Mob-busting ex-FBI agent Lindley DeVecchio rips Brooklyn DA Charles Hynes' office in new book

Mob-busting former FBI agent Lindley DeVecchio beat a murder rap in 2007 – and now he’s settling a few scores in a new book.

DeVecchio, who was accused of advising Colombo crime family mob informer Greg Scarpa to whack four turncoats, says the Brooklyn district attorney’s office was bamboozled by convicts who hoped DeVecchio’s downfall would help their appeals.

BY John Marzulli,daily news

Ex-FBI agent convicted in 1982 mob hit seeks rehearing after appeals loss

AP MIAMI — The attorney for former Boston FBI agent John”Zip” Connolly convicted in a 1982 mob murder in Florida ordered by Winter Hill Mob rats James “Whitey” Bulger and Stephen “The Rifleman” Flemmi–is asking an appeals court for a new hearing. Reports AP Washinton Pos

Daniel "The Lion" Leo major mob player

Meet Daniel Leo, 65, a reputed member of the violent, East Harlem-based Purple Gang during the 1970s who now resides in a $2 million home in Rockleigh, N.J., a town on the Palisades that boasts the highest median household income in the state, according to the 2000 census.
There is scant public record on Leo, but several top law enforcement sources told Gang Land this week that he is currently at the pinnacle of the crime family whose members and rackets surpass all the others. The officials disagree about his title.
"We're carrying him as the acting boss," a law enforcement official who has been involved in several major investigations into the family's sophisticated labor racketeering schemes said.
Two other highly placed mob busters said they were not sure about Leo's official mob rank, but agreed that Leo is a low-key and "well-respected" family leader who has beaten the system. The lawmen agreed that in the wake of Gigante's death — and after the recent prosecutions of many top Genovese mobsters — no other family gangster now has more power and influence than Leo.
"Leo is a heavyweight, a major player, and he may be the acting boss, but we don't know for sure, yet," one source said. "This is the family that didn't tell the other four families for years that Chin was really the boss and that ‘Fat Tony' Salerno was merely a figurehead."
All the sources do agree that Leo has served for many years as a top official in the crime family with little fanfare.
Leo, whose two-story brick house sits on a 1-acre plot on Rockleigh Road that in the 1680s was rich Colonial Dutch farmland, also owns a condominium in Boca Raton, Fla., according to real estate records. He did not respond to a call to his home for comment.
During the 1970s, according to a 1976 Drug Enforcement Administration report, Leo was a member of the Purple Gang, a loosely connected group of 127 drug dealers that includes dozens of gangsters from East Harlem and the Bronx who became Luchese and Genovese family mobsters, including Leo. The original 20-member East Harlem gang included several current Genovese mobsters,The Genovese have long been one of the most insulated of the major Mafia families that includes capo Angelo Prisco.
Leo suffered his only known arrest in 1980, when he was hit with a criminal contempt indictment for refusing to testify before a grand jury that was investigating loansharking, drug trafficking, and four murders, two in East Harlem and two in the Bronx.
Leo, who has used the names Leonelli and Leonardo, according to investigative reports, was found guilty at a bench trial the following year. His felony conviction on two counts was upheld on appeal, but he spent no time in prison, according to a docket entry about the case in Manhattan Supreme Court.
In October 1999, the FBI secretly listened in as Genovese capo Salvatore "Sammy Meatballs" Aparo described Leo's role in a recent Mafia induction ceremony that included Aparo's son, Vincent, and 14 other inductees. Leo assisted Lawrence "Little Larry" Dentico and Ernest Muscarella, who like Sammy Meatballs are currently serving federal prison terms for racketeering charges.
Aparo stated: "Larry, Ernie and Danny conducted the induction. Danny was the individual who pricked the fingers and told them what to say during the ceremony," according to an FBI summary of the tape-recorded conversation that was obtained by Gang Land.
A year later, in October 2000, another capo, Alan "Baldy" Longo, glowingly described Leo and Dentico as close associates of Gigante who were running the family following Chin's racketeering conviction in 1997, according to an FBI report on that conversation.
"You got Danny Leo, you got Larry. … A few other guys," Longo said. Chin "loves them," he said. "They're gentlemen. They got money. They're men and a half."
During the same conversation, Longo told mob turncoat Michael "Cookie" D'Urso that even though Chin and other family members were incarcerated, the family was in relatively good shape and "much stronger than the other families in the event there was a war," the report said.
"We got thirty, forty guys. Don't let anyone tell you that we're dead. Cause we're here," Longo said. He later pleaded guilty to racketeering and was sentenced to 11 years.
Longo and dozens of other wiseguys were ultimately convicted and jailed in large measure because of D'Urso's undercover work, but Longo wasn't just blowing smoke about the Genoveses during his rant, two top New York mob analysts say.
"The Genovese crime family is still the best organized, and has the deepest bench," said Daniel Castleman, the chief of investigations for the Manhattan district attorney, whose office has sent Genovese capos Alfonso "Allie Shades" Malangone, John "Johnny Sausage" Barbato, and Salvatore "Sally Dogs" Lombardi to prison in recent years.
"They continue to take part in traditional organized crime activities of gambling, loansharking and labor racketeering in New York and New Jersey," Mr. Castleman said.
"The Genovese family is the most secretive, criminally diverse, and powerful family in the country," the acting special agent in charge of the FBI's organized crime branch, FBI agent Michael Campi, said, noting that "the power stems from the control of unions and major industries."
Mr. Campi declined to comment about Leo's status, or that of another powerful capo, Tino Fiumara, who recently relocated to Long Island from the Garden State following his release from prison nearly two years ago. Sources say Fiumara, 65, is a ready and willing contender for the top spot, but the prevailing wisdom is that he won't become a serious threat to reach for it until he concludes his federal supervised release in 13 months.
Mr. Campi would not identify any of the FBI's specific family targets, but made it clear that agents have their sights on other family members. Recent defections by mob lawyer-family associate Peter Peluso and soldier George Barone have provided considerable help to the feds, he said, "and will pose additional future problems to the power base of the Genovese family."

