THE BOOKS, THE MOVIE, THE MOTIVE, THE MONEY
MICHAEL VECCHIONE & THOMAS DADES
On March 31, 2006, at Lin DeVecchio’s arraignment in Brooklyn Supreme Court, several reporters asked some of the former Special Agents in attendance "Why did the DA’s office do this? Why did they seek this indictment? What is their motivation?"
We now realize that politics and money are the two key driving forces behind this prosecution.
By way of background, the recent "Mafia Cops" trial held in the Eastern District of New York was initially a joint effort among the Brooklyn District Attorney, the Eastern District of New York U.S. Attorney's Office and the FBI. During the course of the "Mafia Cops" prosecution, the Brooklyn District Attorney was represented by Investigator Thomas Dades, the man generally credited with making the case, and his Chief of Investigations, Michael Vecchione, who is now the lead prosecutor on Lin's case.
Dades signed lucrative book and movie deals - while the case was pending trial. Vecchione also discussed movie deals while the case was pending. These efforts - brazenly seeking to increase their own personal wealth while acting as public servants during an ongoing prosecution - were the subject of a Daily News article on July 14, 2005. Vecchione was blasted by legal ethics experts.
Thursday, July 14th, 2005
New York Daily News - http://www.nydailynews.com
Eye on the big picture?
BY HUGH SON
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
A top Brooklyn prosecutor talked to Hollywood agents about selling the story of two former cops accused of moonlighting as Mafia hit men - before their trial has even begun.
Michael Vecchione, head of the Rackets Bureau in the Brooklyn district attorney's office, helped federal agents nab retired NYPD Detectives Louis Eppolito and Stephen Caracappa, both charged with several gangland murders.
But he also spoke to agents about movie deals based on his access as a public servant - a move blasted by law enforcement experts.
" It would be absolutely inappropriate for a prosecutor involved in a case to be speaking in terms of furthering personal interests," said Prof. Eugene O'Donnell of the John Jay College of Criminal Justice.
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No district attorney should tolerate a member of his staff discussing the business of the office in connection with any commercial benefit," O'Donnell said.
Lawyer Arnold Kriss, who is running against Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes in the September primary, called the move "unconscionable" and said it could undermine the credibility of the case to a grand jury.
Hynes spokesman Jerry Schmetterer confirmed Vecchione was involved in talks, but said he never signed a deal.
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Vecchione was asked to sign a deal, and he said no," said Schmetterer. "Nobody in this office has made any deal with Hollywood regarding that case. Whether they're talking to people or not is their own private business."
Schmetterer added that moviemakers deluged prosecutors in his office with calls after the charges surfaced in March.
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It would be naive to think [agents and producers] didn't reach them at some point," he said.
Hynes' office was thrown off the high-profile case after federal prosecutors were infuriated with leaks to the CBS show "60 Minutes."
The exact role Vecchione would play in a big-screen adaptation is unknown, as two competing film teams are already racing to production.
Tommy Dades, the retired detective who helped reopen the "Mafia Cops" case, has sold his memoirs to Warner Bros. and Paula Weinstein's production company, which made the mob flicks "Donnie Brasco" and "Analyze This."
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I pitched it to Warner Bros.; did it like it was a Tom Hanks movie," said Peter Sawyer, the agent representing Dades.
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I don't know what [Vecchione] has to sell," Sawyer added. "Dades has the story. It has to be a human story. This is a two-hour film we're trying to make."
Columbia Pictures hired the screenwriter who penned "Goodfellas" to write a fictionalized version of the mob cops' case. |
Moreover, the Brooklyn District Attorney was removed from the "Mafia Cops" prosecution team, and Dades—the chief investigator—was never called as a prosecution witness in this successful prosecution. The Brooklyn District Attorney was not removed solely for the unethical conduct of his representatives in connection with book and movie deals. Not surprisingly, as was noted in the Daily News article, the main reason why the Brooklyn District Attorney was removed from the "Mafia Cops" case was because he authorized the leaking of sensitive case information to "60 Minutes."
Noted organized crime expert and author Jerry Capeci, who writes a weekly column for the New York Sun and publishes his work online at www.ganglandnews.com, wrote in his May 5, 2005, column the following about Vecchione and Dades' movie deals:
“two other law enforcement officials involved in the case (the “Mafia Cops” case) have reported book and movie deals, including retired NYPD Detective Thomas Dades and the chief of the Brooklyn District Attorney’s Rackets Bureau, Michael Vecchione.
