by Joe Pistone
After the announcement of the murder indictment against Lin DeVecchio, the actor James Caan wrote a letter to Brooklyn DA Charles J. Hynes thanking him for “undertaking such an extensive and malignant corruption case”; praising the DA for “taking the time to evaluate the situation to correct the wrongs that have affected so many lives”; and reasserting his own friendship with Jo-Jo Russo. “Joseph Russo is a dear friend of mine,” Caan wrote, “and I cannot express enough how pleased I am that your office has taken interest and is in pursuit of correcting this problem.”
This letter from James Caan could not have been written on behalf of a “dear friend” in the Mafia unless Caan had that friend’s permission. It takes about an hour of dear friendship with a made man to learn that you do not interfere in his business, legal or otherwise, even to help him, unless he allows you to do so.
Nothing for nothing, but James Caan is well known in law enforcement for his “dear friendships” of some kind with high-end bookmakers. In fact, James Caan’s “dear friend”—Jo-Jo’s father Andy the Fat Man Russo, who supplied his own sister, Jo-Jo’s aunt, as the lone pathetic witness for their cousin Carmine Persico in the Mafia Commission Case—was the acting boss of a family of bookmakers.
Friends do favors for their friends when they are called upon to do so.
This letter from James Caan is a gift. It reveals the seething thinking and wellworn tactics of Carmine the Snake Persico and his cousins and loyalists. It is reminiscent of the letter Persico’s wife Joyce wrote to Newsday about how, just when they thought it was safe to resume their lives again, “along came RICO and Giuliani.”
In James Caan’s letter, the “Scarpa defense” rides again. Lin helped put Caan’s “dear friend” and the Snake’s cousin Jo-Jo Russo away. Jo-Jo’s father Andy the Fat Man went to jail trying to fix a juror to create grounds for an appeal for Jo-Jo. Then making use of “the Scarpa defense” with Judge Charles Sifton, Jo-Jo came oh-so-close to skating on appeal. Why not try again on appeal—only this time with a lot more ammunition against Lin, this time getting Lin banged for what Judge Sifton called a “level of uncivilized and indecent behavior.”
By their twisted legal theory, if Lin is convicted of corruption on other murders done by Scarpa on behalf of Persico, then those men Lin helped put away for the Minerva pastry murder done on behalf of Persico should get away. Fortunately, despite what Judge Sifton said about “uncivilized and indecent behavior,” the law doesn’t work that way.
DA Hynes’ witnesses against Lin include three Persico loyalists in the civil war. One is the loyal Carmine Sessa, the consigliere who informed on Little Vic and started the war, and who has already given sworn testimony inconsistent with the indictment against Lin.
The chief DA witness is the former cumare of Greg Scarpa, Linda Schiro. Although she stated differently in the past, Linda Schiro now claims that over the years she sat in her kitchen with Scarpa and Lin and watched Scarpa hand Lin money in exchange for information. Imagine anyone as intelligent as Lin openly accepting money in front of her. Fuggeddaboudit.
In the past, Linda Schiro denied that she had seen any such thing. “I stay out of the kitchen,” she had said. One of the three Persico loyalists who are now providing testimony against Lin is a Colombo family soldier that Linda Schiro recruited into the Mafia by sexually seducing him when he was a grocery delivery boy. The information that led to Lin’s indictment was provided to the DA by the effort of Sandy Harmon, a woman with whom Linda Schiro is collaborating on a book. I’m experienced enough in the publishing field to know that if Linda Schiro wants a publisher to accept what she is writing, then it is in her interest to have Lin DeVecchio at least stand trial.
A few years ago, when Linda Schiro self-righteously emoted during the sentencing of a man who had killed Linda Schiro’s hit-man son in a drug-dealing dispute, the convicted killer’s mother was heard to say, “She’s such an actress. She should get an Academy Award. Look at those tears.”
Is the indictment of Lin DeVecchio then a kind of legal hit, ordered by the son of a legal stenographer who in 1959 “cleverly” manipulated a one-year sentence into a 14-year sentence, and who in 1986 represented himself in the Mafia Commission Case like a man with a Napoleon complex, and who in 1994 had to sit in his cell and seethe with undying hatred toward Greg Scarpa and his handler, Lin DeVecchio?
