Deal With the Devil: The FBI's Secret Thirty-Year Relationship With a Mafia Killer

by Peter Lance

  24. Author’s interview with Alan Futerfas, May 24, 2004.

  25. Gambardello, “Colombo Family Has Bloody Past.”

  CHAPTER 4: THE SPECIAL GOES SOUTH

  1. Author’s interview with Fredric Dannen, October 2, 2011.

  2. U.S. v. Cecil Ray Price et al., Criminal Action Number 5291, U.S. Court for the Southern District of Mississippi, October 7, 1968.

  3. Jerry Mitchell, “Experts: Autopsy Reveals Beating,” Jackson Clarion-Ledger, June 4, 2000.

  4. Peter Lance, Cover Up: What the Government Is Still Hiding About the War on Terror (New York: ReganBooks, 2004), 14.

  5. Andrew Jacobs, “The Southern Town Struggles with a Violent Legacy,” New York Times, May 29, 2004.

  6. Author’s interviews with Judge W. O. Chet Dillard, October 10, 2011, and June 11, 2004.

  7. People v. R. Lindley DeVecchio, October 29, 2007, transcript, 1544–52.

  8. Tom Robbins and Jerry Capeci, “FBI Used Wiseguy to Crack KKK Man,” New York Daily News, June 21, 1994.

  9. Dillard interview, October 10, 2011.

  10. Dillard interview, June 11, 2004.

  11. Fredric Dannen, interview with confidential source, October 1996.

  12. Mitchell, “Experts: Autopsy Reveals Beating.”

  13. Author’s interview with Linda Schiro, November 3, 2007.

  14. Jennifer S. Lee, “Samuel Bowers, 82, Klan Leader Convicted in Fatal Bombing, Dies,” New York Times, November 6, 2006.

  15. Fredric Dannen, “The G-Man and the Hit Man,” New Yorker, December 16, 1996; Taylor Branch, At Canaan’s Edge: America in the King Years, 1965–68 (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2007), 411.

  16. Dillard interview, October 10, 2011.

  17. Memo to assistant director from , January 21, 1966. Although no airtel in the recently disclosed material documents Scarpa’s 1964 assignment, that memo, memorializing Scarpa’s recruiting for the Vernon Dahmer case, uses the term “special.”

  18. Ibid.

  19. W. O. Chet Dillard, Clear Burning: Civil Rights, Civil Wrongs (Jackson, MS: Persimmon Press, 1992). In an interview with the author on October 9, 2011, Judge Dillard said that in recent years he had identified an eyewitness to the kidnapping—a man whose father had run a welding shop adjacent to the alley behind Byrd’s store. Though only a boy at the time of the abduction, the witness confirmed the details for Dillard.

  20. Dillard interview, October 10, 2011.

  21. Dillard interview, July 11, 2004.

  22. Dannen, “The G-Man and the Hit Man.”

  23. FBI 302 memo, interrogation of Lawrence Byrd, February 2, 1966.

  24. Signed confession of Lawrence Byrd, Hattiesburg, Mississippi, March 2, 1996. Ruth A. Olenski, reporter.

  25. Ibid., testimony of Linda Schiro, 2007, transcript, 1552.

  26. Lee, “Samuel Bowers, 82.”

  27. Robert D. McFadden, “First Murder Charge in ’64 Civil Rights Killings of 3,” New York Times, January 7, 2005.

  28. Shaila Dewan, “Former Klansman Guilty of Manslaughter in 1964 Deaths,”New York Times, June 22, 2005.

  29. Ariel Hart, “41 Years Later, Ex-Klansman Gets 60 Years in Civil Rights Deaths,” New York Times, June 24, 2005.

  30. “Sarah Wallace Killer Says Civil Rights Violated,” WABC-TV, February 4, 2009.