Dades, who helped re-invigorate the investigation two years ago, told Gang Land yesterday that he has a deal with Harper Collins and Time Warner. Vecchione, who represented Brooklyn DA Joe Hynes at a news conference at which the blockbuster indictment was announced, did not return calls for comment. Said DA spokesman Jerry Schmetterer: “Vecchione has not signed any book deals. He has been approached, considers the issue a private matter, but has not signed any book deals.”
Was Vecchione deceiving his own office? Is it really a private matter when a public servant profits from his public duty—the very case that he is prosecuting-- while he is still employed by the District Attorney? Was the indictment of Lin DeVecchio just a final chapter in the book and timed to sell more books? As demonstrated below, Vecchione DOES have a book deal with Harper Collins.
On the website, http://www.harpercollins.com/ForeignRightsGuide.pdf, which lists upcoming Harper Collins books, the following is listed on pages 50 and 51:
Dades, Tom
Vecchione, Mike
*MAFIA DETECTIVES
A real-life story right out of an episode of the Sopranos, MAFIA DETECTIVES is an inside look at the most notorious case to rock the NYPD - the story of the two NYPD cops who moonlighted as mob hit men—told by the cop and DA investigator who broke the case, with never-before-released documents and information. On March 10, 2005, two highly decorated detectives, Louis Eppolito and Stephen Caracappa, were indicted for providing information to the Luchese crime family, which resulted in eight murders—one of which they carried out themselves. The two dirty cobs were paid $4000 a month by the Lucheses to provide highly confidential NYPD and FBI inside information on law enforcement operations and identify informers and witnesses. Eppolito and Caracappa worked for mob boss Anthony “Gaspipe” Casso from 1985 until they retired in 1993. MAFIA DETECTIVES is the full inside story of the investigation of their crimes, as told by Vecchione—who led the investigation —and Dades—whose work broke the case—to best selling author David Fisher.
Publication: January 2007 (JS)
Estimated length: 256 pages, with 25 b/w photos
Manuscript available: July 2006
How can District Attorney Charles "Joe" Hynes continue to allow Michael Vecchione to serve as the prosecutor of Lin DeVecchio? How can he keep him as the Chief of Investigations? How can he continue to have Thomas Dades on his payroll and serving as a lead investigator on this case?
LINDA SCHIRO/SANDRA HARMON
Linda Schiro was Greg Scarpa, Sr.’s live-in girlfriend and then common law wife for 30 years. She raised two children with Scarpa, Sr. Schiro is the main witness against Lin. She will testify that she was party to, or overheard, conversations or, was told by Scarpa about his conversations with Lin.
In previous interviews with the FBI, Schiro has strenuously denied that she had any knowledge of Greg Scarpa, Sr.'s discussions with Lin. She denied this in 1994 and she denied any knowledge of FBI corruption as recently as 2004. (See “The Direct Link?” on the home page)
Schiro too has tried to profit from the Scarpa, Sr., story. Schiro, and Sandra Harmon, a self-proclaimed "love, dating, sex and relationship coach," attempted to co-author a book, titled "Scarpa's Mistress," about Schiro's experiences with Scarpa, Sr. They were unsuccessful in finding a publisher willing to publish Schiro's story. According to the January 10 and 11, 2006, editions of the New York Post, Harmon submitted an affidavit to the Brooklyn District Attorney in which she outlined what Schiro had told her during their collaboration on the book proposal. Harmon claimed that Schiro told her details about the murder of Patrick Porco, (count 3 in the indictment). However, Schiro and her daughter claim that Linda Schiro and Harmon fabricated the details of the book proposal in order to increase profits. Harmon denies this.
Predictably, Schiro's book proposal was rejected by at least three publishers. Is the book proposal yet another Schiro fabrication? Interestingly, Schiro's description of the events that led to the murder of Porco is not the theory that the District Attorney represented to the court about the events that led to Porco's murder. (We will discuss this in detail when specifically addressing the Porco murder). Even the District Attorney doubts the information attributed to Schiro in this book proposal. Jerry Capeci's January 12, 2006, column is illustrative:
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The central figure in the new investigation, sources say, is Scarpa’s longtime lover, Linda Schiro, who hooked up with the then-36-year-old gregarious mobster in 1964 several months before her 19th birthday and raised two children
with him. Their son Joseph died at 24, shot to death in a drug-related gang murder in 1995. Scarpa, who contracted the AIDS virus in a blood transfusion, died in prison a year earlier at age 66. Schiro, now 60, met DeVecchio numerous times during visits to the gangster’s home, according to court documents.
