by Peter Lance
14. R. Lindley DeVecchio and Charles Brandt, We’re Going to Win This Thing: The Shocking Frame-up of a Mafia Crime Buster (New York: Berkley, 2011), 108.
15. Reutter-Potts memo.
16. DeVecchio, compelled statement, 4.
17. Supervisory Special Agents Kevin P. Donovan and Robert J. O’Brien, FBI 302 memo, statement of Assistant U.S. Attorney George Stamboulidis, September 9, 1994, 3.
18. DeVecchio, compelled statement, 4.
19. Supervisory Special Agents Kevin P. Donovan and Robert J. O’Brien, FBI 302 memo, William Meli, June 13, 1994, 6.
20. DeVecchio, compelled statement, 8.
21. U.S. v. Michael Sessa, testimony of R. Lindley DeVecchio, November 2, 1992, transcript, 118–19.
22. DeVecchio, compelled statement, 9.
23. Edwards interview, January 13, 2012.
24. John Kroger, Convictions (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2008), 148.
25. DeVecchio, compelled statement, 17.
26. R. Lindley DeVecchio, FBI 209 memo for Top Echelon (TE) informant designated “NY3461,” October 18, 1982.
27. Author’s interview with Andrew Orena, January 6, 2012.
28. Edward Robert Korman, Biographical Directory of Federal Judges, http://www.fjc.gov/servlet/nGetInfo?jid=1309&cid=999&ctype=na&instate=na.
29. Selwyn Raab, “Prosecutors Say F.B.I. Agent Passed Information to a Colombo Mob Figure,” New York Times, May 9, 1995.
30. Greg B. Smith and Jerry Capeci, “FBI Big Tipped Off Mob: Prosecutor Speaks at Trial,” New York Daily News, May 10, 1995.
31. Ibid.
32. Richard Pyle, “Mob Prosecutor Concedes FBI Leak,” Staten Island Advance, May 10, 1995.
33. Ibid.
34. Selwyn Raab, “7 Suspects Say F.B.I. Helped Incite Mob Violence,” New York Times, May 10, 1995.
35. Pyle, “Mob Prosecutor Concedes.”
36. Raab, “7 Suspects Say F.B.I. Helped.”
37. Greg B. Smith, “Mobster Had Deal with FBI,” New York Daily News, May 11, 1995.
38. U.S. v. Victor M. Orena et al., transcript, 5761–62.
39. Ibid., 5960–64.
40. Ibid., 5964.
41. Author’s interview with Gerald Shargel, November 9, 2011.
42. Joseph Gambardello and Patricia Hurtado, “Black Eye for the FBI: 7 Acquitted in Mob Case,”Newsday, July 1, 1995.
43. Ibid.
44. Greg B. Smith, “7 Cleared in B’klyn Mob Case,” New York Daily News, July 1, 1995.
45. Al Guarte, “Wiseguys Acquitted in Colombo Murders,” New York Post, July 1, 1995.
46. Selwyn Raab, “The Thin Line Between Mole and Manager,” New York Times, July 2, 1995.
47. Memo from assistant director in charge, FBI New York Office, to director, FBI, April 10, 1996.
48. Kroger, Convictions, 149.
49. Supervisory Special Agent R. Patrick Welch and Inspector David V. Ries, FBI 302 memo, Valerie Caproni, July 17, 1995, 1.
50. Ibid., 3.
51. Pyle, “Mob Prosecutor Concedes.”
52. Welch and Ries, 302 memo, July 17, 1995, 3.
53. Assistant U.S. Attorney Valerie Caproni, FBI Eastern District of New York, letter to Supervisory Special Agent Ralph Regalbuto Jr., FBI Office of Professional Responsibility, July 24, 1995.
54. Edwards interview, January 13, 2012.
55. Letter from Lee. J. Radek to Douglas Grover, September 8, 1996.
CHAPTER 38: ORGANIZED CRIME AND TERRORISM
1. David M. Herszenhorn, “New Indictment for Reputed Colombo Crime Family Captain,” New York Times, July 7, 1995.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. The thirty-two-page illustrated timeline created for 1000 Years for Revenge documents how both attacks on the Twin Towers, masterminded by Ramzi Yousef, were bankrolled by al-Qaeda. Available at www.peterlance.com/1000_Years_Timeline.pdf.
5. Author’s interview with Colonel Rodolfo B. Mendoza, Philippine National Police, March 19, 2002.
6. Ibid.
7. Transcript of interrogation of Abdul Hakim Murad, Colonel Rodolfo B. Mendoza, Philippine National Police, January 20, 1995.
