‘MAFIA BOSS FRAMED IN SLAY’

By Kati Cornell Smith

Published Jan. 8, 2004, 5:00 a.m. ET

A jailed mobster yesterday claimed his late capo father and a crooked FBI agent framed Colombo acting chief Victor Orena for a 1989 murder.

During a hearing to determine if Orena gets a new trial, Gregory Scarpa Jr., a wiseguy serving a 40-year sentence for racketeering and murder conspiracy, said, “Having other people blamed for something my father did wasn’t resting well with me.”

His testimony was beamed into Brooklyn federal court from the “SuperMax” prison in Florence, Colo., via teleconference.

Scarpa, 52, claimed his father, Gregory Scarpa Sr., and former G-man Lindley DeVecchio, who forged a friendship over more than two decades, joined forces against Orena during a bloody Colombo war.

“I’m giving this testimony just to let the truth come out,” said Scarpa, who was shackled during his televised testimony and guarded by four correction officers.

The new allegations about the corrupt alliance come to light eight years after DeVecchio retired from the FBI amid accusations he had leaked confidential information to the mob. He is now working as a private investigator and has not been charged criminally.

His lawyer, Douglas Grover, said the allegations are “scandalous and ridiculous.”

Orena, 69, is serving life in prison for the 1989 killing of his one-time friend and underling Thomas Ocera, whose body was found in a Queens park. Orena was allegedly infuriated with Ocera for skimming cash from a lucrative kickback scheme targeting a private sanitation company.

Scarpa said his dad – who died of AIDS in 1994 – carried out the Ocera murder after DeVecchio told him the victim had spread rumors he was a rat.

Scarpa Sr. also believed Orena’s faction of the Colombo family had tried to kill him and arranged to have the murder weapon hidden under the deck of a house where Orena was staying – with DeVecchio acting as lookout.

“There was a plan concocted to frame Orena when the Colombo family war began,” Scarpa told defense attorney Flora Edwards, adding this was just one of several murders DeVecchio and his father committed together.