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GREG SCARPA SNR.
Part Two
Scarpa's ability to strike terror into his enemies coupled to the pleasure he took from inflicting pain with no hint of remorse was put to good use by the FBI on a number of occasions. In 1964 after the civil rights act became law the Klu Klux Klan (KKK) began torching churches in the south that were thought to have been used by the white civil rights workers from the north to meet their black counterparts in the southern states. It was about this time that two young Jewish civil rights workers from New York Michael Schwerner a veteran of the civil rights campaign and Andrew Goodman a young student together with a local black man James Chaney went missing after they conducted some interviews with local residents from the smalll town of Philadelphia, in Mississippi regarding a recent church burning.
This event turned into one of the FBI's biggest ever murder cases and was subsequently made into a movie called "Mississippi Burning". The local police stated that they had pulled the three civil rights workers station wagon over for a speeding violation, after interviewing all three the police decided to detain all three men on suspicion of setting fire to the church themselves.
Many politicians in the southern state of Mississipppi accused the civil rights movement of staging the disapearance of the three men themselves as some kind of publicity stunt. President Lyndon B. Johnson stepped into the fray and ordered the FBI to either find the three missing activists or bring those responsible for their deaths to justice. To justify their involvement the bureau stated that the men had been kidnapped, this mad it a Federal case. The FBI named the case 'MISBURN-FBI', short for Mississippi Burning. Hundereds of agents were drafted in to join naval reservists and locals in searching for the three missing men. The burned out station wagon that the three men had been travelling in was found when the reservists dragged the bottom of the local swamp but there was no trace of the three young men.
J. Edgar Hoover flew to Mississippi and announced that the FBI would remain in Mississippi until the three men had been found and their killers brought to justice. The FBI were now almost a year into their investigation. They had employed every possible method, both legal and illegal, to loosen the tongues of the people connected in any way to the enquiry. Baring in mind that Hoover himself had put his credibility on the line with his statement that the killers would be found and brought to justice, the FBI decided to enlist the help of greg Scarpa as cheif 'tongue loosener'. They brought Scarpa in from New York as a "special" non-agent working for the FBI. They wanted "agent" Scarpa to interogate a local electricla appliance salesman whom the FBI saw as being a weak link amid the Klans ranks.
Scarpa set about his task with his usual disregard for conventional legitimate method of question and answer technique. Scarpa tied the Klansman to a chair and with menace in his voice demanded to know where the three bodies had been buried. After little more than an hour of harassment from Scarpa, the Klansmam gasped out a story which Scarpa in turn repeated to the Feds. It proved to be false, a second tale spun by the Klansman proved to be false also. Scarpa decided he wasnt going to let this southern hick screw him around any longer. He borrowed a gun from an agent and went to work. Scarpa rammed the barrel of the gun into the guy's mouth and shouted "Now where the fuck are the three kids at?" while forcing the barrel of the gun further down the Klan members throat.
The electrical appliance salesman come Klan man almost choked on the gun as Scarpa continued to bark out his questions. " I want the truth this time, or i`ll blow your brains all over these fuckin walls!" Scarpa raged. The Klan man signaled that he wanted to talk. Pleading for mercy he gave up the location of the three bodies, he also named those involved in the killings. Scarpa dutifuly passed on the information to the FBI, who this time had better results. The bodies of the three young civil rights activists were found decomposing under 17' of red clay at an earthen dam. Sixteen people were arrested only seven were convicted, among them the Sheriff of Philadelphia, Mississippi.
The FBI have never formaly admited to the part that Scarpa played in the case apart from confirming that he was escorted on July 27th, 1964 on a top secret journey from New york to Miami, then to New Orleans and from there to Philadelphia, Mississippi. Staying in Philadelphia three days till the 30 th before returning to New York. The FBI searched the area of the earth dam on August 1 st and uncovered the bodies from under the clay on August 4 th. Locals in Philadelphia were told $30,000 had been paid to an individual who had given information leading to the arrests and the discovery of the three bodies.