At this point, what I’ve said here is just a theory. But if there’s one thing in this world that I do know, it is how these people think.
If by some lapse in today’s system—where FBI agents are prize trophy defendants for DAs—Lin’s trial goes the way Persico wants it to go, Persico the Snake can then once again hold his evil little head up high. If he gets his way, he might say, “I wasn’t made a fool of by Greg Scarpa. My trusted right-hand man and foxhole buddy wasn’t really on the government payroll selling out the great Carmine Persico. Get it, my fellow inmates, and my Colombo family supporters? Greg Scarpa had the G on his payroll. The Colombo family owned the FBI; they didn’t own us. My blood brother Greg Scarpa didn’t fool me; he fooled the government—you know, those same people I conspire to kill every chance I get.”
If Satan wins and things go the Snake’s way, Carmine Persico will then get a chance to slap his hand on the prison desk that he still uses to write letters, and shout out loud, “We’re going to win this thing.”
CHAPTER 22
HOORAY FOR HOLLYWOOD
WHEN MY FRIEND LIN DEVECCHIO was indicted for murder in Brooklyn, he hopped a Delta flight from his home in Sarasota, Florida to surrender to the DA’s office in Brooklyn. “I’m surrendering tonight,” Lin told a reporter, “but I certainly would feel better if this wasn’t so.” Lin spent the night on a cot in the DA’s office and the next day he appeared in court for the setting of bail.
In the Brooklyn courthouse the next day, the real world was left behind at the door and the events inside the courtroom took on the form of a bad Hollywood movie.
The producer of the melodrama was Michael F. Vecchione, a prosecutor in the DA’s investigations division. Vecchione had invested heavily in the script. He bought the stinker—hook, line, and sinker.Vecchione opposed bail of any kind for Lin.Vecchione wanted Lin to rot in jail from that day until the trial many months later. Even though Lin had turned himself in,Vecchione argued that Lin was a risk to run away to a foreign land. After all, Vecchione told the judge, Lin had support from retired FBI agents, some of whom had once worked overseas and could assist Lin in his getaway.
There were 45 retired agents sitting like extras in the courtroom to show our support for Lin. The retired agents groaned as one at this ridiculous plot twist. Sitting in that room, who could understand what would make this Vecchione guy think like that?
The plot thickened. Vecchione argued to the judge that Lin’s gray-haired retired FBI supporters had already gone out and attempted to intimidate prosecution witnesses against Lin. This band of witness intimidators would help Lin flee the country.
Lin’s lawyer’s only explanation for this bizarre tale, other than to call it absurd, was to tell the judge that Vecchione’s office was not used to making organized crime cases and didn’t know how to evaluate them.
Nothing for nothing, but I knew it wasn’t just that. There was something else going on here. The indictment claimed that Lin helped his secret informer Greg Scarpa in eliminating his enemies before and during the bloody Colombo Family War. The star witness against Lin was going to be Scarpa’s longtime live-in cumare Linda Schiro.
It was Linda Schiro’s team that had brought the case to Vecchione 13 months earlier. Linda Schiro and her co-writer Sandy Harmon were trying unsuccessfully to sell a book to a publisher. They added Angela Clemente to their team, an unlicensed self-styled private investigator from across the Hudson River in New Jersey. Angela first attempted to get a congressman to conduct congressional hearings—hearings that would have been a publicity platform—with no real cross-examination. The congressman declined and recommen
ded that Angela take the package to the Brooklyn DA’s office.
However, Linda and company’s package—chock full of cooperating Mafia witness statements—had one serious flaw.Twelve years prior, FBI agents had interviewed the witnesses, including Linda Schiro, when the charges against Lin first surfaced. All the witnesses denied any knowledge of any transactions of any kind between Lin the handler and his informer, Greg Scarpa. Linda Schiro said she’d seen Lin about ten times in twelve years and that “she was not close enough to hear the contents of their discussions.” Which, if you know anything at all about handling high-level informers, makes sense.