  31. A series of hearings into intelligence abuses by the CIA and FBI was conducted by Senator Frank Church (D-ID) and Congressman Otis D. Pike (D-NY), who chaired separate Select Committees on Intelligence. The multiple reports of the Church Committee, which held hearings from 1975 to 1976, can be accessed at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_Committee. The House of Representatives voted not to release Pike’s report without presidential approval, but it was published by the Village Voice after NPR reporter Daniel Schorr leaked a copy to the weekly. http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/2010/07/the_village_voi_3.php.

  32. Author’s interview with DEA Special Agent Michael Levine (ret.), October 8, 2011.

  33. Anthony Villano with Gerald Astor, Brick Agent: Inside the Mafia for the FBI (New York: Quadrangle, 1977), 93.

  34. Sandra Harmon,Mafia Son: The Scarpa Mob Family, the FBI, and a Story of Betrayal (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2009), 60–64. A self-professed “Love Coach, Life Coach, Love Trainer” (http://www.sandraharmon.com), Harmon is the coauthor of the Priscilla Presley tell-all Elvis & Me (New York: Putnam, 1985).

  35. Richard Esposito, “Former Fave FBI Stool Pigeon Indicted,” ABC News, March 30, 2006, http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=1786440&page=2.

  36. Jerry Capeci, “Ex-FBI Agent Probed in Mob Hits,” New York Sun, January 12, 2006.

  37. Tom Robbins, “Mobster on a Mission,” Village Voice, January 10, 2006.

  38. Testimony of Marty Light before the President’s Commission on Organized Crime, Washington, DC, January 29, 1986.

  39. U.S. v. Victor Orena, November 19, 1992, 976.

  CHAPTER 5: SINATRA, CAPOTE, AND THE ANIMAL

  1. Memo from special agent in charge, FBI New York Office, to director, FBI, June 6, 1963.

  2. Memo from special agent in charge, FBI New York Office, to director, FBI, September 21, 1964.

  3. Memo from special agent in charge, FBI New York Office, to director, FBI, November 3, 1965.

  4. Amount is closer to $120,794.97 according to the website U.S. Inflation Calculator, http://www.usinflationcalculator.com/.

  5. Memo from special agent in charge, FBI New York Office, to director, FBI, August 16, 1966.

  6. Memo from special agent in charge, FBI New York Office, to director, FBI, July 29, 1967.

  7. Memo from special agent in charge, FBI New York Office, August 16, 1966.

  8. Memo from special agent in charge, FBI New York Office, July 29, 1967.

  9. Author’s interview with FBI Special Agent Dan Vogel (ret.), October 14, 2011.

  10. Memo from J. H. Gale, assistant director, to Cartha DeLoach, deputy director, August 4, 1967.

  11. Memo from special agent in charge, FBI New York Office, to director, FBI, July 29, 1967.

  12. People v. R. Lindley DeVecchio, testimony of Linda Schiro, October 29, 2007, transcript, 1554.

  13. Anthony Villano with Gerald Astor, Brick Agent: Inside the Mafia for the FBI (New York: Quadrangle, 1977), 9.

  14. Ibid.

  15. Memo from special agent in charge, FBI New York Office, to director, FBI, August 25, 1967.

  16. Ibid.

  17. Author’s interview with DEA Special Agent Michael Levine (ret.), October 8, 2011.

  18. Villano, Brick Agent, 93–94.

  19. Villano died in 1978, but in researching his 1996 piece for the New Yorker, Fredric Dannen interviewed his coauthor, Gerald Astor. He confirmed that the two Mafiosi were based on Scarpa. “We did that to give him more cover,” Astor told Dannen. Fredric Dannen, interviews with Gerald Astor, September 30 and October 1, 1996.

  20. Villano, Brick Agent, 90–94. Villano doesn’t mention the Dahmer case by name. In fact, he implies that Scarpa’s work was in connection with FBI efforts to solve the murder of civil rights leader Medgar Evers—a possible third Mississippi mission for the TE informant. But the facts as related in Brick Agent suggest that the expenses were owed in relation to the Lawrence Byrd interrogation.

