Opinion ID: 856630
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Information Developed After the Trial

Text: DeVecchio’s misconduct. In the years after the Defendant’s conviction, significant evidence was developed documenting that Agent DeVecchio, the agent in charge of the investigation of the Colombo Family, was extremely careless, perhaps criminally so, in his handling of his principal informant, Gregory Scarpa, a Colombo Family member.2 Much of this information was disclosed in August 1994 and May 1995, 2 Because Agent DeVecchio oversaw many of the FBI agents who worked on the Colombo Family cases, his misdeeds with Scarpa have been the subject of numerous post-conviction motions and civil suits. See Sessa, 2011 WL 256330, at  (collecting cases). -5- when, under court order in a related case, federal prosecutors confirmed that Scarpa had been an FBI informant and that DeVecchio had leaked significant information to Scarpa about the FBI’s investigation. Scarpa had an extensive criminal background. He was a “made member” of the Colombo Family by the early 1980s, and he routinely engaged in credit card fraud, extortion, gambling, narcotics trafficking, and loansharking as the director of a Colombo Family crew in Brooklyn. By the time of the internal power struggle between the Persico and the Orena factions, Scarpa was an acting captain in the family that remained loyal to Persico. While Scarpa was DeVecchio’s informant, Scarpa also participated in several murders and attempted murders of other members of the Family. Ultimately, on February 4, 1993, after the Defendant’s conviction, Scarpa was indicted for his role in three murders, and in May 1993, he pleaded guilty and was sentenced to ten years’ imprisonment. See New York v. DeVecchio, 468 F. Supp. 2d 448, 451 (E.D.N.Y. 2007). Scarpa’s status as a confidential informant for the FBI dated back to at least 1980. He provided the FBI with extensive information about the Colombo Family. In exchange for his information, the FBI paid Scarpa, and Scarpa expected leniency in the event that he was convicted. Despite the fact that FBI regulations required two agent-handlers for each confidential informant, DeVecchio was Scarpa’s sole handler -6- from 1980 until 1992. During that time DeVecchio shared information with Scarpa about the FBI’s investigation of the Colombo Family. In addition, DeVecchio allowed Scarpa to remain a confidential informant despite the fact that DeVecchio knew that Scarpa was committing violent crimes. By the time of the Defendant’s trial in October 1992, the FBI had concerns about DeVecchio’s handling of Scarpa, and the prosecutors knew that Scarpa was one of the FBI’s confidential informants. But the FBI and the prosecutors did not know the extent of DeVecchio’s misconduct. After several Colombo Family members agreed to cooperate with the Government in April 1993, the FBI learned of DeVecchio’s misconduct, and in January 1994 federal prosecutors learned of some of DeVecchio’s misconduct. Several months later the FBI shared information it had gathered in its internal investigation of DeVecchio with federal prosecutors. In March 2006, a New York State grand jury indicted DeVecchio for second-degree murder. The charges were based on the fact that Scarpa used some of the information DeVecchio provided him to murder and arrange for the murders of rivals in the Colombo Family. The Kings County District Attorney withdrew the case against DeVecchio duing his trial. NYPD reports concerning Coluccio’s murder. After the trial, in addition to learning of DeVecchio’s misconduct, the Defendant also gained access to NYPD reports on the investigation of Coluccio’s -7- murder. These reports revealed the following information: (1) the NYPD had found a latent fingerprint from the car in which Coluccio’s body was found and had compared it to approximately 50 people who were known associates of Coluccio, but had failed to find a match; (2) several witnesses interviewed by the NYPD had reported seeing Coluccio alive in the hours immediately after 8:00 p.m., the approximate time that Ambrosino testified that the Defendant shot Coluccio; and (3) a witness in Staten Island who saw the car in which Coluccio was shot had reported seeing only one man walk away from the car.