Deal with the Devil

by Peter Lance

  That report became hugely significant because the contract passed to Joe Fish had to have come from Scarpa, his immediate supervisor in the family. To make matters worse, another Top Echelon informant had independently confirmed that Scarpa himself was involved in the murder plot.22 That constituted another direct violation of one of the warnings in that February 3 memo—that Scarpa couldn’t “initiate a plan to commit a criminal act.”

  So on February 27, the day after Scarpa “gut-shot” Cacace, DeVecchio’s supervisor, Donald North, issued a directive for him to close Scarpa “immediately.”23 According to that closing memo, DeVecchio was instructed not to “initiate any contact with the source . . . and that [Scarpa] should remove himself from any involvement in the factional war.”24

  Naturally, the Mad Hatter ignored the warning.

  The Pastry Shop Murders

  On the night of March 25, John Minerva, a Colombo captain, was closing up the pastry shop he owned on North Broadway in Massapequa, Long Island.25 He walked to his car, which was being driven by an associate named Michael Imbergamo. Shortly after Minerva got in, shots rang out and the two men were murdered.

  Five days later, despite his inactive status, Scarpa contacted DeVecchio and blamed the killings on forces loyal to “Jo Jo” and Chuckie Russo, members of the Persico faction.

  March 31, 1992: The source said that the hit on JOHN MINERVA was handled by Jo Jo and Chuckie RUSSO’s people. The source said MICHAEL IMBERGAMO who was shot with MINERVA was a COLOMBO associate and was purposely taken out along with MINERVA.26

  As far back as January 1982, Scarpa had implicated the Russos in the attack on Colombo family pornographer Joseph Peraino Sr. and his son, who were on the receiving end of gunfire from a crew that included Minerva. It was that home-invasion shotgun murder that also led to the tragic death of the former nun Veronica Zuraw.27 Now, in what became known as “the pastry shop murders,” the supposed motive for the double slaying was that Minerva, a longtime Persico loyalist, had changed sides during the war.

  But after Carmine Sessa began talking to the Feds new evidence surfaced suggesting the Russos weren’t involved. Once he became a cooperating witness in 1993, Sessa reported that Minerva owed the Russos some $90,000 in a loan-sharking debt. That made him a highly unlikely target if they ever wished to collect.28 In the Colombo family, where soldiers often changed loyalties to capos, a money debt routinely trumped a violation of allegiance as a factor in who lived or died.

  Following their convictions, the Russos and a codefendant, Joseph Monteleone, argued that it was Greg Scarpa Sr. who was responsible for the Minerva-Imbergamo hit—and, in testimony at a later hearing, Greg Jr. agreed.29

  The younger Scarpa testified under oath that the hit had been carried out by his father and “a kid” named Eric Curcio. Senior reportedly told his son that Curcio “took a shot” at Imbergamo and missed, so Junior’s “father and this Curcio located him and took him out. The fellow in the car with him was also taken out,” Junior said.30

  The Russos and Monteleone argued on appeal that the Feds had withheld key exculpatory evidence in the form of DeVecchio’s 209s, which would have proven to a jury that Scarpa had repeatedly lied to DeVecchio about other war murders he’d committed. So they were granted a new trial.31 But the Second Circuit reaffirmed the guilty verdicts, concluding that the evidence of Scarpa’s involvement in other murders was insufficient to clear the Russos for the Minerva and Imbergamo slayings.32

  Years later, in 2011, new evidence surfaced calling their conviction into question. Frank “Frankie Blue Eyes” Sparaco, whom Colombo capo Sal Miciotta had fingered as one of the members of the 1982 Peraino hit team, admitted that he’d previously lied to the Feds about his role in the Minerva-Imbergamo killings. His admission caused headlines because of the revelation that at the time of the pastry shop murders, Sparaco was also acting as an FBI informant.33 It was an extraordinary revelation. It meant that besides Greg Scarpa, the Bureau had a second CI during the Colombo war who was committing murders while passing information to Bureau agents.

