of Porco, but that Sinagra fired the fatal shots.Mr. DeVecchio, who had convinced Scarpa to resume working as a top-echelon informer in 1980, allegedly told Scarpa in 1984 that Bari, a former girlfriend of late family underboss Alphonse (Allie Boy) Persico, was also an FBI informer, sources said.Scarpa shot Bari, a stunning 5-foot-2 brunette, to death when she showed up at a Brooklyn social club on a ruse, a supposed interview for a position as a cocktail waitress.Former consigliere Carmine Sessa has testified previously that Scarpa told him that Bari, who was killed in his Brooklyn social club, was whacked because she knew where Persico was hiding out at the time and could disclose the location to police.Authorities now say that was a cover story.The grand jury also heard evidence that three years later, sources said, Mr. DeVecchio provided another fatal tip, warning Scarpa to “watch out” for his pal Joe Brewster after the agent learned that he was cooperating with state authorities.Days later, sources said, Scarpa killed DeDomencio, whose body was left in the backseat of a stolen car.During the bloody 1991-93 Colombo war, sources said, Scarpa killed Lampesi, a mob associate aligned with a rebel faction opposed to family boss Carmine (Junior) Persico, with the help of information allegedly supplied by Mr. DeVecchio.The linchpin of the case against Mr. DeVecchio, sources said, is Scarpa’s longtime lover, Ms. Schiro. She lived with Scarpa for decades, met Mr. De-Vecchio numerous times when the agent visited Scarpa at their Bensonhurst home, and testified before the grand jury that indicted Mr. DeVecchio on March 9, sources said.To obtain the murder indictment, sources said, prosecutors also used three FBI agents and three former members of Scarpa’s crew – including Sessa and Mario Parlagreco, whose prior testimony concerning the Bari, Lampesi, and DeDomenico murders is at odds with the current allegations against Mr. DeVecchio.The sleeper witness in the case – in more ways than one – just might be Lawrence Mazza, the third former member of Scarpa’s crew, whom prosecutors tapped for information about the relationship between Scarpa and his FBI handler.Mazza rose from supermarket delivery boy to Scarpa’s inner circle through the gangster’s bedroom door. Sources say Ms. Schiro seduced Mazza soon after he began delivering groceries to her home in the early 1980s,and later introduced him to Scarpa. As a witness during the 1990s, Mazza testified that be began having steamy sexual relations with Ms.Schiro after Scarpa contracted the AIDS virus.This column and other news of organized crime will appear later today at www.ganglandnews.com.

Former FBI Agent Linked to Mob Murders

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