So now how do you explain the complete about-face by Linda and her cast of characters—from knowing nothing to knowing everything? Easy. Linda and her company of players were intimidated by the FBI twelve years earlier. And guess what, here today in 2006 those same intimidating agents are still attempting to intimidate witnesses. See? Nice and neat. And totally fictitious.
Still that’s only half a pizza. It explains why Linda and company would claim that intimidation was still occurring in order to boost their claim that intimidation had once occurred. But why would Vecchione believe Linda and company’s pitch that FBI interviewers had once intimidated them into mass perjury and that retired agents are still attempting to intimidate witnesses? Why couldn’t Vecchione see the obvious self-interest these people had to change their earlier statements? Why would Vecchione greenlight this project?
Nothing for nothing, but could Vecchione also have been bitten by the Hollywood potential for this story with all its plot twists and the FBI as the villain? You don’t have to win a case to make a big score. Marcia Clark pocketed a $5 million book advance for bungling the open-and-shut O.J. Simpson case. Could Vecchione have his own self-interest that blinded him to theirs?
Fortunately, the judge wasn’t biting. He was not convinced by Vecchione’s arguments and reality was restored. Lin was released on bail and five retired FBI agents co-signed the bail. Retired agent Chris Mattiace said, “We believe that the charges are frivolous.” The movie should be called “Frivolous and Frivolouser.”
And the “Frivolouser” part was about to begin.
Linda Schiro and company are in it for a book deal and a ticket to Hollywood. But Persico and company could not possibly care a little bit about the traitor Scarpa’s former mistress and her book deal. The Colombo family Mafia witnesses would “cooperate” with Linda, Sandy, and Angela only to help their own: Jo-Jo Russo, Anthony Russo, and Joseph Monteleone (an accomplice on the pastry shop murder).
All the murder charges against Lin implicate Lin in murders carried out by Scarpa on his and Carmine Persico’s enemies in Brooklyn. How do you go from proving Lin was involved in Scarpa’s Brooklyn murders to the unrelated pastry shop murders in Nassau County on Long Island? Those are the murders for which Hollywood actor James Caan’s “dear friend” Jo-Jo Russo is doing life. When Jo-Jo and company committed the pastry shop murders, Jo-Jo was also a “dear friend” of Greg Scarpa. They were on the same team, the Persico side of the war. Jo-Jo is Carmine Persico’s cousin, and Scarpa was Persico’s right-hand man.And if Lin were found guilty in Brooklyn, he merely would be put on that same team.
If you prove that Lin teamed with Scarpa to kill Persico’s enemies in Brooklyn, what does that have to do with the unrelated pastry shop killing of some more Persico enemies on Long Island by other members of the same team? As I mentioned in discussing the Scarpa Defense, Jo-Jo had gotten his conviction reversed, strangely, because the prosecutor had not informed the defense that Scarpa was a government informant working for Lin. That reversal was reversed on appeal as being an unrelated fact that was beside the point, and Jo-Jo remained in the can. Now if Scarpa and Lin could be proven to have been a two-man Murder Incorporated, you can’t blame the Persico team for hoping that maybe that could spill over and help Jo-Jo on appeal. But legally and geographically, it’s a huge stretch.
An appellate lawyer would need to have something meatier.
A week after the setting of bail for Lin, the NewYork Daily News reported that Angela Clemente was engaged in another investigation.
Guess what? Bingo. A pastry shop in Nassau County. According to the News, Clemente “spotlighted the testimony of another federal informant who claimed others admitted to the” pastry shop murders. Now, these jailhouse ruses of someone else confessing to a crime for which someone was convicted, are a dime a dozen. You can “spotlight” them all you want. You still need more.
But you’ve got to admit, this Angela gets around.
The next plot twist occurred on June 17, 2006. On that day, Angela Clemente—after first warning the DA’s office that the lives of those involved in investigating Lin’s case were in danger—got herself discovered beaten and bruised at 6 a.m. in the parking lot of Caesar’s Bay Shopping Center in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn.
Angela said that on the morning of the day before her beating, her assailant had put a note on her car. The note writer claimed to have information that would help with her investigation into clearing Jo-Jo Russo and company of the pastry shop murders. She believed this would lead her to an eyewitness who saw that the murders were not committed by Jo-Jo and company but were linked to Scarpa and Lin. The anonymous note writer said for her to meet him at midnight at 82nd St. and 3rd Ave. in Brooklyn—Scarpa territory. Angela told a law enforcement official about the note and he advised her not to go. She went anyway, but the note writer did not show up.