  The Russos’ culpability was further called into question following a June 4, 2008, indictment by the U.S. attorney in Brooklyn, charging Thomas Gioeli, the acting Colombo boss, with the Minerva and Imbergamo hit.34 On May 9, 2012, while convicted on racketeering and conspiracy charges, Gioeli was cleared of direct involvement in the pastry shop murders. The jury didn’t believe that he’d pulled the trigger himself.35

  If, in fact, Greg Scarpa was also the trigger man in the Massapequa double slaying, that would bring to six the number of homicides he was personally responsible for during the war—that is, half the body count during the initial phase of the conflict. But while he was still officially closed as a confidential informant, Scarpa’s most notorious rubout in the war was yet to come.

  Taking Orena off the Street

  As far back as December 30, 1991, before the murders of Nicky Grancio and Minerva and Imbergamo, and before his attack on Joel Cacace, Greg Scarpa Sr. had told Lin DeVecchio that “an arrest of Vic Orena would temporarily halt the shooting war.”36 Yet the war continued long after the FBI stormed the home of Gina Reale, Vic Orena’s “gumar,” or mistress, on April 1 and put the cuffs on the acting boss. That dramatic April Fools’ Day search and seizure was the incident that produced the black plastic garbage bag containing six handguns from under Reale’s outdoor deck—guns Greg Jr. later insisted were planted by his father and brother Joey.37 In fact, the younger Scarpa said that as Joey entered the yard to hide the guns, Lin DeVecchio watched him from a car with Scarpa Sr. “to make sure [Scarpa Jr.’s] brother would be O.K.” In his book, DeVecchio calls those allegations part of a Mafia plot to “frame” him.38 But there wasn’t a single fingerprint on the guns discovered outside the house that linked them to the Orenas.

  Lin DeVecchio (far right) as Vic Orena is “perp walked” post arrest

  (New York Daily News/Getty)

  The Feds offered no explanation for why anyone would leave a bag of weapons in virtual plain sight outside in the elements at the end of winter, or why potentially incriminating firearms would be kept at all. As noted, the bag, which might have contained exculpatory prints, later disappeared.39 Still, federal prosecutors, who described those guns as part of Orena’s “small arsenal,” laid them out on a table at the end of Vic’s trial so that the jury members could see the kind of firepower brought to bear in the war ostensibly waged by “the Orena faction.”

  “Even though all my father had at that safe house were shotguns for defense,” said Orena’s son Andrew, “the sight of those weapons shocked the jury. They were a significant factor in the guilty verdict, which not only convicted my father for Tommy Ocera’s murder but for waging the war that we now know was conducted largely by Scarpa Sr.”40

  In a New York Times story reporting Orena’s arrest on April 2, Andrew J. Maloney, the U.S. attorney in Brooklyn, was quoted as describing Vic Orena as “a central figure in an internecine power struggle that has crippled the Colombo family.” After quoting James Fox, the assistant director in charge (ADIC) of the FBI’s New York Office, on the time and location of the arrest, the Times piece noted that “twelve firearms, including four loaded shotguns and two assault rifles, were seized at the site.”41 In point of fact, Special Agent Joseph Fanning, who testified for the government at Orena’s trial, admitted that all four of the shotguns seized were found stored in closets at the time the FBI raided the house. All of them, he acknowledged, could have been purchased over the counter at sporting goods stores. Two of the shotguns had been bought respectively by Vic Orena and his son Andrew, and both men had filled out the requisite paperwork. A third shotgun—a twelve-gauge Remington—was more than twenty-five years old. These were hardly the type of weapons one would expect to find in the “arsenal” of a mob boss bent on waging a violent and aggressive war.42

  The six handguns found outside, which included four semiautomatics and two revolvers, were dusted for prints; none matched
the Orenas. As noted, the allegation by ADIC Fox that two “assault rifles” had been seized was entirely untrue.

  Pushing to Reopen “34”

  On the day after Orena’s arrest, Lin DeVecchio started pressing hard for permission to reopen Scarpa. To make that happen, evidence now suggests that he misrepresented the facts behind Scarpa’s participation in the “Frankie the Bug” murder plot. This is the background:

  On March 3, the following teletype (or RETEL) went to FBI Director William Sessions, citing that other TE source’s allegation that Scarpa was “involved” in the murder conspiracy.43

  Although the copy we obtained was heavily redacted, a subsequent teletype proves conclusively that this was the alleged “contract” plot to kill “Frankie the Bug” Sciortino that DeVecchio reported in that 209 dated February 25.44 But the day after Orena’s arrest on April 2, in a memo to Sessions, DeVecchio represented that the information linking Scarpa to the Sciortino plot could not be verified. He then stated that “34” was being reopened.