  21. Memo from Gale to DeLoach, August 4, 1967.

  22. Amount is closer to $3,969.33 according to U.S. Inflation Calculator, http://www.usinflationcalculator.com/.

  23. Memo from special agent in charge, FBI New York Office, to director, FBI, January 23, 1968.

  24. Memo from special agent in charge, FBI New York Office, to director, FBI, January 18, 1968.

  25. Levine interview, October 8, 2011.

  26. Vogel interview, October 14, 2011.

  27. Burton B. Turkus and Sid Feder, Murder, Inc.: The Story of the Syndicate Killing Machine (New York: Tenacity Media Books, 2012), 359–60.

  28. House Committee on Government Reform, Everything Secret Degenerates: The FBI’s Use of Murderer
s as Informants, 3rd Report, HR Rep. No. 108-414 at 454 (2004), 62.

  29. FBI teletype from special agent in charge, FBI New York Office, to director, FBI, February 15, 1968.

  30. FBI teletype from special agent in charge, FBI New York Office, to director, FBI Boston Office, February 16, 1968.

  31. Deborah Davis, The Party of the Century: The Fabulous Story of Truman Capote and His Black and White Ball (New York: Wiley, 2006).

  32. Charlotte Curtis, “Capote’s Black and White Ball: ‘The Most Exquisite of Spectator Sports,’” New York Times, November 29, 1966.

  33. Ibid.

  34. The initial name was “American-Italian Anti-Defamation Council.” Colombo later changed it to the “Italian-American Civil Rights League.” Peter Maas, The Valachi Papers (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1968), 12; memo from special agent in charge, FBI New York Office, to director, FBI. Subject: Gregory Scarpa. Top Echelon Criminal Informant Program, New York Division, April 11, 1966.

  35. Fred Ferretti, “Italian-American League’s Power Spreads,” New York Times, April 4, 1971.

  36. Craig Whitney, “Italians Picket F.B.I. Office Here,”New York Times, May 2, 1970.

  37. Fred Ferretti, “TV’s ‘F.B.I.’ to Drop ‘Mafia’ and ‘Cosa Nostra’ from Its Scripts,” New York Times, March 24, 1971.

  38. Nicholas Gage, “A Few Family Murders, but That’s Show Biz,” New York Times, March 19, 1972.

  39. Nicholas Pileggi, “The Making of ‘The Godfather’—Sort of a Home Movie,” New York Times, August 15, 1971.

  40. Morris Kaplan, “Kahane and Colombo Join Forces to Fight U.S. Harassment,” New York Times, May 14, 1971.

  41. Pileggi, “The Making of ‘The Godfather.’”

  42. William E. Farrell, “Colombo Shot, Gunman Slain at Columbus Circle Rally Site,” New York Times, June 29, 1971.

  43. Fred Ferretti, “Suspect in Shooting of Colombo Linked to Gambino Family,” New York Times, July 20, 1971.

  44. Arnold H. Lubasch, “11 Indicted by U.S. as the Leadership of a Crime Family,” New York Times, October 25, 1984.

  CHAPTER 6: AGENT PROVOCATEUR

  1. One definition given by Webster’s is similar: “a person employed to encourage people to break the law so that they can be arrested,” http://www.learnersdictionary.com/search/agent%20provocateur.

  2. FBI teletype on reopening of Gregory Scarpa, FBI NY #534217A, July 1, 1980.

  3. Conclusion of Judge Gustin Reichbach, decision and order of dismissal, People v. R. Lindley DeVecchio, November, 1, 2007, http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/reichbach.pdf. See Appendix H.

  4. FBI teletype from director, FBI, to FBI New York Office, September 25, 1991.

  5. Anthony Villano with Gerald Astor, Brick Agent: Inside the Mafia for the FBI (New York: Quadrangle, 1977), 105.

  6. That figure was determined by breaking down the $158,400 in total payments made to Scarpa Sr. from September 1962 to September 25, 1991, the date of a teletype to the director from the New York SAC. Based on the 149 months of “34’s” first term as a TECI, from September 1962 through May 1975, and the 134 months of his second term, from July 1980 through September 1991, and adjusting the average of fees paid annually to 2013 dollars via www.usinflationcalculator.com, the totals were $526,355.32 for the first term (1962–1975) and $155,114.49 for the second term (1980–1991).

