Ex-FBI Agent to Be Charged in Gangland Murders

NEW YORK, March 29, 2006 — -- For 30 years, he was one of the FBI 's most important mob busters, but now he is about to be formally charged with helping one mobster commit murder.

Lindley DeVecchio, once a highly respected FBI agent, is expected to be arraigned on second degree murder charges in New York on Thursday for providing specific, "detailed information" to Brooklyn mobster Gregory Scarpa Sr. that enabled the Colombo family captain to eliminate underworld rivals.

DeVecchio was Scarpa's handler, and Scarpa was more than an ordinary stool pigeon -- he had also allegedly served as muscle for the FBI when the bureau needed some extra-legal assistance in making difficult cases. As a result, he was allegedly accorded special, sometimes questionable favors, including tips on coming indictments that allowed Scarpa's associates to skip town in advance. But in aiding his informant to commit murder, prosecutors now allege that DeVecchio went too far in protecting his valuable mob asset. Law enforcement sources say DeVecchio may have also enriched himself in the process.

DeVecchio is expected to voluntarily surrender to authorities tonight on four counts of second degree murder contained in the still-sealed indictment that was handed down last week by a Brooklyn grand jury, law enforcement sources and DeVecchio's attorney confirm.

"We've been advised that there is an indictment filed. We have been asked to surrender today," says DeVecchio's attorney, Douglas Grover, a former senior special attorney for the Justice Department's Brooklyn-based Organized Crime Strike Force.

DeVecchio's indictment is the latest chapter in a long, controversial relationship between the FBI and Scarpa that law enforcement sources say dates back to the 1960s and includes the FBI's use of Scarpa to punch, kidnap and pistol-whip suspects. In this relationship, law enforcement sources say, Scarpa served as a well-placed mob stool pigeon who provided the FBI with decades of information against his underworld rivals. In turn, the FBI provided Scarpa with information that allowed his mob associates to skip town before they were indicted, according to law enforcement sources and multiple published reports.