  (Peter Lance)

  In view of the inability to verify the original information with respect to captioned source’s involvement, coupled with the fact that all current sources are potentially in the same position as a result of constant shootings and attendant paranoia, NY is reopening this source.45

  On April 7, relying on DeVecchio’s claim, Sessions sent this teletype to New York:

  Authority for New York to initiate a suitability inquiry regarding the captioned individual [SCARPA] is hereby granted. FBI HQ is granting this authority with the understanding that the Allegations set forth in retel dated March 3rd, 1992 regarding the CI’s possible involvement in a contract murder were unsubstantiated.46

  “If Scarpa had been involved in that plot to kill Sciortino, in violation of that memo from February 3, the Feds never could have reopened him as a source,” says defense lawyer Flora Edwards.47 But the February 27 memo ordering Scarpa closed had left that door open, stating, “If at a future time the NYO can show that the information is unreliable or inconclusive with respect to captioned source’s involvement in the conspiracy, this source will be reopened.”

  So the question is, was DeVecchio truthful with his superiors in New York and Washington with respect to Scarpa’s involvement in the plot to hit Sciortino? In short, did he lie in order to get “34” reopened? The answer came during Lin’s OPR in 1995, and the source was his number two in Squad C-10: Special Agent Chris Favo.

  DeVecchio’s Account Called False

  On May 20 and 21, 1996, Vic Orena and Patty Amato sought to vacate their sentences at what is known as a 2255 hearing. During the proceedings, Judge Jack B. Weinstein, who had presided over Orena’s trial, listened to testimony from a number of witnesses, including DeVecchio, Favo, Special Agents Tomlinson and Leadbetter, and Donald North, DeVecchio’s supervisor in New York. Before closing Scarpa, North testified, he’d done some “cursory checks” and had been advised by another agent that Scarpa was “engaged in planning criminal activity.” But when he spoke with DeVecchio, said North, the SSA was “adamant” that Scarpa “was not engaged in any violent activity.”48

  North reiterated that if he had been presented with evidence that “34” was engaged in violence, Scarpa would have been prosecuted “without question.” Asked whether any circumstances during “a war or conflict or shootings” would “justify having a confidential informant go out and commit the crime of murder and get a pass,” North insisted that “nothing” could “justify it.”49

  Despite DeVecchio’s “adamant” assertions that his coveted source was not participating in the war violence, North testified that he’d ordered DeVecchio to submit that “closing teletype” on February 27. Then, in reliance on Lin’s assurance that Scarpa was not involved in the “Frankie the Bug” murder plot, FBI Director Sessions acquiesced to “34’s” reopening.50

  But in a sworn statement filed in 1995 during DeVecchio’s OPR investigation, Chris Favo, DeVecchio’s immediate subordinate, effectively called him a liar. Even though the statement, which became part of the OPR file, has been redacted, it’s clear what Favo was charging:

  I read SSA DeVecchio’s teletype reopening Scarpa after he had been closed by . This teletype indicated there was no merit to the information that Scarpa had participated in a conspiracy . This teletype is false. SSA DeVecchio told me that Scarpa confirmed this information . It was shortly after Scarpa told DeVecchio this information that I heard DeVecchio on the “Hello” phone telling Scarpa to stay away from . DeVecchio later told me it was all he could do to keep Scarpa away from this source.51

  The “source” was presumably that other Top Echelon informant who had implicated Scarpa in the Sciortino murder plot. Now, on April 22, despite Chris Favo’s insistence that DeVecchio’s exoneration of Scarpa in the Sciortino conspiracy had been “false,” DeVecchio sent Sessions a teletype announcing “34’s” reopening:

  A SUITABILITY AND PERTINENCE INQUIRY HAS BEEN CONDUCTED . . . AND CAPTIONED SOURCE IS CONSIDERED SUITABLE IN VIEW OF THE LONG-STANDING RELATIONSHIP WITH THE NYO AS A TOP ECHELON SOURCE.52

  In that same teletype, DeVecchio wrote:

  ON APRIL 16TH, 1992 ASAC DONALD V. NORTH REVIEWED CAPTIONED SOURCE’S FILE, AND ON THE BASIS OF INFORMATION FURNISHED, DEEMED CAPTIONED SOURCE TO BE SUITABLE AND INFORMATION PERTINENT TO FBI JURISDICTION.