8. FBI 302 memo, interrogation of Abdul Hakim Murad, April 12–13, 1995.
9. Ibid.
10. Mendoza interview.
11. The account of Yousef’s arrest and KSM’s subsequent interview and escape was first revealed in a story by Christopher John Farley (“The Man Who Wasn’t There,” Time, February 20, 1995) and later detailed in a piece by Terry McDermott and other reporters for the Los Angeles Times in December 2002. Terry McDermott, Josh Meyer, and Patrick J. McDonnell, “The Plots and Designs of Al Qaeda’s Engineer: Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the Man Believed to Be Behind 9/11, Hides in Plain Sight—and Narrowly Escapes Capture in Pakistan,” Los Angeles Times, December 22, 2002.
12. “The Long Arm of the Law: FBI International Presence Key to Bringing Terrorists to Justice,” FBI.gov, February 6, 2004, http://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/2004/february/law020604.
13. U.S. v. Ramzi Ahmed Yousef et al., indictment, S1293CR.180 (KTD).
14. For years, terrorism analysts, reporters, and historians have described “Bojinka” as a Serbo-Croatian word used variously to mean “explosion,” “big noise,” or “loud bang,” an allegation that a number of ethnic Serbs have since challenged. Terry McDermott, “The Plot: How Terrorists Hatched a Simple Plan to Use Planes as Bombs,” Los Angeles Times, September 1, 2002; Mitch Frank, “Four Dots American Intelligence Failed to Connect,” Time, April 26, 2004 (Bojinka = “explosion”); Steve Fairnaru, “Clues Pointed to Changing Terrorist Tactics,” Washington Post, May 18, 2002 (Bojinka = “loud bang”); David Horowitz, “Why Bush Is Innocent and the Democrats Are Guilty,” FrontPageMagazine.com, May 20, 2002 (Bojinka = “big bang”). The Croation word “bocčnica” translates as “boom”: http://www.eudict.com/?lang=croeng&word=boènica.
15. U.S. v. Ramzi Ahmed Yousef et al., S1293CR.180 (KTD), May 29, 1996.
16. PNP transcript, interrogation of Abdul Hakim Murad, January 7, 1995, government’s exhibit 760-T, U.S. v. Ramzi Yousef et al.
17. Author’s interview with Larry Silverman, June 12, 2006.
18. FBI 302 memo, Gregory Scarpa Jr. and Ramzi Yousef intelligence, March 5, 1996, 3.
19. Letter from Jeremy Orden, attorney for Gregory Scarpa Jr., to Judge Reena Raggi, April 29, 1999, U.S. v. Gregory Scarpa Jr., 94 Cr. 1119 (S-5).
20. Author’s interview with Larry Silverman, April 13, 2004.
21. Interview with James Kallstrom for documentary Conspiracy?, History Channel, 2005.
22. Assistant Director in Charge James Kallstrom, FBI New York Office, memo to director, FBI, April 10, 1996.
23. http://www.peterlance.com/howto.htm.
24. FBI 302 memo, interview with Greg Scarpa Jr. re: Ramzi Yousef intelligence, May 5, 1996.
25. That position was ratified by then National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice in her April 8, 2004, testimony before the 9/11 Commission, when she testified that until the attacks of September 11, any warnings of a threat to the United States, specifically New York City, were “historic” and devoid of “actionable intelligence.” See Rice testimony at http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/04/08/rice.transcript/.
26. FBI 302 memo, Yousef handwritten notes, March 27–28, 1996; FBI 302 memo, September 7, 1996; Angela Clemente & Associates, “The Scarpa Intelligence on the Terrorist Threat: An Evaluative Report,” February 20, 2005.
27. Silverman interview, April 13, 2004.
28. FBI 302 memo, March 5, 1996, 4.
29. Roma Corp. “kite,” May 9, 1996. Reproduced as an appendix in Peter Lance, Cover Up: What the Government Is Still Hiding About the War on Terror (New York: Regan Books, 2004), 301.
30. Author’s interview with confidential FBI source, February 10, 2006.
31. Bill Gertz, Breakdown: How America’s Intelligence Failures Led to September 11 (New York: Regnery, 2002); McDermott, “The Plot.”
32. Brian Ross, “Al Qaeda Ally? Member of Qatari Royal Family Helped Senior Al Qaeda Official Get Away,” ABC News, February 7, 2003.
33. FBI 302 memo, September 9, 1996, http://www.peterlance.com/302/9996.htm.
34. Entitled “Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.,” the PDB cited a 1998 report from an undisclosed intelligence service that “Bin Laden wanted to hijack a U.S. aircraft to gain the release of ‘Blind Shaykh,’ ‘Umar Abd al-Rahman,’ and other US-held extremists.” “Bin Ladin Determined to Strike in U.S.,” Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bin_Ladin_Determined_To_Strike_in_US.