John "Buster" Ardito

John Gregory "Buster" Ardito (October 30, 1919 - December 31, 2006) was a caporegime in the Genovese crime familywho worked in the Bronx borough of New York.
Born in New York, Ardito married Fay Cerasi and was the father of John and Annette Arditio. His legitimate profession was as part owner of a butcher shop in the Bronx. Ardito was involved in extortionloan sharking and illegal gambling operations. His arrest record included seduction, possession of counterfeit currency, and narcotics possession.
After joining the Genovese family, Ardito became a button man, or killer, in the crew of Michele Miranda Miranda eventually became the family consigliere under boss Vit Genovese and help run the family while Genovese was in prison. A later indictment alleged that Ardito once ordered a beating on a debtor who owed him $150,000. During a 1983 trial for Genovese mobster Gus Curcio Curcio collapsed in court with what seemed like a heart attack. However, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) surveillance recorded that Ardito had secretly passed some medications that simulated cardiac problems to Curcio to allow him to delay the trial. In 1985, Ardito was sent to federal prison for conspiracy to obstruct justice. He was released in 1991.
In 2003, the FBI started using electronic surveillance to record many of Ardito's meetings in Bronx restaurants. After Ardito discovered one of the devices, he started holding his meetings in retail shops, medical offices, cars, and boats. Later on, the FBI also started bugging Ardito's home phone. Reportedly, the FBI was even able to turn on Arbito's cell phone without his knowledge and use that as a listening device. In 2006, using this surveillance information, the government charged Ardito, Genovese captain Liborio Bellomo and other Genovese family members with labor racketeering and other charges. The racketeering charge involved New York Local 102 of the Bakery, Confectionery and Tobacco Workers' Union and New York Local 15 of the International Union of Operating Engineers
On December 25, 2006, due to failing health, Ardito was released on bail while awaiting trial on these charges. He died on December 31, 2006 from pancreatic cancer

