You don’t have to watch the movie “Donnie Brasco,” the true-crime story in which Johnny Depp plays an undercover FBI agent who cozies up to the wiseguys, to know that nailing the mob can be a dirty business.
And though former G-man Lindley DeVecchio now stands cleared of involvement in four gangland murders – thanks to the sudden collapse of Brooklyn DA Joe Hynes’ case – Judge Gustin Reichbach made clear that both the FBI and its onetime agent went way over the line.
Basically, said Reichbach in a scorching four-page opinion, the FBI gave DeVecchio’s key informant – mob thug Greg Scarpa Sr. – a free pass to kill.
Though he may not have joined Scarpa in his crimes, as the DA’s office initially charged, DeVecchio was willing “to bend the rules” in order to protect his snitch, the judge said – adding that this constituted a “deal with the Devil.”
Indeed, he said, “They gave Scarpa virtual criminal immunity for close to 15 years in return for the information, true and false, he willingly supplied.”
Thus Scarpa came to believe “that the agency would protect him for the consequences of his own criminality – which the record suggests is what they did.”
Which raises the question: Is it OK for the government to employ criminality in order to fight crime?
Said Judge Reichbach: Unacceptable.
Granted, he said, this is not an easy issue to deal with. Given the nature of the underworld, a “delicate balancing act [is] required in the waltz that must be danced between informant and handler” involving “a relationship of trust.”
But how far is too far?
Should the FBI allow itself to be placed in the position of having to protect “its” bad guys so as to bring others to justice?
Not according to Gustin Reichbach. And it’s difficult to argue with him.
Thanks to Hynes’ star witness, Scarpa’s longtime girlfriend Linda Schiro – and the 10-year-old tapes that showed she’d changed her story about DeVecchio’s involvement in mob hits – the former agent has walked free.
But neither he nor the FBI should take much solace in that outcome. As Judge Reichbach made clear, when it came to that “delicate balancing act,” both completely lost their footing.