While Schiro is the linchpin of the investigation, the allegations were delivered to the DA’s office by Angela Clemente, a private investigator who obtained much of her information from a woman with whom Schiro had planned to write a book several years ago, sources said.
Sources said Clemente, who has investigated DeVecchio and other alleged government abuses for years, filed a report with the DA’s office last year after a federal judge refused to toss Little Vic Orena’s murder and racketeering conviction based on lesser allegations against the 65-year-old retired G-man.
Sources say the report is based largely on information Clemente obtained from Sandy Harmon, who had planned to pen the Schiro-Scarpa book, and that it contains allegations which have been knocked down by detectives and investigators for Brooklyn DA Charles Hynes. “
PETER LANCE
Peter Lance is the author of “Cover Up, What the government is still hiding about the war on terror” Regan Books, 2004 (Regan Books is affiliated with Harper Collins, the same publisher that Michael Vecchione and Thomas Dades are associated with.)
The following is from www.peterlance.com
BOOK INSPIRES THE D.A.'S INVESTIGATION
In September, 2005 Peter Lance met with investigators for the Brooklyn District Attorney's office who had read COVER UP in detail. On March 30th, at a press conference just prior to SSA DeVecchio's arraignment on four counts of Second Degree Murder, Noel Downey, Chief of the D.A.'s rackets Bureau who led the investigation said, in relation to COVER UP:
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Stage one of any murder investigation is to figure out who's who and what's what and where things occurred and (COVER UP) was a wonderful springboard to understand who the parties were and in what direction the investigation should go."
Lance clearly knows very little about organized crime. At times, he references the "Columbo" crime family and other times refers to the "Colombo" crime family. One would think that a "5 time Emmy award winning investigative reporter" would properly investigate a fact as simple as the name of the crime family that factors so prominently into his theory of government corruption.
Another easily verifiable fact missed by Lance relates to his description of Lin as "the flamboyant 6'5" DeVecchio." Lin DeVecchio is 6'0" tall. (See Page 84 of Cover Up) These are just two examples of simple facts missed by Lance.
Lance's book is "sourced," with most of his information about Lin attributed to Angela Clemente, who has worked towards freeing convicted murderer and former Colombo acting boss Victor J. "Little Vic" Orena, and sworn statements and testimony of Gregory Scarpa, Jr. Clemente too has based her "findings" on interviews with Gregory Scarpa, Jr., who is serving a 40 year sentence for conspiracy to commit murder, including, among others, the murder of Joseph "Joe Brewster" DeDomenico, which encompasses count 2 of the indictment.
Furthermore, Scarpa, Jr., has been named as a direct participant in the murder of Mary Bari, (count 1 of the indictment), by several former Colombo family members and associates who ultimately cooperated with the federal government. (If the District Attorney is truly after justice, rather than headlines, why hasn't Scarpa, Jr., been indicted for this horrific crime?) Scarpa, Jr., has testified under oath, provided numerous sworn statements and been interviewed by the FBI about his knowledge of Colombo family affairs and the relationship between Lin and Scarpa, Sr. He has denied under oath that he has ever participated in a conspiracy to murder and that he has never killed anyone in his life. This is the "credible" witness that the conspiracy theorists have embraced in their cause celebre to demonstrate government corruption. (We will present more about Scarpa, Jr.'s credibility in the near future, including his current collaboration with Sandra Harmon and how his story has changed dramatically and repeatedly as he attempts to free himself and Victor Orena from prison.) Scarpa, Jr., has been described by Lance as a "benign figure in organized crime" and as merely a "marijuana dealer."
This is the author and sourcing of information that has been cited by Noel Downey, the Chief of the Rackets Bureau as providing a "wonderful springboard" in this investigation.
Publicity and money are the reasons for the prosecution of Lin DeVecchio. If this was about justice, Gregory Scarpa, Jr., would be under indictment for the murder of Mary Bari.
You are witnessing the most egregious case of prosecutorial misconduct this country has seen.
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