35. U.S. v. Ramzi Ahmed Yousef et al., S1293CR.180 (KTD), August 26, 1996.
36. The Feds were so desperate to keep that picture secret that in September 2002, when Associated Press reporter Jim Gomez express-couriered a copy of the lab report to John Solomon, the AP’s deputy bureau chief in Washington, the U.S. Customs Service, acting on a tip from the FBI, took the almost unprecedented step of seizing the package from a FedEx facility in the Midwest. “The interception was improper and clandestine,” complained AP president and CEO Louis D. Boccardi at the time. “A.P. Protests Government Seizure of Package Sent from One Reporter to Another,” Associated Press, May 13, 2003. Only when Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA) pushed for an FBI OPR investigation to be opened on the seizure did the Bureau withdraw its objection and apologize. The incident pointed out just how much the Feds wanted to keep secret any evidence that might prove the validity of the Yousef-Scarpa intelligence initiative. Pete Yost, “FBI Unit Probes Intercepted Package Case,” Washington Post, April 23, 2003.
37. Author’s interview with Flora Edwards, April 27, 2004.
38. http://www.peterlance.com/302/41196.htm>.
39. Michael Arena and Silvia Adcock, “Probers Kept in the Dark,” Newsday, August 24, 1996.
40. Jerry Capeci, “Mobster Gets 40-Year Term,” New York Daily News, May 9, 1999.
41. U.S. v. Ramzi Yousef and Eyad Ismoil, affirmation of Patrick Fitzgerald, June 25, 1999, http://peterlance.com/Fitzgerald_Affirmation_6.25.99.pdf.
42. Denial of Recusal Motion, Judge Kevin Duffy, U.S. v. Ramzi Ahmed Yousef and Eyad Ismoil, S1293CR.180 (KTD).
43. John Napoli v. U.S., “Petitioner’s Supplement and Reply to Government’s Memorandum in Opposition to Section 2255 Petition and Request for Evidentiary Hearing,” Neil M. Shuster, August 2003, citing U.S. v. Yousef, 327 F. 3rd, 166–170 [C.A.2 (N.Y. 2003)]. Gov. App. 581–82, Napoli Ex F.
44. Silverman interview, June 12, 2006.
45. David Schaper, “Fitzgerald Leads Way on Plame Case,” National Public Radio, July 28, 2005.
46. http://www.peterlance.com/Fitzgerald_Libel_Claim_Letters_HCP_Response.pdf.
47. Patrick Fitzgerald’s Allegations and Peter Lance’s reply:
The Allegations Regarding My Dealings with Gregory Scarpa
Triple Cross alleged that “I filed a false affidavit with a federal judge to conceal the purported ‘fact’ that the fatal crash of TWA 800 was really a terrorist attack to which I had been tipped in advance by an organized crime figure, and that I otherwise conspired with the National Transportation Safety Board, the 9/11 Commission and numerous others to hide the truth.” (Fitzgerald letter at p. 2.)
Regarding that claim, you contend that “the Book never accuses you of the misconduct that you allege” (Jackson letter at p. 2). You then parsed statements in the book that contain the phrase “if Napoli’s account is accurate . . .” and “. . . in my opinion” to state that “Lance sets forth certain allegations and states that if those allegations were true, then in his opinion, certain federal agencies and employees were engaged in wrongdoing. Lance is clearly permitted, as a matter of law, to set forth underlying statements of fact and then give his opinion based on those disclosed facts” (Jackson letter at p. 2).
I will not belabor the fantastically paranoid nature of Lance’s theory that the victims of TWA 800 died as a result of a terrorist attack, but that a massive conspiracy—involving the leadership of the FBI, multiple federal prosecutors in different districts, the National Transportation Safety Board, the 9/11 Commission and others, aided and abetted by the press (save the heroic Lance)—falsely portrayed the deaths as the result of an accidental crash. I will focus on that part of the allegation which specifically defames me.
The facts appear to be that one organized crime inmate, Greg Scarpa, claimed to the government in 1996 that another incarcerated organized crime member, John Napoli, had direct access to information about the terrorist plans of terrorist Ramzi Yousef (p. 559-565).* The government, through me, later represented in a June 1999 affidavit that the information Scarpa provided was a scam because, among other things, Scarpa provided the information to Napoli for Napoli to furnish to the government as if Napoli had obtained it himself. (Id.) The government further contended that Scarpa sought to influence Napoli to testify—falsely—at an upcoming trial that Scarpa’s father had carried out the murders that Scarpa himself was charged with.† (Id.)
