In a case with stunning implications for both law enforcement and some convicted gangsters, prosecutors have decided to seek murder charges against a former mob-busting FBI agent for involvement in at least three Brooklyn Mafia hits between 1984 and 1992, Gang Land has learned.

The Brooklyn district attorney’s office has concluded a six-month probe of the scandalous allegations against R. Lindley DeVecchio and will soon ask a grand jury to vote on murder charges against the retired agent, sources said. The move could come as early as today.

According to evidence before the panel, Mr. DeVecchio had no role in the actual slayings but passed along information to his longtime top echelon informer, Colombo capo Gregory Scarpa, knowing that the murderous mobster would use the details to kill his victims, sources said.

Mr. DeVecchio, a supervisor for 11 of his 33 years as an FBI agent, retired in 1996 after a two-year federal probe of his relationship with Scarpa found no misconduct. Since January, when criminal allegations surfaced, he has maintained his innocence.

Yesterday, attorney Douglas Grover said Mr. DeVecchio was being victimized by “false and ludicrous allegations” that were rejected by the Department of Justice in 1996 and again by a federal judge in 2004 when mobsters cited similar allegations in a failed attempt to overturn convictions obtained with Mr. DeVecchio’s efforts.

Murder charges against Mr. DeVecchio would be sure to trigger a spate of motions for new trials by numerous Colombo mobsters convicted of federal racketeering and murder charges in prosecutions that Mr. DeVecchio was involved with, either as the case agent or supervisor.

An assistant U.S. attorney in Brooklyn, where scores of Colombo wiseguys were prosecuted in the 1990s, said he doubted that an indictment of Mr. De-Vecchio would undermine any guilty verdicts. However, the prosecutor conceded, “It would be a nightmare.”

The timing of the expected indictment, as the office of Brooklyn U.S. Attorney Roslynn Mauskopf brings two former NYPD detectives to trial on federal racketeering and murder charges, is not likely to do anything to ease tensions between her office and that of the

Brooklyn district attorney, Charles Hynes. The investigation of ex-detectives Louis Eppolito and Stephen Caracappa began as a joint probe but shortly after their arrests, the feds took over the case, demanding the return of all investigative files, using court orders to enforce their demands.

The jury selection process in that case – Messrs. Eppolito and Caracappa are charged with taking part in eight murders for the Luchese crime family between 1986 and 1990 – began this week. Testimony is scheduled to begin Monday.

Victim no. 1 of the ex-G-man’s alleged treachery was a beautiful 5-foot, 2-inch brunette named Mary Bari who often hung out with wiseguys. Bari was killed on September 24, 1984, when, according to court records, Scarpa shot her three times in the head as his son, Gregory Jr., held her down on the floor of a Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, social club.

Sources said Scarpa acted after Mr. DeVecchio alerted him that the “dropdead gorgeous” gun moll, who had once dated a Colombo family consigliere, was also a paid informant for the FBI. Mr. DeVecchio had become Scarpa’s control agent four years earlier, in 1980, when the agent renewed the gangster’s informer status five years after he had been closed. Before that, according to FBI records, Scarpa was an active paid informer between 1962 and 1975, although sources said he began working as a snitch in the late 1950s. He died in 1994.

As Gang Land reported last month, Bari was tricked into believing she would be interviewing for a job as a cocktail waitress at a Scarpa-connected club. She had dressed for the occasion in designer jeans, a pearl-studded belt, a black halter top, and white high-heel boots. Instead of an interview, she walked into an execution. Her body was later wrapped in canvass and dumped two miles away.

In addition to Bari’s murder, sources said prosecutors have presented evi dence to the grand jury that links Mr. DeVecchio to the 1987 rubout of mobster Joseph “Joe Brewster” DeDomenico and the 1992 hit of mob associate Larry Lampesi.

Mr. DeVecchio allegedly informed Scarpa that DeDomenico was prepared to tell the truth if he were subpoenaed by a grand jury.The agent also allegedly gave Scarpa information that aided him find and kill Lampesi, a rival hoodlum during the bloody 1991-93 Colombo family war.

Sources said the FBI is cooperating with the probe by Assistant District Attorneys Michael Vecchione and Noel Downey and has turned over numerous documents to the district attorney’s office. Neither the prosecutors, nor the FBI, would comment about the case.

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Growing up Gotti can get pretty complicated.

In the biggest fight of his life, John A. “Junior” Gotti this week called on his younger brother Peter as the anchorman of his defense against federal kidnapping and other charges. But Gotti’s defense lawyers also played a videotape in which the Junior Don described Peter as “my imbecile brother” in a jailhouse discussion with their old man.

By its verdict, the jury may announce whether using his younger sibling was a stroke of brilliance or a bonehead move, but there’s little doubt that their father, the late John Gotti, would never have entrusted Peter with so important a role.

The Dapper Don said as much, and more,with his usual gusto,during a jailhouse conversation with his own brother, also named Peter, a few days after Junior was indicted on racketeering charges in 1998.

“For three years,” he began, “I’m telling Peter, ‘Get your act together,this is what I want you to do.Your brother’s gonna need help down the line.’ Now here we are, he needs the help, and he is as useful as a boulder on the … head. A guy dropping a boulder on your … head is the same use he could be for anybody.”

As with all conversations at the federal penitentiary in Marion, the men were separated by a glass partition and spoke to one other on telephones in each partition. In a long, rambling discussion, the Dapper Don railed on about his son’s business ventures, endeavors – as young Peter would assert from the witness stand earlier this week – that were all failures.

“What business? If I thought there was a chance of this phone breaking before my head, I’d bang myself in the head with it. What business, Pete?

“How am I supposed to feel when I hear all the people around me who are supposed to be of lesser ilk, their sons are all doing what they tell them, what they wish. And my son, if I tell him, ‘Go this way,’ he goes that way; if I tell him, ‘Go that way,’ he goes this way.

“I keep saying ‘my son.’ I still have doubts there. I still got doubts there. I’m telling you, I’m gonna make this kid go for a DNA test. ‘Cause I know this kid can’t be my kid. You understand. And I’m gonna find out.

“It’s not like I’m mad today or something like that; I’m not mad. He’s a misfit. I just want vindication. I’d like to make him go for the DNA test to prove that it’s not my … you know what I mean. I feel bad. I still love him. I’ll love him until the day I die. But that’s just the way it goes. He’s got no part of me in him. He’s got somebody else in him. He’s got no part of me in him. You understand.That’s it.”

This column and other news of organized crime will appear later today at www.ganglandnews.com.