Scarpa helped the FBI again in 1966 and again it was in the deep south. The FBI were recieving strong critisism for their failure to give the blacks adequate protection as they tried to exercise their new found civil rights. On January 10 th 1966, Vernon Dahmer a black shopkeeper, let his store be used by blacks to pay their poll tax. The KKK tokk exception to this and torched Dahmers home. Dahmer died as a result after he had rescued his badly burned and near dead daughter from the flames. On January 21 st the FBI in Jackson Mississippi contacted their counterparts in New York and requested the use of confidential informant NY-3461. Greg Scarpa once again had a special assignment.
In 1970 a DEA informant was found dead with multiple bullet wouds. The DEA officers working the case got the information which led them to believe Scarpa was the killer and wanted to interogate him. Scarpa's handlers in the FBI thwarted the efforts of the DEA investigators and as a result their enquiries kept hitting dead ends. Scarpa was never arrested. Now it definetly looked like Scarpa had been given a licence to kill.
In 1975 Scarpa and the assistant director of the FBI had a heated exchange of words which spiralled into a shouting match. Scarpa had been complaining about the FBI breaking a promise made to him by them over money he said they had owed him for the "activities" he had carried out on their behalf down in Mississipppi. The outcome of the arguement was that Scarpa was dropped as a confidential informant (CI) by the FBI.
In 1975 Scarpa and the assistant director of the FBI had a heated exchange of words which spiralled into a shouting match. Scarpa had been complaining about the FBI breaking a promise made to him by them over money he said they had owed him for the "activities" he had carried out on their behalf down in Mississipppi. The outcome of the arguement was that Scarpa was dropped as a confidential informant (CI) by the FBI.
Sometime in the early part of the 1980's probably around 82, Special Agent R. Lindley DeVecchio was sitting in FBI headquarters looking through the closed-informant file when he came across Greg Scarpa's case history. Agent DeVecchio, known as 'Lin' to his close friends, was excelllent at developing informants and wanted to resurrect Scarpa's 'career' as a confidential informant. Although not being one of the handlers who had worked with Scarpa in Scarpa's earlier time as a informant DeVecchio thought he could get a lot more information from Scarpa and wanted to develop a working relationship with the Colombo family mobster. He pitched the idea to his superior who in turn gave the green light for DelVecchio to pursue his interest in bringing Scarpa back into the fold. Greg Scarpa by this time, was operating out of the Wimpy Boy's social club in Dyker Heights, Broooklyn.
Scarpa and his crew were there most days running the various operations, including gambling, extortion and credit card scams. DeVecchio made contact with Scarpa, feeling him out, seeing how responsive he was to maybe someday in the future helping DelVecchio out and in return having DelVecchio look the other way with regard to any crimes Scarpa were to commit. Whatever line DeVecchio pitched to Scarpa in order to get him on board worked. Scarpa again agreed to help the FBI by becoming a confidential informant and was put on record as such.
A short time later Agent 'Lin' DeVecchio was made Scarpa's official handler, he was also promoted and placed in command of the organized crime squad that had been looking into the Colombo family operations. His liason with Scarpa was soon reaping rewards and as a result DeVecchio was receiving many many plaudits and much back-slapping from his direct superiors and other top officials from within the FBI. Scarpa too found the partnership rewarding, but for very different reasons. Scarpa was being investigated by the US Secret Service, who had been unaware that Scarpa was working for the FBI. The US Secret Service officials had Scarpa tagged as a vicious, blood-thirsty murdering gangster and with just cause. The Secret Service had sent their own undercover agent into Scarpa's headquarters at the Wimpy Boys social club and he had sold Scarpa 300 blank credit cards. The Brooklyn organized crime strike-force proceeded with the investigation and charged Scarpa with the blank credit cards. Included in the notes to the trial judge was a long list of Scarpa's previous criminal history. This history included details of his violent disposition and a request that he be imprisoned for a lengthy period of time and heavily fined when (not if) found guilty. Agent DeVecchio and his FBI superiors had other ideas though. No way did they want Scarpa who had been a goldmine of information taken off the streets. DelVecchio and Scarpa met the trial judge in his chambers with the outcome being Scarpa pled guilty to credit card fraud. He was fined $10,000 and given 5 years probation.
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