  Further, in his memoir, Scarpa Sr.’s third contacting agent, Anthony Villano, estimated that “34” had earned $52,000 in insurance rewards brokered by Villano for various hijackings that Scarpa Sr. told the FBI about during an unspecified eighteen-month period. Reckoning that period as commencing in January 1968, the date of the Olympic Airways heist, after which Scarpa Sr. informed Villano of the most hijackings, that $52,000 figure adjusted to 2013 dollars represented $337,035.25. Adding it to the adjusted totals for Scarpa Sr.’s two terms as a Top Echelon Criminal Informant, the combined figure in payments from the FBI and insurance rewards represented $1,007,668.50 in 2013 dollars.

  7. Description of the Colombo family drawn from Selwyn Raab, Five Families: The Rise, Decline, and Resurgence of America’s Most Powerful Mafia Empires (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2005), 326.

  8. Memo from J. H. Gale, assistant director, to Cartha DeLoach, deputy director, July 9, 1970.

  9. Memo from special agent in charge, FBI New York Office, to director, FBI. Subject: Gregory Scarpa. Top Echelon Criminal Informant Program, New York Division, November 3, 1970, 4.

  10. Memo from special agent in charge, FBI New York Office, to director, FBI. Subject: Gregory Scarpa. Top Echelon Criminal Informant Program, New York Division, November 24, 1967, 7.

  11. Memo from special agent in charge, FBI New York Office, to director, FBI. Subject: Gregory Scarpa. Top Echelon Criminal Informant Program, New York Division, November 5, 1969, 1; memo from special agent in charge, FBI New York Office, to director, FBI. Subject: Gregory Scarpa. Top Echelon Criminal Informant Program, New York Division, November 9, 1970, 4–6.

  12. Memo from special agent in charge, FBI New York Office, to director, FBI. Subject: Gregory Scarpa. Top Echelon Criminal Informant Program, New York Division, July 2, 1970.

  13. FBI memo, November 9, 1970.

  14. Memo from special agent in charge, FBI New York Office, to director, FBI. Subject: Gregory Scarpa. Top Echelon Criminal Informant Program, New York Division, June 16, 1971.

  15. Memo from special agent in charge, FBI New York Office, to director, FBI. Subject: Gregory Scarpa. Top Echelon Criminal Informant Program, New York Division, June 29, 1971.

  16. Memo from special agent in charge, FBI New York Office, to director, FBI. Subject: Gregory Scarpa. Top Echelon Criminal Informant Program, New York Division, September 2, 1971.

  17. Raab, Five Families, 324.

  18. Fredric Dannen, interview with Louis Diamond, October 16, 1966.

  19. Raab, Five Families, 194.

  20. Author’s interview with Mario Puzo, April 12, 1999.

  21. Larry McShane, “Matty the Horse’s Ride Could End in Prison,” Associated Press, March 4, 2007.

  22. Eric Pace, “Joe Gallo Is Shot to Death in Little Italy Restaurant,” New York Times, April 8, 1972.

  23. Nicholas Gage, “Two Are Hunted in Gallo Murder,” New York Times, April 14, 1972.

  24. Nicholas Gage, “Story of Joe Gallo’s Murder: 5 in Colombo Gang Implicated,” New York Times, May 3, 1972.

  25. Memo from special agent in charge, FBI New York Office, to director, FBI. Subject: Gregory Scarpa. Top Echelon Criminal Informant Program, New York Division, July 25, 1972.

  26. Indictment, U.S. v. Gregory Scarpa, Gennaro Ciprio et al., 72 CR997. 72 CR866, July 18, 1972. Fourteen-page indictment.

