By WILLIAM SHERMAN. UPDATED: April 9, 2018 at 12:48 PM EDT
FEDERAL PROSECUTORS strongly suspected that murderous Mafia capo Greg Scarpa Sr. had a friend in the FBI, but little was done about it for six years, according to Justice Department documents obtained by the Daily News.
One of the prosecutors told the head of the FBI’s New York office that the agency “intentionally obstructed” an investigation into Scarpa’s son’s drug dealing, according to the documents.
Other prosecutors said they were surprised the elder Scarpa evaded arrest, and believed that the FBI was protecting him despite evidence that he had killed several rivals.
A Justice Department investigation was finally launched in 1994 – six years after a prosecutor first alleged the FBI was in league with Scarpa, and two years after six Mafia turncoats said the mobster had a law enforcement mole.
A Justice Department spokesman did not respond to a phone call asking about the lengthy delay in starting the probe, conducted by FBI agents assigned to the bureau’s Office of Professional Responsibility.
That investigation confirmed the suspicions of the prosecutors that the alleged mole was FBI agent Lindley DeVecchio, head of a squad investigating Scarpa’s Colombo crime family.
Scarpa was DeVecchio’s secret informant for 13 years, with apparent free license to run an empire of murder, drug dealing, credit card fraud, loansharking and other crimes.
It may have been a two-way street: DeVecchio was allegedly Scarpa’s informant, providing advance warnings on indictments, arrests, investigations and intelligence on his Mafia rivals. DeVecchio, according to the report, was also Scarpa’s protector.
In one incident, DeVecchio personally escorted Scarpa to an unprecedented in-chambers meeting with Brooklyn Federal Judge Leo Glasser.
Scarpa had been arrested by the U.
S. Secret Service for selling fraudulent credit cards. DeVecchio told Glasser that Scarpa was a valuable informant. Scarpa received a sentence of five years’ probation from Glasser.
Scarpa died in 1994, and when the investigation by the Office of Professional Responsibility concluded two years later, DeVecchio was not charged with any crime.
Prosecutors were angry at the result, sources said, and further dismayed that after DeVecchio retired, he was rehired by the FBI as a consultant.
But now, a grand jury convened by the Brooklyn district attorney’s office is investigating the original allegations and more – that DeVecchio helped Scarpa Sr. hunt down and kill rivals in a mob war.
Retired and living in Florida, DeVecchio, through his lawyer, has denied the allegations, calling them “nonsense.”
In a 25-page sworn statement given to Office of Professional Responsibility interviewers, DeVecchio said he recruited Scarpa as an informant in 1980, never knew Scarpa was a killer and had committed other crimes until 1993, and would never compromise his job or the FBI.
“I treated Scarpa Sr. as a member of organized crime, and not as a colleague agent,” DeVecchio said. He declined to take a lie-detector test, as requested by investigators, and the matter was closed.
The Office of Professional Responsibility report was given to several criminal defense attorneys who maintain that prosecutions of their mob clients were tainted because they were based on information from Scarpa and DeVecchio.
The report contains interviews with eight FBI agents, including DeVecchio, four prosecutors from the Brooklyn U.S. attorney’s office, three Brooklyn federal court judges and the six Mafia informants from Scarpa’s crew.
The informants said Scarpa received streams of information on wiretaps and surveillance, advance notice on arrests and indictments, and intelligence on rival mobsters targeted for murder.
In Office of Professional Responsibility interviews that began Jan. 18, 1994, at FBI headquarters in Washington, prosecutor Valerie Caproni revealed that she had stated on the record in 1988 that she believed the FBI was protecting Scarpa and his son.
“Despite repeated requests, the FBI organized crime squad [DeVecchio was a member] provided no assistance in this investigation,” she said in the report.
Scarpa was eventually imprisoned for four murders. On his deathbed, he told Office of Professional Responsibility investigators that DeVecchio was not his mole. wsherman@nydailynews.