In preparation for the book, Lance apparently spoke with Napoli who corroborated that, contrary to what Scarpa told the government, Napoli did not, in fact, have any access to Yousef. Lance specifically quotes Napoli as stating that “I never spoke to Ramzi. I never spoke to Ismoil. I never spoke to none of them. Zero. No conversations. Not one” (p. 312). Napoli also corroborated that Scarpa “had this great plan that I could testify for him and in return that he would give me information to bring to the Southern District.” (Id.) Thus, if Napoli’s account is accurate, Scarpa both obstructed justice—at the very least by providing false information to the government indicating that Napoli had received information directly from Yousef when he knew he did not—and committed the crime of offering something of value to a witness to influence testimony at a federal criminal trial. (See generally Title 18, United States Code. Section 201(b)(3).) Yet in Lance’s unique style of “investigative journalism,” faced with proof that Scarpa obstructed justice, Lance instead concludes that two federal prosecutors committed obstruction of justice:
If Napoli’s account is accurate, it appears that two senior federal prosecutors, Fitzgerald and Kelly, went along with a government story that characterized the Yousef-Scarpa Jr. intelligence as fraudulent . . . the creation of the “hoax” and “scam” story by the Feds could, in my opinion, amount to a serious obstruction of justice. (p. 313) (emphasis added).
In short, Lance takes a witness who exposes Scarpa as a fraud and treats him as corroboration of Scarpa. It is of no moment that Lance claims that Mr. Napoli adds to his account his claimed belief that the information coming from Yousef was genuine, as Napoli admits he never spoke to Yousef at all. Nor does it matter that Napoli denies saying to Mr. Kelly that the information was fraudulent—Napoli’s own statements prove that Scarpa was fraudulently claiming that Napoli had access to Yousef. Nor is it significant that the information passed by Scarpa and Yousef to the government contained information about bomb formulas and drawings of explosives and timers. Mr. Lance conveniently overlooks the facts clear from the trial record (and other public record) that the government already had such information in its possession—something Yousef no doubt knew when he reviewed the discovery material and passed the information through Scarpa. Lance no doubt also knew this when he “pored” over the 40,000 pages of transcripts which he represented included the transcripts of Yousef’s trial.
In any event, if my recollection of the public record is accurate, Scarpa later testified at his own trial in 1998, but was convicted of racketeering by the jury that heard his testimony. At sentencing, Judge Reena Raggi (then on the district court in the Eastern District of New York) rejected the truthfulness of Scarpa’s trial testimony. Still later, Scarpa testified at a hearing in 2004 before Judge Jack B. Weinstein who has been quoted stating: “The court finds this witness [Scarpa] to be not credible.” For good measure, I understand that a third federal judge, Judge Kevin Duffy of the Southern District of New York, found Scarpa’s efforts
at cooperation to have been fraudulent.
Author’s Response to Fitzgerald’s Claims
If there has ever been a “non-denial denial” by a public official, Fitzgerald’s response to my Napoli revelation is a case in point. First of all, he attempts to undermine Napoli’s claims that he never told the Feds the Yousef-Scarpa intel was a fabrication by impeaching his own witness’s credibility. Keep in mind that, as per his June 1999 affirmation, Fitzgerald contended that Napoli was a key source for the “hoax” story and now he contends Napoli is not to be believed.
Second, he alleges that per “the trial record (and other public record)” the government “already had such information in its possession—something Yousef no doubt knew when he reviewed the discovery material and passed the information through Scarpa.” But that doesn’t explain how Greg Scarpa Jr., a wiseguy with a tenth-grade education, came into possession of bomb formulas and schematics that didn’t surface at the Bojinka trial until weeks after he presented the intelligence to the Feds. It doesn’t explain how Greg Jr. revealed details that could only have come from Ramzi Yousef and ignores the fact that Yousef, then on trial for capital crimes, had absolutely no motive for scamming the prosecutors. What would the fabrication of evidence gain him? Nothing. Most important, if the government already had the intelligence in its possession, as Fitzgerald contends, why, for eleven months, was the FBI so taken with it? Why did agents dutifully record the intel in dozens of 302 memos? If the “kites” had no value, why did the FBI first give Scarpa Jr. a camera to photograph them and later set up the elaborate Roma Corp. sting? Fitzgerald, in his letter threatening HarperCollins with a libel suit, doesn’t answer any of those questions.
Third, it’s not surprising that multiple federal judges believed the “hoax” and “scam” story proffered by Patrick Fitzgerald over Greg Scarpa Jr., a made member of the Mafia. But what is truly astonishing is the fact that Fitzgerald’s primary source for the fabrication story was also a mob wiseguy—John Napoli—and that Napoli was so utterly credible in his insistence to me that he never accused Greg Jr. of scamming the Feds.