The next day Angela got another note on her car. This time she called a crime reporter at the New York Daily News, Angela Mosconi.
“What do you think I should do?” Angela asked the reporter.
“Don’t go—it’s the heart of Colombo territory, and it’s dangerous. But if you do go, bring backup.”
Angela had a better idea. Do go and go alone without back up. But she gave the reporter the DA’s phone number and said, “Just in case, if I don’t call you by 6 a.m.—call them.”
Angela had already written a three-page letter to the authorities claiming that ex-FBI agents were engaged in “witness tampering, harassment and intimidation” on Lin’s behalf. That got some media coverage, and now she’d lined up a crime reporter, “Just in case. . . .”
For the second night in a row, the fearless unlicensed private eye drove to Scarpa territory to meet with the leaver of windshield notes. Again, the note writer didn’t show up. So Angela, instead of going home, began “driving around” in the opposite direction and ended up in the isolated parking lot at Caesar’s Bay. There a man approached her. He had obviously been following her. He asked her, “Are you going to keep investigating DeVecchio?” The brave Angela said, “Yes,” and the man began punching, choking, and kicking the 5’4” woman.
Angela was taken to the Lutheran Medical Center where she was protected by cops at her bedside. Also at her bedside was Vecchione. “We consider this very serious,” Vecchione said. “She was working on a case not unrelated” to his case against Lin.
“Not unrelated” means related. Well now, that pastry shop in Long Island was getting closer to Brooklyn by the day. It was now officially “not unrelated.”
Against the hospital’s advice, mission accomplished, Angela walked out of the hospital.
For the next scene, cut to the next day. Angela and her children went into hiding. Angela told the press that she had received a post-beating threat that had now finally scared her off the case. “I’m in danger,” Angela said. “What happened to me today is far worse than the attack.”
The New York Daily News reported Angela telling a source, “The threat that came after the attack was far more alarming than the attack itself. I’m in hiding. I’m very nervous. I’m scared. I’m not going to do any further investigation.”
About the physical attack, Angela said, “I never thought I was going to die. They were just trying to scare me.”Think about that for a second. You’re a woman alone in Mafia land in a remote area with no witnesses at 2
:30 in the morning; a stranger has set you up; he begins beating you; and somehow you can read his mind that he will know when to stop. Oh, I just got it. The reason she “never thought” she was going to die is that it was the retired FBI agents out of control again—not the Mafia. Presumably, my colleagues would have sense enough not to kill her.
I know it will take a long time, but if my ex-agent pals apply themselves they can do the same thing to scare off the DA’s professional investigators, one at a time.
As to the unnamed threat, Angela said, “I’m withdrawing from this entire thing due to financial reasons. I don’t make any money on this.” (Yet.)
“It’s been a lot of headaches,” she continued. “Why should I continue? I’m getting mobsters pissed off at me and law enforcement angry with me. Why continue on a path that’s harming me. . . . I don’t know if justice will be done. There’s so much corruption in this case.”
Vecchione assured the voters of Brooklyn, “We’re vigorously pursuing the assailant.”
A week later it surfaced that Vecchione had a new, as yet unidentified witness—a “middleman” who helped intimidate Linda Schiro into perjury in her 1994 interview by the FBI. “He had the middleman to pass along to Ms. Schiro what to say to the FBI when they came to her,”Vecchione said. So Linda was good and intimidated. FBI agents and this middleman were double-teaming her. That’s why she didn’t tell the FBI in 1994 what she told the Brooklyn DA’s office in 2006, namely, that she saw and heard everything. She saw Scarpa every week give Lin a roll of bills totaling thousands of dollars wrapped in a rubber band. Forget for a minute that no bribe would ever be given in front of a wife or a cumare. Nothing for nothing, but all bribes, all passing of money between Mafia men, is done in envelopes. That’s just the way it is always done. Not in a rolled up wad that bulges in your pocket. The fact that Linda said it was a wad only shows that she never saw it done except in the movies.