Greg Scarpa sr.Witness: FBI used mob muscle to crack ’64 case

The FBI used mob muscle to solve the 1964 disappearance of three civil rights volunteers in Mississippi, a gangster’s ex-girlfriend testified Monday, becoming the first witness to repeat in open court a story that has been underworld lore for years.
Linda Schiro said that her ex-boyfriend, Mafia tough guy Gregory Scarpa Sr., was recruited by the FBI to help find the volunteers’ bodies. She said Scarpa later told her he put a gun in a Ku Klux Klansman’s mouth and forced him to reveal the whereabouts of the victims.
The FBI has never acknowledged that Scarpa, nicknamed “The Grim Reaper,” was involved in the case. The bureau did not immediately return a call for comment Monday.

Schiro took the stand as a witness for the prosecution at the trial of former FBI agent R. Lindley DeVecchio, who is charged in state court with four counts of murder in what authorities have called one of the worst law enforcement corruption cases in U.S. history.
Prosecutors say Scarpa plied DeVecchio with cash, jewelry, liquor and prostitutes in exchange for confidential information on suspected "rats" and rivals in the late 1980s and early ’90s. Scarpa died behind bars in 1994.
Mob loreThe notion that Scarpa strong-armed a Klan member into giving up information about one of the most notorious crimes of the civil rights era has been talked about in mob circles for years.
It supposedly happened during the search for civil rights workers James Chaney, Michael Schwerner and Andrew Goodman, who were beaten and shot by a gang of Klansmen and buried in an earthen dam near Philadelphia, Miss. The case was famously dramatized in the movie “Mississippi Burning.”
Investigators struggled for answers in the early days of the case, stymied by stonewalling Klan members.
In 1994, the New York Daily News, citing unidentified federal law enforcement officials, reported that a frustrated J. Edgar Hoover turned to Scarpa to extract information. The Daily News said the New York mobster terrorized an appliance salesman and Klansman already under suspicion in the case and got him to reveal the location of the bodies.
Schiro testified Monday that she and Scarpa traveled to Mississippi in 1964 after he was recruited by the FBI. She said they walked into the hotel where the FBI had gathered during the investigation, and the gangster winked at a group of agents. She said an agent later showed up in their room and handed Scarpa a gun.
She said Scarpa helped find the volunteers’ bodies by “putting a gun in the guy’s mouth and threatening him.” She said an unidentified agent later returned to the room, gave Scarpa a wad of cash, and took back the weapon.
Civil rights turning pointThe killings galvanized the struggle for equality in the South and helped bring about passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Seven people were convicted at the time, but none served more than six years.
Mississippi later reopened the case, winning a manslaughter conviction against former Klansman and part-time preacher Edgar Ray Killen two years ago. He is serving a 60-year prison sentence.
Schiro’s remarks about the Mississippi episode were only a brief part of her full day of testimony.
Schiro, 62, started dating Scarpa at age 17 after meeting him in a bar. She said she had been around mobsters most of her life, so his boasts that he had been involved in 20 gangland murders didn’t frighten her.
“I was impressed,” she said.
She said she was more surprised when the Colombo crime family captain told her about his ties to the FBI. “I said, ‘What do you mean, you’re a rat?”’ she recalled. “And he said, ‘No, I just work for them.”’
DeVecchio became the informant’s “handler” in 1978, and Schiro said she was allowed to sit in on weekly meetings at the couple’s apartment. She said that when Scarpa offered stolen jewelry to the agent, he took it and put it in his pocket.
'I'll take care of it'

The girlfriend was gunned down at a mob social club a few days later.
Defense attorneys have sought to portray Schiro — who testified that prosecutors were paying her $2,200 a month for living expenses — as an opportunist who framed DeVecchio at the behest of overzealous prosecutors.
They have also accused her trying to improve her chances for a tell-all book deal about Scarpa.