  27. Nicholas Gage. “Slain Brooklyn Man Described as Colombo Family Associate,” New York Times, April 11, 1972.

  28. Order to Transfer, July 18, 1972. Ciprio, a senior Colombo family associate, was standing a few feet away from the boss, Joseph Colombo, when he was shot. Five months after the indictment was handed down, Ciprio was murdered. The shooting occurred just four days after the rubout of Colombo’s archrival, Crazy Joe Gallo, in Little Italy. It’s unclear what impact Ciprio’s death may have had on the stolen-securities case.

  29. U.S. District Court, Eastern District of New York, order of dismissal, April 6, 1973.

  30. Gage, “Slain Brooklyn Man.”

  31. Special Agents David M. Parker and Robert J. O’Brien, FBI 302 memo re: Carmine Sessa, April 18, 1994, 2.

  32. Author’s interview with Flora Edwards, November 3, 2011.

  CHAPTER 7: GOD, THE MOB, AND THE FBI

  1. Nicholas Gage, “Key Mafia Figure Tells of ‘War’ and Gallo-Colombo Peace Talks,” New York Times, July 7, 1975.

  2. Memo from special agent in charge, FBI New York Office, to director, FBI. Subject: Gregory Scarpa. Top Echelon Criminal Informant Program, New York Division, July 25, 1972.

  3. “Smiling New Yorker Refuses Answers on Mail Theft Ring,” Associated P
ress, July 21, 1971.

  4. Testimony of Gregory Scarpa before the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations of the Senate Government Operations Committee, OC and Stolen Securities, 1971, 633–35; 616; David Scheim, Contract on America: The Mafia Murder of President John F. Kennedy (New York: Shapolsky Publishers, 1971), 345.

  5. Memo from special agent in charge, FBI New York Office, to director, FBI. Subject: Gregory Scarpa. Top Echelon Criminal Informant Program, New York Division, September 2, 1971, referencing a Scarpa debriefing on June 29, 1971, 2.

  6. Memo from special agent in charge, FBI New York Office, to director, FBI, August 21, 1968.

  7. Memo from special agent in charge, FBI New York Office, to director, FBI, November 24, 1967, 3.

  8. Ibid., 4.

  9. Ibid., 8.

  10. Memo from special agent in charge, FBI New York Office, to director, FBI, December 20, 1968, 2–3.

  11. Memo from special agent in charge, FBI New York Office, to director, FBI, May 5, 1969, 2–3.

  12. Memo from special agent in charge, FBI New York Office, to director, FBI, May 5, 1970, 3.

  13. Memo from special agent in charge, FBI New York Office, to director, FBI, November 9, 1970, 1–2.

  14. Author’s interview with Ellen Resnick, February 21, 2012.

  15. Anthony Villano with Gerald Astor, Brick Agent: Inside the Mafia for the FBI (New York: Quadrangle, 1977), 105–106.

  16. Author’s interview with FBI Special Agent Dan Vogel (ret.), October 14, 2011.

  17. Affidavit of Gregory Scarpa Jr. sworn before a notary at the ADX Florence prison, July 30, 2002.

  18. U.S. v. Victor Orena, decision of Judge Jack B. Weinstein, habeas hearing, January 16, 2004.

  19. The first terrorist was Ramzi Yousef, the convicted mastermind of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and the 1995 Bojinka plot to blow up U.S. airliners over the Pacific. As chronicled in Chapter 38, Greg Scarpa Jr. obtained reams of intelligence from Yousef in an FBI-directed sting between 1996 and 1997, when they were in adjacent cells in the Metropolitan Correctional Center, the federal jail in Lower Manhattan. A series of FBI 302 memos documenting that investigation can be downloaded from http://www.peterlance.com/PLfbi.htm. The second terrorist was Terry Nichols, convicted with Timothy McVeigh of the Oklahoma City bombing. As detailed in Chapter 39, that story was documented by Associated Press reporters Jim Solomon and Mark Sherman in 2005: John Solomon, “Explosives Found in Former Home of Terry Nichols,” Associated Press, April 2, 2005; Mark Sherman, “FBI Waited to Check Out Tip on Nichols,” Associated Press, April 14, 2005.