  But in his sworn testimony at the 2255 hearing in 1996, ASAC North stated that he couldn’t recall authorizing Scarpa’s reopening. During direct examination by Orena’s attorney Gerald Shargel, North went even further, admitting that he was “somewhat surprised when the prosecutors asked [him] if [he] authorized” Scarpa’s reactivation and had “no recollection of [his] being reopened.”53 However, in his April 22 teletype to Sessions, DeVecchio implied that North had signed off on “34’s” reinstatement. So the conflict between their accounts raises one of two prospects: Either North was being disingenuous or DeVecchio was.

  Donald North died of a heart attack in 2005,54 so I never got a chance to press him on whether he’d approved Scarpa’s reopening, as DeVecchio suggested. In his book DeVecchio proudly writes, “On April 22, 1992, I won the right to reopen Scarpa.”55 What he doesn’t mention at that point is that the Grim Reaper waited only a month before adding another corpse to his string of homicides.

  Chapter 29

  WHO’S GOING TO WIN THIS THING?

  On May 22, 1992, precisely thirty days after he’d been returned to active status as a Top Echelon FBI informant, Greg Scarpa Sr. executed a Colombo family member in a hit that not only inspired the title to Lin DeVecchio’s book but created a Mafia tagline that would become so famous it ended up in the finale of The Sopranos.1 This time Scarpa’s target was a sixty-six-year-old wiseguy named Lorenzo Lampasi, a.k.a. “Larry Lamps.”

  By the late 1970s, Lampasi, who had an arrest record for loan sharking, gambling, and drunk driving, had become an owner of Abco Bus Company, which contracted with the New York City Board of Education to run a fleet of school buses. In a riveting investigative piece for New York magazine, Nicholas Pileggi traced Lampasi’s mob pedigree back to 1963, when he was wanted for questioning in the garroting of Larry Gallo at the Sahara Lounge.2 Since that was the intended hit in which Carmine Persico betrayed the Gallo brothers and cemented his position in the Profaci-Colombo family, Lampasi’s participation in that plot should have earned him a solid place within the Persico faction during the war.

  But Carmine Sessa would later tell FBI agents that one of the reasons for Lampasi’s rubout was “his loyalty to [the] Colombo LCN Family acting boss, VICTOR J. ORENA.”3 As we’ll see, there was little evidence that Lampasi had anything to do with Orena, so that motive doesn’t ring true. The more likely reason that Larry Lamps was marked for death was that, like Sal Scarpa, Joe Brewster DeDomenico, and Joe Waverly Cacace before him, Lampasi had made the mistake of airing his suspicions that Scarpa was a government informant.

  Indeed, during William Cutolo’s trial in 1994, Se
ssa testified that Lampasi had told others that Scarpa had been cooperating with law enforcement.4 At Vic Orena Jr.’s trial six months later, Sessa went even further, swearing under oath that Greg Sr. had been “furious” after Lampasi wrote to him and audaciously cited “34’s” status as a CI.5

  Earlier, Sessa had told FBI agents that an associate of Lampasi’s named “Tony” owed Scarpa money, and that along with his repayment Lamps had sent Greg a letter threatening that if the money didn’t erase Tony’s problem, then he and Scarpa would have to “settle this in another manner.” Then, according to Sessa, Lampasi wrote that he refused to speak to Senior in person because “there’s bad rumors about [him] on the street.”

  At that point, according to Sessa, Scarpa went to “Joe T” Tomasello, a senior capo in the family, complaining that Lampasi had called him a “rat.”6 In Sessa’s account, Scarpa asked Joe T for permission to kill Lampasi—but that doesn’t sync with the unilateral way Scarpa did business. “He hadn’t sought permission for a host of other murders, from Mary Bari to Joe DeDomenico,” says Flora Edwards. “He wasn’t about to start at that point.” In any case, the Killing Machine started plotting Lampasi’s death.

  According to Sessa, Scarpa got Lampasi’s home address from Tomasello, who was a partner with him in another bus company. Sessa said that because Joe T had a relative who worked there, Tomasello asked that the hit go down elsewhere.7 The source of the address became a major issue during Lin DeVecchio’s trial, when the Brooklyn DA alleged, via Linda Schiro, that Scarpa had obtained the location of Lampasi’s house from his FBI handler.